While Season Two of Spoiled Fruit: Faith & Power is in production, John shares one of his full, uncut interviews — this time with Pastor Brian Metzger, one of the most outspoken critics of Vineyard USA’s handling of cases like Duluth Vineyard.
In this candid and deeply personal conversation, Brian reflects on his years within the Vineyard Movement, what led him to speak out, and how his faith has evolved in the aftermath. Together, John and Brian discuss systemic leadership failures, accountability gaps, and the difficult balance between loyalty to a movement and loyalty to one’s convictions.
Brian’s courage and clarity have made him a respected voice among those calling for reform, and this interview provides essential context for understanding how Vineyard USA’s internal culture allowed harm to persist unchecked.
About the Guest
Pastor Brian Metzger is a former Vineyard pastor and one of the most vocal advocates for transparency, justice, and reform within the movement. His willingness to speak publicly about systemic failures — and to stand with survivors — has made him a key voice in the broader conversation about accountability within modern evangelicalism.
About the Series
Spoiled Fruit: Faith & Power investigates the rise, fall, and reckoning of the Vineyard Movement — and what its story reveals about evangelicalism as a whole. Season Two will expand the lens beyond the Vineyard, exploring how power, silence, and institutional loyalty shape movements across the broader church landscape.
Follow & Support
Stay connected for updates on Season Two:
- Website: spoiledfruitpodcast.com
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- X / Twitter: @spoiledfruitpod
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00:11 --> 00:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Hey everyone, John Williamson here, creator and host of spoiled fruit, faith and power.
00:16 --> 00:27 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still hard at work on Season 2 which will take a broader look at Evangelical movements as a whole, because as we've seen, what happened within the vineyard is in no way exclusive to them.
00:28 --> 00:34 [SPEAKER_01]: These same patterns of power, control, and silence show up across the wider landscape of modern Evangelicalism.
00:35 --> 00:41 [SPEAKER_01]: But while you patiently wait for the next season, I wanted to share one of my full uncut interviews.
00:41 --> 00:48 [SPEAKER_01]: Today, you'll hear from Pastor Brian Metzger, one of the most vocal critics of Vineyard USA's handling of cases like Duluth Vineyard.
00:49 --> 00:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Brian's honesty, experience, and conviction have been vital in bringing these issues to light.
00:55 --> 00:59 [SPEAKER_01]: And this conversation offers a raw behind the scenes look at what really happened.
01:00 --> 01:04 [SPEAKER_01]: So, settle in, here's my full interview with Pastor Brian Metzger.
01:10 --> 01:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, all right, so the first question I had for you is, is you've been keeping a really steady and and beautifully detailed sort of timeline and and of events and you've been very obviously one of the pastors within Vineyard who have been very vocal about some of the events not just you know isolated to deluce certainly, but just in general in terms of how you've noticed that the deluth or I'm sorry deluth vineyard USA has sort of handled
01:37 --> 01:46 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, certain instances like this, and so what's kind of, what's the recent, the most recent on this, like, what are you hearing from inside the vineyard?
01:46 --> 01:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's, uh, it's really fascinating.
01:50 --> 01:56 [SPEAKER_00]: We have people who, um, and I totally understand this, but we have pastors who are very happy with.
01:56 --> 02:06 [SPEAKER_00]: really like the most superficial sort of exposure to it, reading just kind of the bare minimum if even that, you know, kind of the headlines.
02:06 --> 02:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And then we have, I would say even some people who are just too busy like they just, you know, they're just trying to keep their church open or they're they're just trying to put out their own fires and they don't have a timer inclination to get into
02:24 --> 02:49 [SPEAKER_00]: the Duluth Vineyard or the re-org process or how Vineyard USA has responded to Vineyard Duluth Vineyard and then on the other end you have pastors who are able for whatever reason and interested in doing more reading more investigation asking more questions and then you know of course everywhere in between in that spectrum and so we have
02:50 --> 02:56 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, pastors, I've talked to you who are like, hey, I'm going to sign off on the re-org.
02:56 --> 02:58 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do.
02:58 --> 03:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And then just, you know, if something down the road goes off the rails, then will, then we'll just get out of the vineyard at that time.
03:06 --> 03:15 [SPEAKER_00]: And I've tried to gently explain that once you change your bylaws and constitution to
03:15 --> 03:22 [SPEAKER_00]: uh... seed power to the energy was saying you don't get to just leave in her do it say any more it's not just
03:22 --> 03:28 [SPEAKER_00]: of to your local church like it's not just up to you that's not that's not how it's going to work anymore.
03:28 --> 03:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And that just seems to be and I just seems to be something that people haven't really thought about or or they just don't even think that it's true.
03:37 --> 03:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And some of it is in part because we have you know as a movement we have been very lacks on constitutions and bylaws, a lot of churches that
03:46 --> 03:54 [SPEAKER_00]: They're just now because of this, putting together a constitution and bylaws outside of whatever they did for incorporation.
03:54 --> 04:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, they may not even understand how legally binding a constitution in bylaws is.
04:01 --> 04:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And then similarly, with all the things that have happened with Duluth, the Bindardius A is published kind of their own version of events, and they have published it at least a couple times a sort of a kind of an apology.
04:14 --> 04:19 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not exactly, hey, if you took this the wrong way, we're sorry.
04:19 --> 04:22 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not quite as offensive as that.
04:22 --> 04:25 [SPEAKER_00]: but it is an apology that's very non-specific.
04:25 --> 04:29 [SPEAKER_00]: It's specifically non-specific and it's about we and us.
04:30 --> 04:43 [SPEAKER_00]: It's never about I and me and I'm there's really nobody to blame but our system and thank God we're changing the system and and that seems to be really like all it has taken to satisfy people.
04:44 --> 04:47 [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't talked to any victims who have been satisfied by that.
04:47 --> 04:52 [SPEAKER_00]: but I have to talk to several vineyard pastors who have been satisfied by that.
04:52 --> 05:10 [SPEAKER_00]: So we're, I think we're just in this really strange place right now where, you know, we are, I think really polarized and still some people in between trying to figure things out, but I think by and large you either.
05:11 --> 05:27 [SPEAKER_00]: if you're a vineyard pastor you're you're happy and everything is settled and life is good why do we keep talking about this and then the other then the other side the other extreme of hey this is the wheels are coming off the houses on fire you know like how do we how do we stop this
05:28 --> 05:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and there's definitely, I definitely want to get into the, you know, the piece we were talking about before we started recording, which is like, there's definitely feels like there's this sort of tension in between, you know, the local churches and, and Vindrde USA.
05:41 --> 05:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Before we get into that, you know, we'd love for you to talk a little bit about the re-org, because this seems to be sort of in your USA's sort of response to,
05:50 --> 05:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Nelly Duluth but Anaheim and all these other situations that they're not real happy with.
05:55 --> 05:56 [SPEAKER_01]: And so what is the re-org?
05:56 --> 05:57 [SPEAKER_01]: What is it in tail?
05:57 --> 06:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Did the local pastors, such as yourself, have any say in the changes that are being proposed?
06:03 --> 06:08 [SPEAKER_01]: And what does this really mean for each individual, you know, allegedly autonomous church?
06:09 --> 06:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
06:09 --> 06:29 [SPEAKER_00]: right well it is so we've heard a steady stream over the last you know since jay became the national director we have heard uh him say and we have heard said at the night on the from the national conference stage that autonomy is a is not a good thing and autonomy is the root of a lot of our problems which is a
06:29 --> 06:56 [SPEAKER_00]: even how they frame it as a gross misunderstanding of what autonomy means, but it becomes it's become a convenient place to lay all of our blame, and to suggest that if we didn't practice the autonomy that we've practiced since we started, that we wouldn't have these problems, and it's just bears no connection to reality whatsoever.
