Category: United Pentecostal Church | Page 34

From Faith to Fear

Remember how happy you were when you first started attending your unhealthy group? Were you afraid of hell, either before or after your conversion? I mean, not just because you were saved, but all surrounding that time, both before and after your conversion?

When I first attended a Pentecostal church, I was happy. I was happy that I’d found a place to belong, people to talk about God with, and a church to worship with. I was not for one second afraid of hell. It didn’t figure into my attending and it didn’t figure into my conversion at all. For months after joining I had no thought of going to hell. I didn’t start going to church to avoid hell, and I didn’t stay to keep from going there. Hell was actually pretty far off my radar when I started attending church. I went to get closer to God, not to avoid hell. And so I wasn’t afraid of hell at first. The fear crept in slowly.

For me, I think the fear may have started with end times discussions. “Be careful, or you’ll be left behind!” That and prayers for “lost loved ones.” Then some friends that had started going with me suddenly stopped going. I still wasn’t afraid they’d go to hell, but I was VERY concerned that I’d ‘lose out,’ that I’d ‘backslide‘ and stop attending church. I loved it so much, I was terrified of leaving. The thought of leaving made me very insecure. The church, I thought, was there to protect me, to help me, to lead me. And in my mind at that time, these things were good. I had a group of people I could identify and trust, whether I knew them specifically or not. They were Pentecostal. They had the Holy Ghost. So they were good. And I wanted that safety desperately as a young adult on her own for the first time. Still, at that moment, nine months after I’d started attending, I don’t remember being afraid I’d go to hell.

In time, I was exposed more and more to teachings on hell, and my fear of hell grew as I heard those. I moved to a different church when I was in my late 20s. The church I started attending was a very different kind of church than what I’d been in for the first seven years. In the new church, there were not only sermons about hell, but people seemed to enjoy giving graphic descriptions of what hell might be like (and the rapture, and leaving, and many, many other things). The sermons there left me with less and less hope. They sapped my joy. And while I thought at the time that I was getting closer to God by being driven to stay through fear, I had never been in danger of leaving even without the fear. And so the fear sapped my joy and my faith. Over time of hearing these things repeatedly, I began to see God as judge rather than Father. I no longer wanted to pray or study. I felt I had to, but I didn’t want to. Fear ended up pushing me away from God, even though I trusted the pastor who told me it would drive me closer to him.

I don’t believe teachings on hell are used very well in Pentecost. After all, as we grow in God, should we have more and more faith, peace, love and joy… or more fear? I ended up with more fear. How about you?

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

Oh How He Loves You and Me

Oh, how He loves you and me, Oh how He loves you and me. He gave his life, what more could he give?
Oh, how He loves you; Oh, how he loves me; Oh, how he loves you and me.

We sang this song often in the church my ex husband pastored but no matter how much we sung it I never could quite believe that Almighty God could love someone like me.

I was the kid from the home with the divorced mother and all the different stepfathers. Of which none loved me nor I loved them. My natural father said he loved me but I only saw him one weekend a month because of his fireman’s schedule. So not much time to study a father’s love.

My mother said she loved me but she worked a lot to support us and she was always trying to find a husband. I also felt that her love was conditional. I know she didn’t mean it that way but that is how it came across. When I made honor roll she was very proud and told everyone how smart I was. When I made the gymnastic team, proud mother, but when I fell off the balance beam, disappointed Mom.

Then there was the church we attended with my grandmother….a small United Pentecostal Church, if there was any love there for me it only came from one sweet family who had 7 children of their own but had lots of love to go around. I loved staying at their house and feeling the warmth of that love. My mother didn’t attend the church so no tithes from me so I was basically ignored by the pastor.

The feeling of failures followed me into adulthood and into my marriage. It felt like nothing I did was ever good enough and I just never measured up to everybody’s expectations. During this time my husband pastored a church and I just wasn’t what he wanted as a helpmate and a total disappointment to him as a pastor’s wife (I couldn’t play the piano or sing very good). So he soon jumped ship with another woman and moved away. Again love was conditional upon my performance.

