Author: TryingtheSpirits

In 2006, Tarana Burke started the “Me Too movement” in order to “highlight the occurrence of sexual harassment, particularly as it targeted women of color.” (Me Too: Sexual Harassment Awareness & Prevention, Maryville Online, 23 Jan. 2020.) Unfortunately, her movement remained stagnant for eleven years until several actresses began to share their own experiences and Alyssa Milano encouraged women to respond back to her tweet with “Me Too” if they had ever been sexually harassed or assaulted. Almost immediately, the movement became a force to be reckoned with. This seemingly simple, two-word hashtag took the world by storm, bringing countless prominent and powerful figures to their knees by publicly exposing the darkest corners of their world. But how does it work? What makes “#MeToo” effective?

According to Burke, “the MeToo movement works on empowerment through empathy, by showing the world just how common sexual harassment is and by telling survivors they are not alone and [are] supported” (Me Too: Sexual Harassment Awareness & Prevention,  Maryville Online, 23 Jan. 2020.). No matter what type(s) of abuse one has endured, the courageous act of even one person coming out and saying, “I experienced this, and it is unacceptable,” brings validation to millions of victims who have suffered in silence, and inspires others to finally tell their stories.

During the summer following the mass exodus of 2017, we discovered that many of the precious Christians who left were afraid to speak up, either for fear of “touching God’s anointed,” or because they still feared the residual consequences of speaking up against the leadership even a year after they left. Near the end of my own family’s time there, I too came to understand the pressure and concerns they endured during their last weeks and months at Antioch Baptist Church:

• • • Within his first voicemail back in June 2018, Douglas Stauffer conjectured that my Facebook post about his carnal message could “draw complainers to a complainer.” Why would he be afraid of us talking with those who left? What was there to hide?
    • Pastor Andrew Ray also expressed his concern in a meeting shortly thereafter that those who left desired to use me as their spokesperson for what they went through. Was there a reason they needed a spokesman?
    • Later in the summer, I further learned of Pastor’s Ray’s letter to one of the families threatening to send a letter to their college-age daughter’s educational establishment should they not leave in an adequately peaceable manner!

If there is anything that I have learned over the years about various types of abuse, it is that the darkness reigns through the power of silence. There are countless stories from the mass exodus that we are not privy to the details on, but it leaves me wondering what other underhanded manipulations occurred at the hands of Pastor Andrew Ray or Douglas Stauffer and were stifled down or hidden through fear. Maybe that could be the reason that Douglas Stauffer stated that he did not want a #MeToo movement, despite the subject at hand being his harassment toward me and my family, not harassment of a sexual nature!

Thanks to Douglas Stauffer and Andrew Ray, I can clearly see why Burke started the #MeToo movement, and why it continues strongly today. I merely spoke up against injustice, and we feel that Pastor Ray and Stauffer then attempted to shame and manipulate us into silence because it would hurt their fragile reputations. Unfortunately for Douglas Stauffer and Andrew Ray, I had already experienced spiritual abuse in the past, and despite the continued pain, I refused to ever be a doormat again. They chose the wrong woman to mess with because I refuse to cower silently in timid submission to men who appear calloused to the consequences of their actions on other people.

Below is the third Facebook post I managed to muster up the courage to share about our experiences at Antioch Baptist Church, just a month after the second one:

Crystal Old’s Facebook Post on December 6, 2018

“Wanna know why people don’t speak up about various forms of harassment? Still wonder why there’s a MeToo Movement? Let me show you…..

**What REALLY Happened- Part 2: June 2018**

This was supposed to be a place of balance and a place of healing. I opened up the scars and the wounds in hopes of moving forward, and despite the many hours of tears, counsel and advice over the course of FIVE YEARS, I heard the words… I don’t know how to talk with you.

I sent an email about the harassment that occurred in June, but what happened? A message on forgiveness that night. He later said he was preaching to himself too. I’ve since learned the Bible says to receive not an accusation against an elder except by two or three witnesses. Now I know why.

My husband was called downstairs into a meeting where the man  [Pastor Andrew Ray] told my husband that he thought this mess had fallen into my husband’s lap for him to help me with my past trauma. It was believed to all be transference but I have the proof that tells otherwise. He then said that an email like this can destroy a man’s ministry and attempted to get my husband to agree to deleting it from his email as well. He said to my husband, “Let’s start ripping it up now” and proceeded to attempt to physically rip up the document. When that did not work-awkwardly, I might add- he sent my husband to the office to shred it. It was presented as the ONLY copy remaining, just a day after giving a copy to the man who harassed my family saying, “Brother Olds doesn’t know you have this.”