06:56 --> 07:12 [SPEAKER_00]: try to point out, I've tried to point out personally to J that we live in 2000 years of history where there has been a lot of churches where there has been no autonomy, but there has been tremendous corruption.
07:12 --> 07:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And so having some kind of an authoritarian or a very strict rule does not prevent
07:22 --> 07:24 [SPEAKER_00]: does not prevent abuse.
07:24 --> 07:27 [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't prevent the misuse of authority.
07:28 --> 07:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's just really, it's just problematic and autonomy just becomes a convenient way for us to try to push off blame to our own failure of leadership, our own inability to practice healthy relationship and to hold each other accountable and
07:44 --> 08:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And to, you know, really through this whole thing, it feels like, you know, like, it's brought to the surface that there is an old boys network that operates within the system of VaynerDUSA and it is alive and well and it will survive any reorganization attempt.
08:01 --> 08:07 [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the reorganization attempt in many ways just centralizes that that club.
08:07 --> 08:11 [SPEAKER_00]: But is it is an attempt to, um,
08:11 --> 08:20 [SPEAKER_00]: It's an attempt to bring some kind of form and structure to something that is largely not had a lot of structure.
08:20 --> 08:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Coming out of the Jesus people, that was kind of the vibe though, like we don't want to have, you know, it's like in many ways it feels like we're becoming that which we left.
08:29 --> 08:31 [SPEAKER_00]: in order to be a vineyard.
08:31 --> 08:39 [SPEAKER_00]: And now we we find ourselves with as much if not more hierarchy than the Roman Catholic Church.
08:39 --> 08:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And in terms of the equation about vineyard pastors had a voice in this.
08:44 --> 08:50 [SPEAKER_00]: So, I think that the answer of energy USA would give is, yes, absolutely.
08:50 --> 08:53 [SPEAKER_00]: We've been consultative and we've been transparent.
08:53 --> 09:10 [SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is that the whole re-organ started from a national meeting of leadership, area leaders, and regional leaders, and the executive team, like years ago now, like say at least six years ago, and in the document that they shared at that event,
09:10 --> 09:20 [SPEAKER_00]: It details all of the problems as they perceive them that the vineyard is facing a kind of an imminent crisis, which is kind of demonstrated in the number of
09:20 --> 09:49 [SPEAKER_00]: churches we've lost over the last decade and then they do track that then yeah for sure yeah interesting and then and then the the thing goes on to really highlight the fact that we really you know one of our problems is we don't have an ordination we we need more structure we need to employ more people so there's greater accountability you know so it's it's telling
09:49 --> 10:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And then lo and behold, after all of the consultation and all of the input from local pastors, it looks exactly like they wanted to look, you know, basically six years ago or more.
10:02 --> 10:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, so has there been opportunity?
10:06 --> 10:19 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we've had area meetings where we've set around tables together and, you know, aid or ten of us or asked what we think about this or what
10:19 --> 10:34 [SPEAKER_00]: those answers all get written down and sent in to the home office, but I don't, I don't know that there's been anything substantive or meaningful that has been affected by the fact that that we've had these conversations.
10:34 --> 10:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And when we've had to try these conversations and they don't like when I've personally approached Caleb Maskell or I've approached
10:47 --> 10:49 [SPEAKER_00]: there's nothing that develops out of that.
10:50 --> 10:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not that I feel like they've got to do what I say, that would be, that would be silly.
10:57 --> 11:07 [SPEAKER_00]: But on one hand, it feels like they continually create the impression in conversation or in publication that we've all been involved in this.
11:08 --> 11:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And I absolutely know that that's just like, a lot of vineyard pastors that I talk to don't feel like,
11:15 --> 11:19 [SPEAKER_00]: we've had any real substantive participation in this process at all.
11:19 --> 11:22 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not grassroots, top down, not bottom up.
11:22 --> 11:31 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and one of the interesting things is that there are no one but two reports that came out that had a very clear,
11:31 --> 11:39 [SPEAKER_01]: Black and white recommendations in regards to things that are structurally lacking Within the vineyard and there's a lot of crossover.
11:39 --> 11:52 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've read both the grace report and the guide post report A lot of similar things being recommended so in light of this re-org You know, and if we're looking at the two side by side, what what what has vineyard done or what are they proposing to do?
11:52 --> 11:56 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's been think one of the reports came out in 2021 the other one came out.
11:56 --> 12:00 [SPEAKER_01]: I think 2022
12:00 --> 12:02 [SPEAKER_01]: with some of those recommendations.
12:02 --> 12:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a great question.
12:03 --> 12:08 [SPEAKER_00]: And from from my vantage point, it feels like very little has changed.
12:09 --> 12:12 [SPEAKER_00]: I know that I don't think that that's what vineyard USA would say.
12:12 --> 12:17 [SPEAKER_00]: I think vineyard USA would say that they've pretty well gone right down the checklist and they've
12:17 --> 12:19 [SPEAKER_00]: they've got everything sorted out.
12:19 --> 12:26 [SPEAKER_00]: But we still have no way to, we don't vote for the National Director really, we can't replace the National Director.
12:26 --> 12:39 [SPEAKER_00]: What we have is like a reporting process now, so if you've got an incident of spiritual abuse or sexual abuse, you can call the hotline that's been set up with guideposts,
12:39 --> 12:45 [SPEAKER_00]: The problem is then guide push just turns around then and passes the thing on to vineyard USA.
12:45 --> 12:55 [SPEAKER_00]: And then sometimes that gets passed on to gets passed on directly to the pastor who has been called on has been called about.
12:56 --> 13:08 [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's not a super safe or healthy reporting process and it doesn't go to anybody who has the power outside of the vineyard system.
13:09 --> 13:14 [SPEAKER_00]: to actually hold Vinnie USA or that system accountable.
13:14 --> 13:25 [SPEAKER_00]: So there's no, it's like, it feels like, you know, what's the thing, like the catch and kill kind of a thing, you know, like, okay, we, you know, you call in this number.
13:25 --> 13:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Now we've recorded your thing and now,
13:27 --> 13:30 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, just leave it with us, we'll take it from here.
13:30 --> 13:37 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think that that is, I don't think it is from a victim-centered perspective.
13:37 --> 13:39 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that that's been helpful.
13:39 --> 13:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Even though it creates the appearance, like something's happened.
13:43 --> 13:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And when I've asked about some of these things, and some of, you know, like what's being in place for victims, the conversation almost always turns to how much money has been spent on these systems, how much money has been spent and putting these other things
13:57 --> 14:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I will say that it's not that there aren't any changes.
14:01 --> 14:12 [SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't say that it's not that there aren't actually hopeful resources that have been paid for by our
14:12 --> 14:20 [SPEAKER_00]: are a 3% giving as local churches that vineyard USA is contracted with on our behalf.
14:21 --> 14:40 [SPEAKER_00]: But in terms of structural, substantive changes where a person could actually go to like an Ombez person, leave a complaint that could then be independently investigated, changes that feel like there's power that's actually being given to local church pastors.
14:41 --> 14:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Those things haven't happened and it doesn't feel like there's been a substantive change in any respect
14:50 --> 15:18 [SPEAKER_01]: well let me ask a dumb question then so this is this is me coming from a corporate background you know right my daytime employer is a huge bank you know um you know internationally recognized and you know I look at the structure and the reporting mechanism that that is in place um you know I mean from just a statistical perspective like the amount of things that you guys are required to track and report back to vinegar dosa from
15:18 --> 15:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Salvation's to baptisms and some of that stuff is obviously very important, you know, and many other churches do it like attendance and financial health and all that stuff, but there's some things that are sort of subjective, I think, in there.