It seemed I excelled at three things, being a mother and grandmother and being an an excellent employee and as it turned out I was very smart and a quick study. I managed to go back to college and to everyone’s amazement I graduated with a 3.95 GPA in accounting and I worked as a tax accountant for the next 15 years. It was a good place to work and it was someplace I felt where I belonged.

All of us have the need to belong and we long to be loved. Our Heavenly Father wants us to know we are loved.

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” I John‬ ‭3:1‬ ‭

God loves us! God the father is a thousand times better than any earthly father. We are valuable because God loves us. We know our status and we are valuable because God loves us.

“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. I John‬ ‭3:2‬

God’s love is changing us gradually to be more like him.

“Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.”

God’s outworking love doing a work in me by bringing me to a good and healthy church where love abounds! I’ve never experienced this type of love in a church before but I do now! I work in ministry on many projects for the church and I truly believe when told I’m loved that it is the truth. Because I can feel it and see it and there are no conditions. They don’t care that I have Parkinson’s disease and work slower, or that I’m a bit overweight, I haven’t been given one diet to try like I was before. I am loved…”By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” I John‬ ‭3:9-10, 16-17‬

Our Heavenly Father wants us to KNOW that he loves us and we are his children. He gives us a family, a purpose and a hope for a future.

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

Sexual Matters And My Former United Pentecostal Church

Part seven of a series of articles.

As previously shared, I personally have known four people from the United Pentecostal Church who have been convicted of sexually related crimes. In Part 2 of this series, I shared about two cases, where one man held license. These are the other two.

Some of us were gathered for a ladies prayer meeting that night at the church when the phone rang. Answering, I recognized the voice as one of the older male members. He was married and had children. George asked to speak to Rebecca (not her real name), one of the young church girls. Her mother happened to be there and she shared he had been calling Rebecca at home.

He didn’t hold any position in the church or organization. I believe it was prior to this when he tried to cause trouble for a good friend of mine who worked where he did at Lenox China. The false accusation didn’t work, but the pastor called her into the office to question her about what was said.

It was revealed that he had been spending time with some young girls. Rebecca’s parents were concerned and put a stop to future contact. I don’t know details of what happened at the time, nor what happened later at his arrest on an unrelated event. In July 1993 he was sentenced to prison on sexual charges and was a registered sex offender until his death in February 2018.

******

There was a United Pentecostal minister who married a woman from my church. Tom and his family lived in northern New Jersey. He came to God while serving a prior prison sentence in Louisiana and upon release quickly became active and licensed in the UPC in the 1980s, even being featured in one of their publications, Freedomline (Spirit of Freedom Ministries).

He was licensed by the UPCI since at least 1985. (He is seen in the 1986 UPCI Directory with a local license. I don’t have the previous three years.) He eventually became a pastor in Westwood after assisting at a small storefront church in Riverdale. The church was a rented building.

As of at least 1988, he had returned to criminal activity and that year he also became a volunteer chaplain at the Bergen County jail. In March of 1990 while a pastor, he was arrested on some charges and there was also a prior charge of a sexual nature.

He claimed he did not commit the sexual assault of the 15 year old minor but was found guilty of sexual assault, criminal restraint and making terroristic threats. In October 1992 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison, with having to serve half that time before possibly being eligible for parole.

The woman later recanted her testimony in an affidavit, after receiving a letter from Tom’s wife, which included pictures of their two children, but then she recanted this. She claimed to have been harassed.

In 2006 Tom’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus was dismissed with prejudice.

I don’t know if Tom was ever released from prison prior to his death in February 2013 after a battle with cancer.

At the time, very few in my church knew details of what happened, including myself. Back then, there wasn’t the easy access to news reports from other areas. I’d never heard that he had been accused of sexual assault in this case, nor did I know of his prior sexual related convictions, such as the rape of a 14 year old, or details of all his previous charges. In the article he wrote for Freedomline, no assault was mentioned. Tom had a criminal history going back to the 1970s when he was a military policeman at an Air Force base in Louisiana.