Two months later, the man who harassed my family to begin with approached us because he knew about the email (had a physical copy) and couldn’t rectify that I went over to say “Hello” And apologize for avoiding him, and wanted to meet because he was afraid of a #MeToo movement. He threatened (but said it was NOT a threat) that if the meeting didn’t go a certain way, he would step down, leave the church, and my accusations of harassment would go up before the church. When my husband asked the man we sent the email to about the harassment to be in the meeting, he said we were trying to destroy our church because I had asked a friend for advice in June. He also tried to control the number of witnesses and tell my husband who he could and could not ask for as witnesses. Oh yes, and he said that shredding the email wasn’t meant too be deceitful.

Why speak up? Because these types of situations happen all of the time and people are told, “This could destroy his ministry.” Well, what about everyone else that is destroyed IN his scope of ministry?
#BreaktheSilence
#MessedWithTheWrongWoman
#NotASheep”

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: Douglas Stauffer’s Private Message to Matthew Olds (December 2018)” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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**Names marked with an asterisk (*) have been changed for the privacy of individuals and their families**

For months, I continued to type posts about what happened with Pastor Andrew Ray and Douglas Stauffer, but I always deleted them for the sake of my marriage. When we finally hit our one year milestone for breastfeeding our third child, however, I finally opened up publicly about the struggles that several church members from the inner circle created in our lives:

Crystal Old’s Facebook Post on October 1, 2018:

“We’ve made it a year again despite the struggles of three young children, lip ties and sickness, and nursing in a time where breastfeeding is still developing as a norm! This is NOT against mothers who use formula (we had to for a while with our first because of ties), but breastfeeding is hard work and I’m thankful that we’ve made it a whole year by God’s grace! Joshua* had a horrible lip tie and tongue tie at the beginning which made for a very exhausting, painful and discouraging first month.

After all of the junk we faced while nursing our second (Annabelle*- that’s a post for another day), I’m thankful that we only had one person actually approach us about nursing this time and it wasn’t until Joshua* was about eight months. The man [NOT my old pastor] said that as kneeling for the anthem is giving America the finger, I’m giving my church the finger every time I nurse. He continued to say that it’s an authority issue in our home, that it will be a hindrance to us being sent out as missionaries, and that my husband needs to “man up” and say “Woman, this is what you are going to do [go down to the mother’s room]. And yes, he knew that I struggled with depression and anxiety that was exacerbated by being secluded/isolated away in the mother’s room.

I’m thankful for my husband being the MAN that he is and standing up for me again as his wife and friend. He truly has been my rock through all of it. I don’t know where I’d be without him, but I don’t think we would have made it a year and still going strong.”

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: “What Really Happened- Part One” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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After we left Antioch Baptist Church, a small church just north of Knoxville cared for my family’s wounds for almost half a year. Their tenderness helped to bandage our raw, open sores, while their willingness to listen soothed the burning and pounding that seemed to continue incessantly. They showed us grace and gave us space to breathe, while offering their arms and homes as places of safety from the storms. Even though we ended up never joining at that church, we are ever-grateful for their compassion, acceptance, and love during some of the hardest months of our lives.

Of all the struggles I dealt with personally in the months to follow, however,  I could never accept that the document we sent to the two or three witnesses was sufficient, because on top of my own inner turmoil and the damage to our marriage, I saw the depth of pain in my children’s eyes as they played with less wonder and innocence in their hearts. While I could never go back and change what my children had to endure, I could warn others, in hopes that even one person would eventually hear and listen, thus preventing themselves or their families from suffering the same fate. The emotions in this post were raw, ranging from anger to inconsolable pain, but I needed to speak my truth- my story- not just for my sake, but for those after me.

Crystal Old’s Facebook Post on November 8, 2018

“**What Really Happened- Part One: Aug 2015 and Onward**

Who knew that feeding my child essential nourishment while getting spiritually fed meant we didn’t hold up the standards of leading vs submission, that my husband needed to “man up” and send me to an isolated room that only exasperated my postpartum depression and anxiety. Who knew my own pastor’s family would approach our friends asking them to attempt to shame me into that isolation knowing full-well the impact it had on my mental state. Who knew that it would be deemed a hindrance to our church sending us out as missionaries.

Who knew you could write an 800 page book on rightly dividing Scripture when I’m considered a “Bible corrector” because I believe God PROMISED to PRESERVE his word “from this generation forever.” Guess what: that includes the Greek and the Hebrew.