15:30 --> 15:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
15:31 --> 15:54 [SPEAKER_01]: and kind of difficult they're not as black and white in terms of like how do we report this effectively but they operate in many ways you know if you look at and it's I mean it's not hard to find it they publish it right on their website and then you're do a safe you can see the the reports from every year but they operate in in you and I've talked about this and very much the same way as a large corporation and so
15:54 --> 15:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Why not just have an HR department?
15:56 --> 16:10 [SPEAKER_01]: Hell, even an HR person, that they could hire who is specializes in these sorts of things and is the place where you route those complaints to or those concerns to.
16:10 --> 16:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Fantastic question.
16:12 --> 16:14 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is a question that I've asked.
16:14 --> 16:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand it other than to say, I know that as a pastor, it's easy to find myself
16:22 --> 16:32 [SPEAKER_00]: in those kind of situations, those kind of meetings and things, where I can take an over-confident view of my capacity to deal with things.
16:32 --> 16:33 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I remember...
16:33 --> 16:38 [SPEAKER_00]: When I first started as a pastor, people would come to me for counseling.
16:38 --> 16:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And I felt very comfortable with my little bachelor's degree from Bible College, waving into the deepest of their, you know, me, you know, sometimes mental health issues.
16:51 --> 16:56 [SPEAKER_00]: And it took me, it took me quite a few years to realize, oh, buddy, you're weighing over your head.
16:56 --> 16:58 [SPEAKER_00]: This is not even something you should be playing with.
16:58 --> 17:06 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, your greatest resource here is to make referrals to qualify people, but
17:07 --> 17:09 [SPEAKER_00]: But it took me time to get to there.
17:09 --> 17:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think sometimes it's the same thing with HR that a lot of times, as pastors, we think, oh, it's this, this people, it's relationship.
17:17 --> 17:31 [SPEAKER_00]: But there have been so many missteps, so many public statements that have been made, like just even through the whole Duluth controversy, the conflict that could have easily, like if they had just
17:31 --> 17:46 [SPEAKER_00]: had an HR per, like a professional HR person just would have saved all of us so much time and trouble and so many I think times where a qualified HR person would have been able to say to them.
17:46 --> 17:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, that may be legal, but it's not wise.
17:49 --> 17:51 [SPEAKER_00]: It's definitely not best practice.
17:51 --> 17:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it would have saved a lot of grief.
17:55 --> 18:10 [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I mean, I think that would be that the best investment that as an organization of NUDSA could make would be hiring a couple professional qualified from outside of the system HRP.
18:10 --> 18:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, agreed.
18:12 --> 18:34 [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it's funny that you mentioned so that you just said because I was talking to a friend of mine last night who's a therapist and we were just talking about the fact that it so often, you know, these poor pastors are putting situations where they're expected to do things that they weren't they weren't trained in seminary to do, you know, and so the kind of the joke is, you know, the best ideas that that pastors ever have.
18:34 --> 18:39 [SPEAKER_01]: come and stay while they're in seminary because once they take their first church, then they're running a business.
18:40 --> 18:43 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, and they're expected to know how to run a business.
18:43 --> 18:44 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, they don't teach you that in seminary.
18:44 --> 18:49 [SPEAKER_01]: That's not, they don't teach you business courses, you know, like, so it's kind of interesting.
18:49 --> 18:53 [SPEAKER_01]: But one of the things that I found interesting is John Kluer's told me a little bit about this.
18:53 --> 19:04 [SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, if you had some thoughts on it as well, I was not aware that there are, there's kind of a, we'll say a spectrum of different types of agencies that you can contract.
19:04 --> 19:06 [SPEAKER_01]: to come in and perform an investigation.
19:06 --> 19:14 [SPEAKER_01]: And so one of the questions that came about very early on, and I'll tell you, I don't know if I ever told you this, but the whole reason I came to kind of look into this whole situation.
19:14 --> 19:20 [SPEAKER_01]: Before I even knew what had occurred in Duluth is because here locally in Columbus, Ohio, you know, there's a huge presence.
19:20 --> 19:25 [SPEAKER_01]: There's probably 7 or 8 vineyard churches, including the Big Mega One.
19:25 --> 19:28 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, in Westerville, but there's junior churches in every neighborhood here.
19:28 --> 19:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Huge presence.
19:29 --> 19:39 [SPEAKER_01]: And so my, you know, my contact with the Vayner did, I've gone to three different vineyards probably here over the years, including the big one have become friends with numerous people throughout the vineyard.
19:39 --> 19:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Some still in it, some not, you know, some of left for various reasons.
19:43 --> 20:06 [SPEAKER_01]: but my ex-wife who I'm still very friendly with had an incident when she was 21 where she was it's actually assaulted by someone in her small group and did the right thing went to the leaders in her small group and it was very much the opposite of what they probably should have done which has got a law enforcement instead it was a lot of gaslighting yet well
20:06 --> 20:14 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, he's got a drinking problem and we just need to get him help why were you been out with him anyway, girlfriend, you shouldn't have been there.
20:14 --> 20:20 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you know, for decades, you know, this happened, you know, 20, some years are going out.
20:20 --> 20:23 [SPEAKER_01]: She's gone to therapy, has had issues as a result, obviously.
20:24 --> 20:31 [SPEAKER_01]: And so fast forward to a few years ago or a couple of years ago, she's a chat and with me and says, you know, can't believe this, but vineyard is hiring.
20:31 --> 20:41 [SPEAKER_01]: this third-party organization to come in called Grace to do an investigation and it's into a number of different allegations at different vineyard churches throughout Columbus.
20:41 --> 20:46 [SPEAKER_01]: So this is what I was aware of at the time that they caught wind of her situations so they're going to bring her and talk to her.
20:46 --> 20:50 [SPEAKER_01]: They caught wind of some allegations with the worship leader at the big vineyard.
20:50 --> 20:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Another situation at one of the vineyards we went to with a pastor and that pastor's a child.
20:54 --> 20:59 [SPEAKER_01]: So they were looking at a bunch of different things and she said, you know, it seems really great
20:59 --> 21:08 [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to look in all these things, we're taking you seriously and at the end, there will be some sort of justice and probably they will supply counseling as well.
21:08 --> 21:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's awesome.
21:10 --> 21:10 [SPEAKER_01]: This is great.
21:11 --> 21:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you should definitely do this, you know, and so she went in and gave her story and rip those band-aids off and reopen those wounds and went through it and only to be told at the end that the reports finish, but they're going to throw out the trash can.
21:23 --> 21:51 [SPEAKER_01]: they're going to bring in this other group and redo the whole thing and you're more than welcome to come in and talk to them and by this point she's like no like I'm not doing this again on this promise that you haven't delivered on and so I'm sure she's not the only one who was like that you know and so I started taking a look into it and my first question was well that's odd you just paid I don't know how much money for grace to come in and conduct this investigation the reports out there you know it can be found um
21:51 --> 21:55 [SPEAKER_01]: and it's, you know, has some very serious things that they said you need to fix.
21:56 --> 21:59 [SPEAKER_01]: But then why would they just dump that and then hire this other group?
21:59 --> 22:00 [SPEAKER_01]: What's the motivation there?
22:00 --> 22:07 [SPEAKER_01]: And so John was telling me that it partly seems to do with the fact that there's a wider right array of different groups that can come in.
22:08 --> 22:11 [SPEAKER_01]: And the level of control that you have over the report.