My former church was probably what one would consider a medium size in the United Pentecostal organization. Many people came and went through the years. Both prior to my joining and while I was a member, there were numerous situations of sexual activity outside of marriage with some resulting in pregnancies, along with cases of adultery. A close friend once confided that she had been raped by a male member, who at one point had been living at the church, but I don’t believe charges were filed.

You will find a complete list of articles in this series by clicking here.

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

UPCI Rocky Mountain District Trouble

There appears to be problems in the Rocky Mountain District of the United Pentecostal Church, involving Samuel Keith Riley, pastor of the United Pentecostal Church of Rock Springs in Wyoming (aka Revival Center of Rock Springs). The situation also involves UPCI ministers Matthew Pearce (Arthur Matthew Pearce, Jr.) and Steven Carnahan, both officials of the District. (Carnahan is pastor of the Abundant Life Church in Gillette and Pearce is pastor of Pentecostals of Rawlins – now Rawlins Family Church) All are ordained ministers in the organization and the Rock Springs church is an affiliated church (meaning they have a legal affiliation with them).

TROUBLING ACCUSATIONS

According to the article linked to at the end of this section, Jeff Ramaj claims the following of pastor Keith Riley, “The examples of false doctrine preached by Riley are legion, but the messages listed here were among the most frequent. As we began to resist his false doctrine, Riley’s favorite saying was that one cannot come against a man of God without being killed by Jesus.”

Ramaj has accused the Rocky Mountain District of not investigating this church/pastor and stated that their inaction led to a lawsuit which was filed in January 2016. The law office of Lemich Law Center, particularly Jon Aimone, appears to have been hired to contact the parties involved prior to the actual lawsuit. After it was filed, Riley allegedly ignored a judge’s order compelling discovery, and the District failed in an attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed.

At an August 2017 court hearing, “The judge entered partial default judgment in our court case and sent our attorney to the church to get the documents we requested.” As a result, documents and computers were seized and they have allegedly uncovered evidence “to show that the Rileys diverted monies from the general fund to their own personal enrichment”. It is further alleged that “There is evidence that inculpates Matthew Pearce and Steve Carnahan in Riley’s actions.” Ramaj also claims, “In 2015 and 2016, the W2 that was submitted to the IRS for Samuel Keith Riley said that he was paid just under $24,000. Church records and bank records show that he was paid tens of thousands of dollars more than that each year—the difference in 2015 is more than $34,000.”

The article also alleges that a former ordained UPCI minister from Montana, Kenneth Hogue, “embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the District and was not prosecuted.” Hogue used to be a presbyter as well as the District Secretary and was pastor of the United Pentecostal Church (aka Grace and Truth UPC) in Butte. He also was the District Foreign (Global) Missions Director and served on the Global Missions Board. His wife, Teresa, also served in the District. His name is last seen in the 2016 UPCI Directory, indicating that 2015 was probably his final year.

Ramaj calls for Keith Riley’s license to be revoked and for both Carnahan and Pearce to resign. These are serious and troubling accusations. Are they true or false? Time will tell. Meanwhile there is a public battle going on. In the linked article below you will find additional information on Ramaj’s accusations.

OPINION: For The Last Two Years, We Members Of The United Pentecostal Church Of Rock Springs Have Been Begging For Help by Jeff Ramaj- October 30, 2017

August 30, 2019 Update: According to a press release from the Montana Department of Justice, on August 29, “The pastor of the United Pentecostal Church in Butte appeared today on wire fraud charges and admitted to embezzling $288,757 from the organization over a four-year period, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme said.

“Kenneth Emmett Hogue, 66, of Butte, pleaded guilty to wire fraud as charged in an information during an initial appearance. Hogue faces a maximum 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.” He has a sentencing date on December 12, 2019. See also Butte pastor to plead guilty to embezzling from United Pentecostal Church. Kenneth Hogue had been elected secretary and treasurer of the Rocky Mountain District in April of 2012. A $5,000 bank transfer transaction made in May 2015 is what triggered an investigation. In March 2018 he admitted his scheme to the FBI.

