Where is the Shepherd?

The season of fall holy days was upon us again. One of the postings popping up on my social media was by one of the members of the cultic congregation to which I formerly belonged. The posting was a picture of the congregation members assembled for the traditional holy day festivities. Many familiar faces were present. What spoke volumes however, were the familiar faces that were missing.  The leader, his wife, and his family. None were there. They didn’t even give the posting a “like.” He and his “prophetess” wife had already moved onto the next religious schtick as has been their custom over the years.

Two religious leaders from the previous legitimate group to which the pastor had attached himself were present. They drove hundreds of miles to be there, as true shepherds will do. Where was the original shepherd, the original pastor who claimed this group was his family? He was in another state celebrating the holy day with his new congregation “family.” Just last year, this same man was proclaiming the now abandoned congregation as “family,” and loudly heralded the great work God was doing for them through him. Now he is another state, loudly proclaiming the same words to a different group.

In the past, the pastor had aggressively campaigned for funds to improve the church property to accommodate more people for the holy week gatherings. Roads. Improved camping spaces. A kitchen facility. Showers and even a bath tub. However, the church property was in his name only. Now all these tax-free improvements belong to him alone. The people who paid for the improvements through generous donations were cast out and spending holy week somewhere else, while the pastor and his wife traveled to another state to spend time there. The travel expenses, by the way, were also courtesy of his former congregation.

However, it is not just about the money. The false leader also disrupted the lives of many congregation members. He manipulated some into uprooting themselves from their homes hundreds of miles away to move to locations close to the “church,” or even onto the group compound itself. Some of these people were induced to leave their spouses behind. One woman who did so alienated both her husband and two older children, all of whom she falsely accused under the manipulative “counseling” of the leader and his wife. In the end, she had to leave the compound when the leader’s priorities changed once again. She now lives alone, divorced, alienated from her older children, and seeing her other children a few times a week. All because the manipulative leader separated her from a husband and family who saw though his façade.

The leader convinced another to uproot his entire family and move 600 miles to the leader’s location. He was then convinced to marry a woman in the congregations, ostensibly because the leader’s wife had a vision from God telling him to marry her. The man was a skilled craftsman, a builder of luxury homes, with a substantial income. The leader used him for income and to build luxury homes for him and his family. He also pushed many of the teaching and administrative responsibilities of the congregation onto this man. By all accounts, this man is a genuine person of good character … so how did the leader ensnare him? He did so by preying on the vulnerable. This man’s wife was dying, the leader found out about it, then traveled several times to their home to “minister” to them in their time of need. This genuine man accepted the leader’s gesture as also being genuine … instead of the manipulative ploy it was to gain his loyalty. His loyalty was exactly what was gained. When his wife passed away, he uprooted his business and children to move a long distance to support that leader in every way possible, including marrying a woman already in the cult just a few months after his wife’s death. The way the leader preyed on and manipulated him is truly unconscionable. He is not the first person with a dying spouse upon whom the leader preyed, but arguably the most successful.

As I’ve stated many times, be very careful giving money to religious leaders and groups. First investigate who owns what in the context of where your money is going. If it is owned by an individual, rather than an organization, that is a huge red flag. However, the presence of an organization does not automatically mean the operation is legitimate. It could just be a front created by a more savvy operator. In the case of this particular pastor, he had an organization to avail himself of the tax-free status, but still kept the property under his personal name. Discovering this was not difficult. A five-minute online search of county property taxes was all that it took. However, the majority of his congregation never even invested that much time into background checking. Questionable religious leaders count on this.

Check the leader’s past performance. It is by far the biggest indicator of his future performance. Do his actions match the words coming out of his mouth? This is a bit more difficult to do. Check his social media. If he is a prolific poster, you can catch changes in direction and attach them to dates. See if he is consistent, or impulsively changes directions. Also check his social media to see how he handles disagreement. Does he handle it in a mature manner, or by personally attacking the person or group who disagrees. Name-calling and weaponizing Bible verses is often a sign of a malignant leader. He can then use that frenzy on social media to whip up his congregation to also attack the person who disagrees. He will frame it as righteous anger, or some other such nonsense.

Be very, very wary of a religious leader who changes doctrine every few months or year.  Who jumps from one “new thing” to another. He is impulsive and not fit to lead or teach.

The leader has changed religions four times in the past decade. Is that wrong? No, people can change their minds and chose different paths as they grow in life. However, a religious leader who doesn’t know what religion he wants to follow is no leader. A person who is still trying to figure out who they are has no business leading people as a religious authority. Just look at all the people he left hanging in 2022 when he suddenly decided Jesus was no longer the Son of God and Messiah. He removed the entire religious foundation of these people. People who had trusted him for years to lead them spiritually. People who contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his congregations … which turned out to be his personal slush fund. Be very, very wary of a religious leader who changes doctrine every few months or year.  Who jumps from one “new thing” to another. He is impulsive and not fit to lead or teach.

Indeed, this seems to be all about money. A few months before the shepherd abandoned this flock, he gave a sermon about how the religious leader is worth paying … and paying well. He stated that $10,000 a month was the bare minimum for a religious leader. All tax free, mind you … so it’s more like $13,000 a month. That’s the equivalent of over $150,000 a year … bare minimum. He stated that a leader from a certain religious denomination received that and more. Guess what? That’s the new denomination he joined after abandoning his loyal followers. Time will tell if he tries to manipulate this new group in to fast tracking him to a position of power, just as he has attempted with all the other groups.

People, please be very wary of these types of groups and their leaders. They do incalculable damage. They destroy finances. They destroy families. They destroy faith. They destroy people themselves. They are very dangerous because they are not easily detectible or held accountable. They are adept at gaining people’s trust, manipulating their perceptions, and steering them into making what they thing are their own decisions. Their words rarely match their actions, but they push so quickly to gain trust and control over others, that by the time that disconnect appears, the poor victims are already lost.