22:11 --> 22:12 [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
22:12 --> 22:14 [SPEAKER_01]: So my long way of saying like, yeah, yeah.
22:14 --> 22:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, that is, I mean, that's the reality, and I think one of the challenges for anybody who's a victim, anybody who is a survivor of abuse, to have exactly that scenario happen where you're asked to come in and tell your story again, like you say, you reopen that wound only to find the trauma that you've experienced multiplied by the response that you receive in those settings.
22:43 --> 22:52 [SPEAKER_00]: where, you know, like I've heard them say to me, like, oh, well, the report is inconclusive to a grace report in one of the vineyard churches.
22:53 --> 22:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's nothing inconclusive about it.
22:55 --> 23:04 [SPEAKER_00]: They, you know, they acted as if it felt like what they were saying was, you know, well, this doesn't say that the person was guilty of doing these things.
23:04 --> 23:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that doesn't, you know, like there were only two people in that room, so they can't
23:09 --> 23:14 [SPEAKER_00]: you know, it's not like a legal court where they're going to render a verdict.
23:14 --> 23:16 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not their nature, that's not what they do.
23:16 --> 23:33 [SPEAKER_00]: What they're saying is we have every reason to believe the reporting victim and they have everything to lose by telling their story, but we also think that, you know, there's some pretty dodgy things about the story that the perpetrator reported perpetrator
23:33 --> 23:35 [SPEAKER_00]: in the inconsistencies.
23:35 --> 23:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And so we think clearly that the reporting victim is telling the truth and should be a detention to you and like you said, should receive counseling and all those things.
23:44 --> 23:53 [SPEAKER_00]: But that's grace and grace is running an independent investigation and they're going to publish independently their findings.
23:53 --> 23:56 [SPEAKER_00]: You have other groups like Guideposts that we've contracted.
23:56 --> 24:00 [SPEAKER_00]: We've been here to USA is contracted with on many of these things.
24:00 --> 24:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Guideposts is working for you.
24:02 --> 24:09 [SPEAKER_00]: guide pose is going to let you determine what information is shared and what information.
24:09 --> 24:09 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not shared.
24:09 --> 24:23 [SPEAKER_00]: They're going to allow you to determine the scope of the investigation, the things they can get into, the things they can't get into, and the the convenient aspect of that, then, as you can step back at the end and say, oh, no, no, we have this guide pose in investigation.
24:23 --> 24:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is what they did.
24:24 --> 24:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And there is truth to what you're saying, but it's not the whole truth.
24:27 --> 24:35 [SPEAKER_00]: The whole truth is that you had a whole great big map of the United States and you said you're allowed to look inside of Illinois, but that's it.
24:35 --> 24:37 [SPEAKER_00]: You can only look inside of Illinois.
24:37 --> 24:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And so while there might be, you know, 49 other stories out there, that's not in the scope of this report.
24:45 --> 24:57 [SPEAKER_00]: All you're reporting on is what happened right here in this one spot.
24:57 --> 25:14 [SPEAKER_00]: in other instances to do investigations where they clearly, they were employed by Vineyard USA, which is not an independent investigation when you're hoping to get another contract with them further down the road.
25:15 --> 25:18 [SPEAKER_00]: You're no longer just telling us what happened, right?
25:18 --> 25:26 [SPEAKER_00]: You're telling us the best version of what happened in those instances.
25:26 --> 25:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, or you're likely to tell us, you know, the version that is going to put them in the best possible light, because you're, you know, there's, there's money that's connected to it.
25:37 --> 25:39 [SPEAKER_00]: There's employment that's connected to it.
25:40 --> 25:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And so finding something that.
25:42 --> 25:45 [SPEAKER_00]: creates more independent boundaries.
25:45 --> 25:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Even though they may still have, like Grace may still have received a check from the church or a check from Vineyard USA, it's with very clear boundaries that you're gonna pay us at the end of this, but you're not gonna have control over the outcomes of this.
25:59 --> 26:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, so I know of, you know, instances where either vineyard USA used their own people, a trustees and super regional leaders to do investigations, in church situations, or they contracted with people to do investigations who were contracted by vineyard USA and who were people who indicated to some of the people involved in the investigation, even that they were
26:25 --> 26:28 [SPEAKER_00]: helpful for future employment through vineyard USA.
26:28 --> 26:32 [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, it sounds like a great idea for PR, but not so great for victims.
26:32 --> 26:33 [SPEAKER_00]: But try.
26:33 --> 26:37 [SPEAKER_00]: It's it's definitely not victim centric in it in anyway.
26:37 --> 26:44 [SPEAKER_01]: So talk about a little bit about uh we we touched on this a little bit before we started recording sort of this tension that feels like it exists now.
26:45 --> 26:46 [SPEAKER_01]: Between
26:46 --> 27:06 [SPEAKER_01]: sort of the local church level and vindured USA because if you look online there's a very clear difference of opinion between the ways in which things were handled in Duluth post Gatlands and the ways in which Duluth vineyard has or vineyard USA is chosen a handle it.
27:06 --> 27:12 [SPEAKER_01]: In fact they both have statements on their websites and they both have timelines on their websites and
27:12 --> 27:21 [SPEAKER_01]: Vineyard USA has publicly stated that they're not super happy with the fact that Duluth has chosen to essentially publish everything on their website.
27:21 --> 27:29 [SPEAKER_01]: They've got back and forth conversations between them and Michael and Brian and Gatlin between them and members of Vineyard USA.
27:29 --> 27:31 [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a lot of information out there.
27:31 --> 27:32 [SPEAKER_01]: They've been
27:32 --> 27:46 [SPEAKER_01]: ultra-transparent, I would say, at least from the outside perspective, vineyard USA not real happy about that, and they've kind of seemingly said, hey, we told them not to do this, this may not be, they may have gotten some of the facts wrong, you know, and that sort of thing.
27:46 --> 27:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I've been accused by vineyard USA of spreading misinformation, you know, based on, um,
27:55 --> 27:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, so that's where it gets a little bit tricky.
27:58 --> 28:15 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have clarity on exactly what misinformation I'm supposed to have passed on just the general accusation of misinformation with a request from myself and from the leadership of my church for the specifics on that that we haven't really received yet.
28:15 --> 28:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's been a couple months.
28:25 --> 28:30 [SPEAKER_00]: sells in a place where there are competing narratives that are going on.
28:31 --> 28:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And again, the part of the tension that comes from that is people kind of like the target audience, if you will, being vineyard pastors, the amount of time that vineyard pastors have to actually go through the material is fairly limited.
28:47 --> 29:00 [SPEAKER_00]: They're also our circumstances in which for some vineyard pastors, they know the people directly involved, and they are confident in what they know about that person being enough.
29:00 --> 29:25 [SPEAKER_00]: hey these guys are good guys these people are good people they wouldn't do anything underhanded or they wouldn't do anything you know inappropriate they wouldn't say anything that wasn't true and and you know and making statements like that without actually waiting into the documentation you could literally read things that people said and did in their own words so it's not like
29:25 --> 29:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Here's an opinion I have about what happened.
29:28 --> 29:35 [SPEAKER_00]: It's more like, well, here's the email that person sent, and it doesn't line up with what they said.
29:35 --> 29:37 [SPEAKER_00]: the day before in this email.
29:37 --> 29:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And so these can't both be true.
29:40 --> 29:42 [SPEAKER_00]: These two things can't be true at the same time.
29:42 --> 29:56 [SPEAKER_00]: We're willing to, I don't even know the right word, but we're just willing to set aside just the simple look at these documents that clarify things pretty specifically.
29:56 --> 29:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's when you know somebody,
29:59 --> 30:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And you know that they would never do, I mean, we just had coffee the other day and they were so encouraging and we had such a great time together, I just know that they just wouldn't do anything.