Did you know that pants make the shape of the letter “A,” “just like authority”? I know of a few other words that start with A too, but that doesn’t change what the Bible really says. The word “modesty” in 1 Tim is the same root word as the requirement for a bishop to be “of good behaviour.”

Did you know that being an introvert was the only acceptable thing as a woman? Too bad God made me an extrovert so it was taken as being unsubmissive. Or is there another reason my own pastor’s wife decided to spread lies that I run my home and whatever I say goes….. Is that needing to feel superior or simply envy?

Did you know it’s okay for someone in the inner circle to tear down 40 godly men and women (look into the REAL stories, not the lies we were fed) behind the pulpit MULTIPLE TIMES and even in a meeting with over 30 visiting churches, but we were the ones accused of trying to destroy our church by saying it was wrong. Went about it the wrong way? Sure. But so was the harassment to follow. And no. Once again, the ends do NOT justify the means. Aggression is still harassment.

We had an issue with ONE MAN and the way he PUBLICALLY destroyed people without remorse, but our pastor said the writing was on the wall with our criticism and negativity. No. That was called thinking for ourselves. Individual soul liberty. We loved our church and had no intention of leaving anytime soon. We didn’t realize how much deeper the problem went before June….and it wasn’t until then that we found out what truly happened a year ago.

Our children miss their teachers and friends, but we will not allow our children’s spiritual lives be destroyed and hindered like many others were that you will answer for someday. Risk my child being completely humiliated in a men’s meeting because they confided interest in marrying someone? Nah.
Risk my child being the dedicated whipping post of an entire church service without the pastor ever talking with the parents first, but rather based off of the gossip of the TEENAGERS? Then turning around almost a year later justifying that it “helped to get ahead of the situation,” but the pastor still has to question if it was right or wrong? Not a chance.
Risk my child being told they can go against their parents and COURT someone else? Smh. And it didn’t even happen just the one time.

Call me bitter. I don’t care anymore. Call it transference. If it’s transferance of past abuse, maybe look into why it was triggered: the harassment and attempts at controlling me and my family into silence. We are to conform to the Bible, not to man. You picked the wrong person. I believe in exposing the truth and have no problem doing so when I have no doubt that others will continue to be hurt as you continue to bite and devour.

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: ‘What Really Happened- Part Two” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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“I love when people that have been through hell walk out of the flames carrying buckets of water for those still consumed by the fire.” – Stephanie Sparkles www.livelifehappy.com

**Names marked with an asterisk (*) have been changed for the privacy of individuals and their families**

Just A “Typical” Sunday

When Brother Nicholas* preached, “God Leads Us Along,” he probably knew little of the trials and waves that raged about me or the fires that threatened to consume me all those years ago. I believe it was the summer following my college freshman year: spirit broken, courtship called-off, future plans in question, and an agreement made to be completely submitted to the control of my mentor and her husband, Randy, as they helped me pick up the pieces left behind. All three of us believed they were “biblical authorities” in my life, and all three of us agreed (incorrectly) that I had made a mess of my life that year in college.

This particular Sunday was just like any other Sunday that summer, filled with excitement to be at church with God’s people and to hear His Word preached, but it was also just a typical Sunday with an ever-growing list of regulations from Randy based on my actions the previous week. Could this particular Sunday service have followed the week that Randy demanded that I no longer attend our church because of a disagreement between us? Could it have followed the week when instead of passing out tracts in silence, I “disobeyed” by witnessing to a customer I had gotten to know at work? Perhaps it was just another week when I was supposed to go down to the altar and “repent,” and then beg someone to help me because I “needed to get saved.” The consequences of not going down during invitation often involved being severed from their family, knowing I was emotionally dependent upon his wife, until I met yet another ridiculous expectation. He did usually follow up such declarations with an alternative demand, but it was just as outlandish and irrational as the first one.

Though several of my college friends had tried to warn me that something was off about Randy, those concerns only confirmed in Randy’s mind that those friends were ungodly and not “part of the ten percent” of students that were actually at Bible college to serve the Lord. To make matters worse, whenever he found out that I had sought advice out of desperation, he made sure the consequences equaled his view on my “dragging his name through the mud.” Perhaps, instead, this was merely another week that he had accused me of speaking with those friends over the summer after being directed not to contact them for the supposed sake of my spiritual growth. There were literally times in my life when the only one I could turn to was God.

Closing my eyes, I can still hear Brother Nicholas’s* endearing voice echoing sweetly through our little church’s auditorium:

“God leads His dear children along
Some through the waters, some through the flood
Some through the fire, but all through the blood
 Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song
In the night season and all the day long.”