On December 19, 2019, Kenneth Hogue was sentenced “to five years of probation and ordered to pay $288,757 for embezzling from the church organization over a four-year period.”

A PUBLIC BATTLE

Jeff Ramaj and others were (and may still be) having home and other meetings according to The Pentecostals of Rock Springs Facebook Page (no longer available). Their first service was held in August 2016 at 1695 Sunset Drive, Suite 104. You can see a few pictures of Ramaj at a service there. It appears that Ramaj is the pastor and it involves a small number of people.

Tanua Riley, Keith’s wife, publicly accused Ramaj of stealing the image for Revival Center of Rock Springs via this Facebook account. (Her main account is here.- This has since been closed down.) I find no reason to disbelieve her as that could easily be proven. She also appears to accuse him or someone else of not supporting their children.

The public feud includes an accusation by Ramaj that even though the organization has one, an area pastor (assuming Riley) claimed that the United Pentecostal Church didn’t have a retirement fund, so the church needed to pay him money for retirement.

Ramaj made it clear on the Page that it was not associated with the one operated by the Rileys, stating The Pentecostals of Rock Springs “in no way endorse or promote the pastor and his families unchristlike behavior. We do however keep those few who remain there in our prayers. Our prayers are that the truth will be revealed and the church will be renewed.”

In March 2017, he also posted, “There are many unanswered questions as to why we left revival center and have filed a lawsuit against the pastor. Here is the short answer. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. -Ephesians 5:11 [other passages follow] …This is the apostate church of which revival center has become under the leadership of an ungodly man who worships money and himself. I once asked him if he was a self made man who worships his creator his reply “yes”. Supporting you pastor is a scriptually correct practice unless he is not in line with the word of God. I tried for over a year to help him but he refused to listen. Will you or will you blindly follow him on a path that leads to destruction? Choose this day whom you will serve.”
On October 13, 2017, Ramaj posted two pictures, allegedly of items seized from Revival Center of Rock Springs as a result of the lawsuit. He also commented that “the district is also working to resolve this matter.”

Keith Riley used to have a Twitter account but it has been removed. Google had a cached version which was only available temporarily. The website listed for the church, revivalcenterrs.org, is not available.

March 15, 2024 Note: Screenshots have been added to this post, links have been checked, and some revisions were made. Many links were no longer available as the Facebook Pages for The Pentecostals of Rock Springs and The Revival Center of Rock Springs were taken down at some point after we posted the article. Some profiles were also deleted.

UPCI Rocky Mountain District Trouble Part 2

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

When churches silence, part 2

I sat in the counselor’s office physically shaking. I’d left the church eight years before, but remembering it… I still physically shook as I described what had happened. And I barely mentioned most of it. I’d been stalked in the church. I didn’t mention that the stalking had been accepted, even laughed about. Or that no, it actually wasn’t the first time I’d been stalked in church… it was just the first time that I was concerned for my physical safety.

I’m beginning to realize that the church is still silencing me.

“Don’t talk bad about the man of God.”
“You wouldn’t want to be a bad witness.”
“We have to protect the truth.”
“I wouldn’t want to hurt them.”

It’s difficult to shake those thoughts even after leaving, and I still think about them even while knowing that I must speak out, in private or in public. I’m still careful. I don’t want to shake anyone’s faith. I don’t want people comparing our stories and thinking theirs wasn’t ‘bad enough.’ Every story is valid, and every story should be heard.

Silence doesn’t stop molestation, stalking, backbiting and gossip, authoritarianism, or narcissism. It doesn’t stop favoritism, judgmentalism, threats, blackmail, negative peer pressure, or manipulation. It doesn’t help people who are hurting, who think they are alone – the only ones, surely, who’ve been hurt by an entity acting in the name of God. And it doesn’t prevent more people from facing similar situations… again, and again, and again.

How many people have been affected by spiritual abuse? We can’t know for sure. The church is silent.

When churches silence, part 1
When churches silence, part 2
When churches silence, part 3
When churches silence, part 4

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.