30:10 --> 30:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, wow.
30:12 --> 30:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's, I mean, I have a good friend.
30:15 --> 30:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't mean, I'm not making this as a comparison.
30:18 --> 30:19 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to say that.
30:19 --> 30:28 [SPEAKER_00]: But I have a good friend who, in Canada, who worked for a charitable organization there, and they went to a big national conference for that charitable organization.
30:29 --> 30:40 [SPEAKER_00]: He was in a conference meeting with the spouse of another couple that were there, the wife of a couple that were there, and then my friend's wife stuck around
30:41 --> 30:58 [SPEAKER_00]: that woman's husband who was an officer in the military and was very nice guy and they had a lovely conversation together and then a couple weeks later it turned out that that military officer was actually a serial killer in Canada.
30:59 --> 31:20 [SPEAKER_00]: uh... just came to light i was finally caught so you know that the reality is we can have really lovely coffees with people and really warm conversations and we can come away from meetings with uh... with people feeling like they just are are so sweet and genuine and encouraging uh... as one vignor pastor said to me recently
31:20 --> 31:36 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, you know, when you're on the inside, you get one version of a person that when you are no longer on the inside or you're no longer going along with things, you encounter a completely different version of the same person.
31:36 --> 31:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And he said, it's really hard for me to explain to people how that can happen, how that can be.
31:43 --> 31:46 [SPEAKER_00]: But that was his experience with Michael.
31:46 --> 32:08 [SPEAKER_00]: And I have, I have other friends who there experience with him in small groups was like really warm and very encouraging and and we think well they can't both be true but but but they can both be true we can have people who are really have some serious issues on on one hand can behave in different settings like they're your best friend.
32:08 --> 32:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's absolutely true in a lot of settings.
32:11 --> 32:19 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I wanted to get your take on as well is, you know, we're kind of going back to the two different narratives that are sort of running concurrently.
32:19 --> 32:30 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I just still can't wrap my brain around, I think, are some of the things that seem like they should be intuitive or are logical things that should have occurred or should not have occurred.
32:30 --> 32:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And so when you look at the timeline and you look at
32:33 --> 32:34 [SPEAKER_01]: the communications.
32:34 --> 32:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And again, as you said, the emails are there on Duluth's website.
32:38 --> 32:54 [SPEAKER_01]: So you can read these conversations this dialogue between Duluth Vineyard, who've got like John Kluer and some of the folks who are trying to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of this horrible incident and they're trying to get support from a national leadership.
32:54 --> 32:57 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's also important to point out to you that there was a difference.
32:57 --> 33:01 [SPEAKER_01]: They had some different leaders
33:01 --> 33:05 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was Phil Stroud was the national director before Jay, I kind of took over.
33:05 --> 33:08 [SPEAKER_01]: So there's some different, different people in positions of power there.
33:08 --> 33:09 [SPEAKER_00]: But that's right.
33:09 --> 33:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Fact remains there are certain things that are just head scratching that were recommended.
33:14 --> 33:19 [SPEAKER_01]: And so one of the things is Rob Morgan and I'm not super sure what his role is specifically.
33:20 --> 33:22 [SPEAKER_01]: But I know he was in correspondence with
33:22 --> 33:27 [SPEAKER_01]: like John Clore and some of the leadership at Duluth and was saying, hey, and this is after the allegations that come out.
33:27 --> 33:46 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think we knew the nature of the allegations and he's saying, and not once, but he kind of doubles down on the fact that, maybe they shouldn't be Michael specifically shouldn't be involved in the investigation per se, but he should still be in charge, you know, generally speaking, to help with the healing process and his wisdom and leadership will be useful.
33:46 --> 33:48 [SPEAKER_01]: And then at some point, it was
33:48 --> 34:10 [SPEAKER_01]: It seems to suggest or he seems to suggest that they should even Michael and Brenda meaning should have some say over whether or not they even hire grace to come yet because they keep saying in these court and these emails that just let us handle it, just let us handle it and like this is your child we're talking about like in no circumstance in any other company with that even being.
34:10 --> 34:18 [SPEAKER_01]: question, there would be distances much as seemingly possible from the allegations, they would bring in other non-related parties up to kind of oversee things.
34:19 --> 34:27 [SPEAKER_01]: You would absolutely hire a third party investigative group to come in if you don't have an HR department and you would let law enforcement in HR do its thing.
34:29 --> 34:29 [SPEAKER_01]: How in the world?
34:30 --> 34:39 [SPEAKER_01]: And it seems to me that the Vineyard USA's kind of response to this has been in the aftermath of this has been well, you know, they were just, you can't blame them.
34:39 --> 34:41 [SPEAKER_01]: They were just kind of working with the rules as they were at the time.
34:42 --> 34:46 [SPEAKER_01]: But that flies in the face of common sense.
34:46 --> 34:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
34:46 --> 34:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
34:47 --> 34:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
34:48 --> 34:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the whole, like, I mean, one of the things that's been so challenging is that we, you know, that, that in Vineyard USA on, you know,
34:57 --> 35:09 [SPEAKER_00]: quote and quote, telling on themselves, you know, refers to this oppressive system that just kept their hands bound from being able to do these obviously right things.
35:09 --> 35:11 [SPEAKER_00]: And that that doesn't even exist.
35:11 --> 35:12 [SPEAKER_00]: It never existed.
35:12 --> 35:20 [SPEAKER_00]: There is nothing that prevented them from getting in a car or getting on a plane and going to that location and saying, hey,
35:20 --> 35:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Like this is my stop.
35:21 --> 35:23 [SPEAKER_00]: This is not how we're going to do things.
35:23 --> 35:24 [SPEAKER_00]: This is inappropriate.
35:24 --> 35:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Now for sure they had no like legal authority over them.
35:29 --> 35:34 [SPEAKER_00]: They couldn't they couldn't do anything if the gatlins had said, well, screw you.
35:34 --> 35:37 [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to do this the way we want to do it anyway.
35:37 --> 35:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, sure.
35:38 --> 35:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, fair enough.
35:39 --> 35:43 [SPEAKER_00]: But Brenda was employed by VineyardUSA.
35:43 --> 35:48 [SPEAKER_00]: She was an employee of VineyardUSA, so they had employment power over her.
35:48 --> 35:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Michael was a trustee of VineyardUSA, and so there was institutional power that they had over him.
35:56 --> 36:04 [SPEAKER_00]: So they, they, in fact, had more authority over both of those actors in this situation than they generally do over
36:04 --> 36:06 [SPEAKER_00]: pastures of local churches.
36:06 --> 36:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And they chose not to use any of that power to do they obviously write thing in part because of which Rob says in one of the documents in the guide post report, I think it's included in there that perhaps he made some mistakes in judgment because of his relationship with Michael.
36:26 --> 36:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And Jay says essentially the same kind of seems to say the same kind of things
36:32 --> 36:39 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, this relational connection and so maybe that wasn't, you know, he didn't always do the thing he would normally do.
36:40 --> 36:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, like if If you were, well, if like if my son, like if I go over to his house to visit with him and his family and I see his wife has bruises, there's a conversation we're going to have, right?
36:54 --> 36:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's just you don't go well, you know, that's that's not good for anybody.
37:00 --> 37:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a really strange situation.
37:03 --> 37:15 [SPEAKER_00]: I know that I know that when you, when you love somebody, you want to believe in the best.
37:16 --> 37:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And I get that, but when you're a part of an institution,
37:19 --> 37:21 [SPEAKER_00]: you have a responsibility.