Brother Nicholas’s* message was like a soothing ointment to my wounds, a gift tenderly bestowed at just the time I needed it most. It was a reminder that no matter what fires I had to walk through, no matter what trials I had to face, the Bible promised that God was a buckler and a strong tower that I could run into for safety as God’s child. No matter how hard the waters raged, God would carry me through, and just like who God was, He would give me a song of peace along the way.

A Time to Speak or a Time to Keep Silent?

The Lord used that message to nourish my soul for years to come, but what if I had heeded my friends’ warnings and advice much sooner? What if the other girls under Randy and my mentor had been warned as well by someone before us? Could that not have limited the extent of Randy’s destruction in our lives?   I will never know the answer to those questions, but I have long desired to warn Randy’s future pastors about the man who was outwardly intriguing and lighthearted, but was inwardly a ravening wolf. Considering his focus on teenagers, the probability was high that several teens after me would later reject the Lord because of Randy’s influence, but there was nothing more that I could do.

For the next several years, I began to find my voice after the long periods of silence, and I started to weed through the extreme viewpoints on Scripture and living the Christian life. In the process, I met countless others who had also experienced the tumultuous waves of spiritual abuse. They were abandoned by their pastors, youth leaders, parents and teachers. Their spiritual guides had betrayed their trust, covered up the abuse, and then exalted the ones responsible for the damage, all while leaving the victims to pick of the pieces of their broken lives. I realized that not only should I have spoken up during my time with Randy and his family, but that I could never be silent again. I could never allow myself to hide behind my fears, not just for the sake of my own well-being, but because there were a multitude of people who had escaped but still dealt with the residual trauma day-by-day, and countless victims that were still trapped within the confines of spiritual abuse.  Above knowing I needed to speak, however, I made one determination and promise to myself: I would never allow someone to control and silence me again.

Imagine my surprise, when almost nine years later, I found myself in a position where silence about a moral issue- or lack thereof- appeared to affect my husband’s standing in the ministry and his ability to serve! Whether or not this was Douglas Stauffer or Pastor Andrew Ray’s intention, it worked incredibly well.

Back in the Fire

In June of 2018, Douglas Stauffer claimed that there had been a “church rupture” at Antioch Baptist Church in 2017, supposedly “the best thing that could have happened,” but it is my strong opinion that Stauffer’s actions proved that the dangerous infection had merely been left behind by the summer of 2018. After speaking out in June 2018, I feel that Douglas Stauffer used fear and Pastor Andrew Ray used shame to silence me for months, resulting in intense emotional distress on me and my husband, and on my young family as well. We loved our church family, and we felt that same love from the majority of those in our church family, but that same care only increased my struggle to keep silent, further straining my relationship with my husband. Unfortunately, the problem came down to two drastically different options: (1) protecting our unknowing church family and keeping that promise to myself of never being controlled or silenced again while completely disregarding my husband’s wishes or (2) supporting my husband by letting go of myself and my own personal boundaries. I was suffocating between a rock and a hard place.

Waking Up

I often conceded for my husband’s sake and for the sake of our marriage, but by the time Stauffer approached us again in August 2018 in what I felt was a threatening manner, that flicker of strength had already been re-kindled through the validation of my parents, friends, therapist, and multiple other survivors of spiritual abuse. I started to realize that Pastor Andrew Ray and Douglas Stauffer were merely “big fish in a small pond,” and thankfully, Pastor Ray broke the final straw the day before our final meeting with Staufer when Pastor Ray said we were trying to destroy our church by seeking advice back in June. Despite the turmoil between us at the time, Matt and I decided as a team that day that it was our time to leave Antioch Baptist Church in 2018, thereby numbering Pastor Ray and Douglas Stauffer’s days of manipulation and control over my family to a mere seven days.

We were broken. We were trodden down, and there was nothing else for those involved to take, but in September 2018, we gathered our immediate family together, bid farewell to our church family, and ventured off into uncertainty while making our home a “safe place” for our family once again: one that protected us from men like Douglas Stauffer.

Shortly thereafter, I determined once again to take my power back by breaking the silence of what occurred within those walls. The pain in my children’s faces were my living reminders that I needed to warn others about Pastor Andrew Ray, and especially about Douglas Stauffer. Though my desire for speaking out was never to hurt Pastor Ray or Stauffer, I needed to share my story with every fiber of my being so that maybe-just maybe- even one person might heed the warnings one day, and thus be spared the heartache that still impacts my family today.

In this series I share my thoughts and opinions concerning these ministers and the events which led to my departure. Click here to continue reading: “Blindsided: Our Letter to the Witnesses” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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