37:21 --> 37:28 [SPEAKER_00]: And that responsibility means that even the best of friends, even family members, you have to stop.
37:28 --> 37:31 [SPEAKER_00]: You've got to recuse yourself from decision-making.
37:31 --> 37:40 [SPEAKER_00]: You've got to bring in people who are going to be objective and who can have the power to make the right decisions.
37:40 --> 37:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know how a person becomes an national director of a movement like the vineyard.
37:47 --> 37:53 [SPEAKER_00]: without having that straw of kind of basic common sense already there.
37:53 --> 37:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and one of the other things that I noticed too, a couple of things I want to ask your thoughts on.
37:58 --> 38:08 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the other things I noticed too is that there seems to be a lot of situations in which there are churches within the vineyard that are sort of co-run by a husband of wife duo.
38:08 --> 38:13 [SPEAKER_01]: which is sort of interesting to me because that seems like a terrible idea.
38:13 --> 38:15 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just gonna say, I'm gonna click about idea.
38:15 --> 38:18 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure their instances where it works and works beautifully.
38:19 --> 38:34 [SPEAKER_01]: But in general, there's an example that I do a fear in town and I know this because I had a friend who was an assistant pastor there who was on staff, I would report to me that there were times where he would say they would just have a couple's fight in front of us and he's like,
38:34 --> 38:36 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not I just took time out of my skirt.
38:36 --> 38:38 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not paid to be here.
38:38 --> 38:41 [SPEAKER_01]: And so if you guys are just going to do this, I'm leaving.
38:41 --> 38:54 [SPEAKER_01]: And then you hear reports of the same thing happening with Michael and Brenda Gatlin, you know, and talking to Chris outer, he would recount numerous occasions where, you know, they would get into a fight, Brenda would leave in tears and like,
38:54 --> 39:13 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, this is not completely uncommon and there are reasons why there are rules and place in companies, like no company I've ever worked for and I've worked for some decent size companies with that ever be allowed, but it seems like it's not only allowed, but sort of encouraged within the vineyard and then we act surprised when you're side with.
39:13 --> 39:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Like how can you how can you make it a decision objectively about the love of your life?
39:18 --> 39:18 [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
39:18 --> 39:30 [SPEAKER_01]: And so when you have situations like where there are complaints being leveled against Brenda, for example, back in 2014, that report ultimately goes to Michael and then Duluth years later is like, oh, we never saw that.
39:31 --> 39:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, never came to us, yeah.
39:32 --> 39:34 [SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm not that they just shelved it.
39:35 --> 39:35 [SPEAKER_01]: Of course they did.
39:36 --> 39:37 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you're instinct.
39:37 --> 39:39 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure is to protect your loved one.
39:39 --> 39:40 [SPEAKER_01]: Of course.
39:40 --> 39:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Which is why that shouldn't go to you in the first place, but also probably why there should be some nepotism rules in place and it sounds like John Kluer kind of saw the future and and push for some nepotism rules at Duluth that were eventually overridden.
39:57 --> 40:02 [SPEAKER_01]: in order to bring even more family into the picture, Jackson.
40:02 --> 40:12 [SPEAKER_01]: And so like, what are the rules if there are some within Vineyard, you know, nationally, in terms of family members also being employed?
40:13 --> 40:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Cause that seems like it could lead to major problems and has.
40:16 --> 40:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it can, for sure.
40:18 --> 40:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think it, I don't think it has to, I think there are a lot of, you know,
40:24 --> 40:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't want to digress from the question too much except I'll just say that you know in the vineyard we get this kind of entrepreneurial history and so for a lot of in your churches they started as kind of like a mom and pop store and so it was a husband wife jumping in here together and sometimes that means the husbands.
40:43 --> 40:59 [SPEAKER_00]: uh... went out and they got a job to be able to feed the family collectively between the two of them when they did some kind of a pastoral you know sharing of a job more uh... but but yeah does that create problems yet and and since all this happened
41:00 --> 41:26 [SPEAKER_00]: uh... uh... with the gattlands here there has been a nepotism policy uh... the vintage USA has recommended but uh... but that hasn't stopped the fact that you know our national director j pathic is married to one of our associate national directors Danielle pathic and so so we can say yeah this is a terrible idea or yeah we can see how this is problematic but
41:26 --> 41:38 [SPEAKER_00]: But we've cracked the code and we can make this, and I'm not saying that as an accusation that something inappropriate has happened there, that's not what I'm saying at all.
41:39 --> 41:48 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying that it's hard to convince the rank and file that there's a problem when that's exactly what the National Director is doing.
41:48 --> 41:51 [SPEAKER_01]: The nepotism thing is definitely very, very interesting to me.
41:51 --> 42:11 [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I was talking to my, you know, my local pastor about just how that sort of thing is structure and also what the reporting mechanism is for other, you know, denominations that historically have been around longer, you know, and if, you know, probably dealt with things similarly in the past and so how does that differ from church to church, but that was always interesting to me.
42:11 --> 42:12 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I
42:12 --> 42:28 [SPEAKER_01]: I've never, you know, I think back again, I, to my corporate life, and if you are even dating someone in the same department, not even married, but dating someone, and of course, they look at how much power does one person have the other and do what?
42:28 --> 42:45 [SPEAKER_01]: authority over the other person, and they have such a low tolerance for it that I've seen them move people completely out of one department to another, which may sit in a completely different building across town, just to prevent any potential issues or allegations of things like favoritism, you know, from occurring.
42:46 --> 42:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Very interesting.
42:47 --> 42:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
42:48 --> 42:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
42:48 --> 42:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I think it's, you know, it's a bit of humorous on our part that we think
42:53 --> 43:02 [SPEAKER_00]: you know, we can rise above that or rise above these, you know, really natural points of conflict and and contention that can arise.
43:02 --> 43:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And then again, I would never say that a husband and wife couldn't do ministry together, but but it definitely requires a very different set up than what we would usually expect.
43:16 --> 43:16 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we
43:17 --> 43:45 [SPEAKER_00]: We see, you know, on mission fields, husband and wife teams, you know, engaged in foreign fields and stuff all the time, but even there, you know, there needs to be some kind of an opportunity for both people to have some kind of independent reporting that takes place and independent accountability that takes place because we just know from experience
43:46 --> 43:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
43:47 --> 43:51 [SPEAKER_01]: A couple of things that you kind of, something you said kind of triggered.
43:51 --> 44:07 [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the interesting things was sort of going back to what you're talking about in terms of vineyard USA and their ability to influence control over a situation like a Brenda and Michael Gatlin and what they could or could not have done based on what sort of control that they have.
44:07 --> 44:15 [SPEAKER_01]: One thing that John Clear brought up was, and I don't know if you're familiar with this, but he mentioned this call, they call it the nuclear option.
44:16 --> 44:27 [SPEAKER_01]: that seems like a great that would have been a great moment to exercise the quote, nuclear nuclear option to say that hey, either you're going to you're you're going to do right by the victims.
44:27 --> 44:32 [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to we're going to involve law enforcement are going to bring a third party group or we take the name.
44:32 --> 44:39 [SPEAKER_01]: But, and yet, they seem to only use the nuclear option for situations that maybe it's not called for, we'll say.
44:40 --> 44:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Right, right, not called for.
44:42 --> 44:48 [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, for sure, I mean, it is, so I've seen them utilize the nuclear option.
44:49 --> 44:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And I would agree.
44:50 --> 44:54 [SPEAKER_00]: I would agree that I have seen them utilize that option.
44:54 --> 45:02 [SPEAKER_00]: In instances, certainly where there wasn't a criminal investigation going on.
45:03 --> 45:19 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, these very heartbreaking kind of allegations of abuse, both spiritual abuse and sexual abuse that were being reported.
45:19 --> 45:38 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's part of the whole impetus behind the re-org is that they want to basically eliminate the need for the nuclear option, because that's all they've had, or that's what they have felt, that's what they say they have had.
45:38 --> 45:40 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not the only thing they've had.
45:40 --> 45:48 [SPEAKER_00]: It's such a tiny imagination to think that the only, the only recourse we have is this
45:48 --> 45:50 [SPEAKER_00]: a whole church out of the movement.
45:51 --> 45:57 [SPEAKER_00]: When the reality is, you know, we say all the time, every conference I go to, you know, we're a relational movement.
45:58 --> 45:59 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're a family.
45:59 --> 46:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you don't do that to family members.
46:01 --> 46:11 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't just go, hey, you know, you guys can't come to the family reunion this year, because you're not in the family, you're the family anymore, because, you know, you voted this way in the last election.
46:11 --> 46:13 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you don't do that.
46:13 --> 46:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's not what the definition of relationship or family.
46:16 --> 46:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And you can actually go to people.
46:19 --> 46:29 [SPEAKER_00]: You can do things the Bible way and actually get an appointment with them and sit down with them and break bread and have a conversation and a meal and seek to understand and to be understood.
46:29 --> 46:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And when somebody's behaving really badly, then you say, hey look, here's the deal.
46:34 --> 46:36 [SPEAKER_00]: This is, you need to time out.
46:37 --> 46:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And we're gonna help you out through this time,
46:40 --> 46:49 [SPEAKER_00]: We got to get to the bottom of this and if you're not willing to do that, then we're going to have to go to all your friends that we know, and we're going to have to let them know that you need a time out and you're not willing to take it.
46:52 --> 47:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Like it just doesn't it doesn't it doesn't hold water to say that there was no choice but a nuclear option, but that's part of the re-org is to avoid that so that their hope is that they're going to be able to jettison senior pastors.
47:04 --> 47:10 [SPEAKER_00]: but retain churches in situations, circumstances, where somebody has behaved badly.
47:10 --> 47:22 [SPEAKER_00]: But generally, that behave badly seems to be, it seems like the definition of that is that you're not towing the official line rather than you've done damage to a lot of people.
47:22 --> 47:23 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's really concerning.
47:24 --> 47:32 [SPEAKER_00]: But it's, I think the important thing is it's never been true that in our prior, less structured existence as the vineyard,
47:32 --> 47:37 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if there was an issue, when Wimmer was alive, you just get a call from John.
47:38 --> 47:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, you might have a sit down with John, or like, and there have been lots of contentious relationships since the vineyard began inside of the vineyard.
47:48 --> 47:55 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not like this is a new thing, but to say that there's just that one option, which is often repeated.
47:55 --> 48:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, doesn't, is not real, like it's not, it's not real life.
48:00 --> 48:06 [SPEAKER_00]: It's just really, it's like a way of saying, we want to make this person do what we want them to do.
48:06 --> 48:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And the only way we can make them do it is we've got this nuclear option.
48:11 --> 48:14 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think love is actually more effective than that.
48:15 --> 48:23 [SPEAKER_00]: That if we really are moved by love in our relationship with each other, hey, I may have
48:23 --> 48:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you come to my door, and you set it my table, I think there's a lot greater chance I'm going to repent of my behavior towards her.
48:32 --> 48:38 [SPEAKER_00]: In that meeting with you, then I am, if you say, we're going to kick your church out of the vineyard.
48:39 --> 48:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Like it just seems like such a harmful way to try to exact your will rather than to see what love can do.
48:47 --> 49:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that feels like sort of the method that they've used historically, especially with the people I've spoken with who have pulled their churches other vineyard because they wanted to become the test study for being a fully affirming, for example.
49:04 --> 49:28 [SPEAKER_01]: And it feels like not only are they not having a chance to sit down and have dialogue and it goes back to Ken Wilson even he thought naively so maybe I think he would probably say yes that he was going to have an opportunity to sit down and present his thoughts and this is why my feelings on the matter of evolved and and this is you know presenting his position paper and he was quickly getting quietly just kind of ousted
49:28 --> 49:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
49:28 --> 49:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
49:29 --> 49:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
49:29 --> 49:29 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
49:29 --> 49:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
49:30 --> 49:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
49:30 --> 49:31 [SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting.
49:31 --> 49:35 [SPEAKER_01]: The last question I'd for you, this is something that it seems to have come up as a common thread too.
49:35 --> 49:57 [SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things I'm doing a lot of is kind of comparing the situation or I should say the lead up to what ended up happening in Duluth in regards to sort of the red flags that were there surrounding Michael and Miranda specifically and the allegations made against them.
49:57 --> 50:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Bihanna and I'm church and it's eerily similar in terms of the things that they were accused of.
50:03 --> 50:28 [SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that there has been reporting that goes back, not just a year or two, but like in some case, yeah, and how the common thread between them besides sort of the subuse of sort of relationship that they have with their staff is that they they're both very, very numbers driven, and results driven, and it was like growth at all costs, but that seems to be something that is highly rewarded.
50:28 --> 50:29 [SPEAKER_01]: within the vineyard.
50:29 --> 50:34 [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're putting butts and seats in your criminal and then your rock star and you're put it to the special party.
50:34 --> 50:34 [SPEAKER_00]: 100%.
50:34 --> 50:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
50:36 --> 50:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
50:36 --> 50:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
50:37 --> 50:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
50:37 --> 50:38 [SPEAKER_00]: We've got a place for you on the team.
50:39 --> 50:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
50:39 --> 50:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
50:40 --> 50:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
50:40 --> 50:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
50:40 --> 50:41 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's.
50:41 --> 50:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Like the reality, like it was really difficult at the time, you know, like when when when Caleb and Jay met with the Scots and then they reported to all of us very quickly after that that the Scots were withdrawing from the vineyard.
50:57 --> 51:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And then then we started talking about, you know, kind of the differences that Alan had.
51:03 --> 51:08 [SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of pearl clutching that just it made no sense because it
51:08 --> 51:21 [SPEAKER_00]: If you had been listening to Allen, not just since it'd come to Anaheim, but even while he was still in Northern Ireland, there was no like Allen never lied in terms of this is like Allen was Allen all the way through.
51:22 --> 51:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not saying that I would I'm a fan or I'm not saying that he didn't take a church out of the vineyard that he had no business taking the church out of the vineyard.
51:30 --> 51:37 [SPEAKER_00]: But if you were tracking it all with who Allen was and what he preached about and the way he was approaching things,
51:37 --> 51:40 [SPEAKER_00]: then they're like, they're no surprises there.
51:40 --> 51:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, just none, he just, he acted as his authentic self all the way through that story.
51:46 --> 51:53 [SPEAKER_00]: I knew like, I knew stories about Alan from when he was in northern Ireland and the things that happened with people there.
51:54 --> 52:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And I had people who were in Alan's, either in his church or for a time in his church, who both told me stories about him,
52:03 --> 52:14 [SPEAKER_00]: admiringly, and told me stories about him, like, condemningly, and these people, you know, were really reacting to the same.
52:14 --> 52:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Circumstances the same time period, but it was, you know, Alan could, he grew that church and he made these things happen and, and so he raw for Alan and I want to do what Alan did.
52:26 --> 52:41 [SPEAKER_00]: But then as soon as he was, as soon as he took Anna home out of the vineyard, then all those vineyard friends who had sung his praises, he got very quiet because they realized that was no longer, like it was no longer cool to praise Alan.
52:41 --> 52:44 [SPEAKER_00]: even though we've been platforming him like weeks ago, right?
52:44 --> 52:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Like even in the original statement, the J made it was like, yeah, we went to offer Alan and Catherine a spot, you know, in our leadership somewhere.
52:53 --> 52:56 [SPEAKER_00]: As like, dude, like, bad idea.
52:56 --> 52:59 [SPEAKER_00]: The sermon here, like what, what are the choices we are making?
52:59 --> 53:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, what's interesting, too, and this, I mean, this would be a whole separate podcast rabbit hole to go down.
53:04 --> 53:11 [SPEAKER_01]: But when I was looking into that story, and man, that one's been hard to get,
53:11 --> 53:12 [SPEAKER_01]: about which is interesting.
53:12 --> 53:27 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, at least trying to get, you know, as opposed to just, you know, regurgitating the news, but it's an important story to tell, but regardless, what's interesting to me is as Alan sort of takes the senior leadership job, which apparently he had professed to having no interest in before.
53:27 --> 53:28 [SPEAKER_00]: No interest at all.
53:29 --> 53:32 [SPEAKER_00]: No, just the Lord led us to move here to Anahe.
53:32 --> 53:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, which is a whole other thing, by the way, I want to talk about that robbery because I realize I'm sucking up a lot of your time here, but there's spiritually loaded language that both he and Michael seemed to use where, again, it comes back to what you mentioned about sort of hubris where they're sort of saying, well, you know, God told me to, which kind of shuts the conversation down very quickly, if you're saying, well, God told me directly that this is what we should be doing.
53:59 --> 54:00 [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
54:00 --> 54:03 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a conversation editor right there.
54:03 --> 54:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that's one of the big things.
54:05 --> 54:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Like when I came into the vineyard, one of the things that I loved about the vineyard so much was that I was taught that in the vineyard, we don't play the Jesus tube.
54:16 --> 54:20 [SPEAKER_00]: We never say the Lord told me this is that we're gonna do it this way.
54:20 --> 54:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, because it takes everybody's choice away from that.
54:23 --> 54:25 [SPEAKER_00]: It robs everybody.
54:25 --> 54:38 [SPEAKER_00]: uh... of their autonomy and uh... and now we've got to do this because you know the lord is has told us to do it and so yeah and so in that situation and i'm you know you had a lot of dynamics there you had pad
54:38 --> 54:53 [SPEAKER_00]: A pastor, Lance, who'd been there for a long time, and in many ways had sort of overseen, you know, shepherded the decline of Anaheim vineyard from a really large, vibrant congregation that was, like, on the map, right?
54:54 --> 54:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I mean, it was, let's go to Anaheim.
54:55 --> 55:03 [SPEAKER_00]: To now, like, a, like, a small, like, one of the smaller churches, I shouldn't put it that way, but it was, like, significantly smaller than it was.
55:03 --> 55:17 [SPEAKER_00]: but you also had young people had gone to other churches and there was a real sense of, you know, people my age looking around a mostly empty room saying, you know, hey, what happened to the glory days?
55:17 --> 55:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Remember the glory days and we tell stories and how awesome it was and why can't it be like that?
55:23 --> 55:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's, you know, it's the senior pastor, you know, John brought him in and
55:27 --> 55:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, that's what we need and I've heard the same things that about Vander music.
55:32 --> 55:37 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, oh, we don't have any good songs anymore because nobody comes to hear our songs and it's just
55:37 --> 55:46 [SPEAKER_00]: it's nonsense like it's it's a misunderstanding of how the vineyard grew to be game within the cultural context in which it exploded.
55:46 --> 56:06 [SPEAKER_00]: But then but then you have Alan who comes on the scene even though Lance has already picked a successor you know you have you've got Alan come on the scene who doesn't want to be there but the Lord led him to Anaheim for some reason and sure sure if you're insisting you want to put his name in the in the
56:06 --> 56:07 [SPEAKER_00]: He'll let you do that.
56:08 --> 56:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, a few other names get thrown in, even though there has been a successor.
56:12 --> 56:17 [SPEAKER_00]: But Allen is like, if you've heard any of his rhetoric from the beginning, it's like, we're going to have a revival.
56:17 --> 56:19 [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to bring young people in it.
56:19 --> 56:21 [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to take this city for God.
56:21 --> 56:26 [SPEAKER_00]: It gets everything that if you were my age or older, you remember from the glory days.
56:26 --> 56:33 [SPEAKER_00]: You remember the Sunday night in the gymnasium where everybody's laid out on the floor.
56:33 --> 56:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's what we want to get back to that.
56:35 --> 56:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, let's go, an Allen's gonna take us there.
56:38 --> 56:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And then that's not where Allen takes you.
56:40 --> 56:49 [SPEAKER_00]: But it is that, you know, that charismatic expectation we have that we can, we can muster all that up again.
56:49 --> 57:00 [SPEAKER_00]: And we want to get that back and be able to hand off to our children this beautiful legacy of a full building and, you know, the world turning to the vineyard for music and teaching and all those things.
57:00 --> 57:05 [SPEAKER_00]: having a hard time accepting that those aren't the days that we're living in anymore.
57:05 --> 57:14 [SPEAKER_01]: No, and it's interesting because Alan clearly is attempting to build a prop there because one of the first things he does it seems is he hires this
57:14 --> 57:23 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, this famous worship leader, jam your et al, who comes from Bethel, which is a whole, another podcast, you know.
57:23 --> 57:32 [SPEAKER_01]: And some of the leaked recordings from former people on staff there are just mind, but it's almost sounds like a cult when you're listening to it.
57:33 --> 57:33 [SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
57:33 --> 57:37 [SPEAKER_01]: They're judging body types and only hiring some body is very weird.
57:37 --> 57:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah.
57:38 --> 58:01 [SPEAKER_01]: Jeremy is a huge part of that and sort of forcing out people that they didn't feel sort of shared their vision for the future, which is all about, as you said, you know, getting more bodies into the building again and having this explosion of growth, which you had to use credit, they've had now they're called, uh, think dwelling place, but it feels like the plan all along was probably for Alan to create his own movement.
58:02 --> 58:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, a person.
58:03 --> 58:03 [SPEAKER_00]: No question.
58:03 --> 58:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when he wasn't asked to be the next national director of interview SA, then it was time to start his own thing.
58:09 --> 58:11 [SPEAKER_00]: He was, he was, uh, playing for that.
58:11 --> 58:14 [SPEAKER_00]: I think in the same way he applied for Annaheim, he was...
58:14 --> 58:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Gotcha.
58:15 --> 58:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
58:15 --> 58:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Interesting.
58:16 --> 58:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Brian, I really appreciate it.
58:18 --> 58:19 [SPEAKER_01]: This is super helpful.
58:19 --> 58:27 [SPEAKER_01]: And and like I said, May is looking like the time when those will finally all start to come out, but appreciate all the folks that you've connected me with.
58:27 --> 58:30 [SPEAKER_01]: And we'll see what happens.
58:30 --> 58:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
58:30 --> 58:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, thanks for doing this.
58:31 --> 58:33 [SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate it.
58:33 --> 58:38 [SPEAKER_00]: It's, I think it's important for people to hear the story and hear from other people about what's going on.
58:38 --> 58:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully it'll penetrate
58:44 --> 58:49 [SPEAKER_00]: realize that maybe everything is not the way that we've been led to believe it is.
58:49 --> 59:02 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, that's kind of my goal is, you know, to if anything, if it helps push along change for my, for the people that I love who are still actively involved in vineyard, to make it a better place for them than, you know, then that's great, but we'll see.
59:02 --> 59:03 [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see what happens.