Category: My experience

**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.

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

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.

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

“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.

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

Douglas Stauffer’s actions beg the question, “Why did it not matter that Matt was able to present Stauffer with documented proof from the Zambian embassy website?” And why was it insignificant that our family was set to land near the country’s capital on election day, a time that would likely be a major climax during the ongoing political unrest? I believe our troubles were merely another opportunity for Stauffer’s own pomp and circumstance, beginning with Stauffer’s disagreement about Matt using his internship as his survey trip, and then continuing into what I believe was Stauffer’s utmost desire for acknowledge and power.

Internship Disillusionment

During the Tuesday night meeting of the King James Conference in 2018, the one dealing with my Facebook post in reaction to Stauffer’s carnal message, Matt and I finally had the opportunity to question Stauffer about his deceitfulness during the current meeting with Pastor Andrew Ray. As it turns out, Douglas Stauffer, a retired CPA and a man with two supposed PhD’s, disagreed with Matt accomplishing his internship for his degree while going on a strongly desired, and almost essential, survey trip, rather than making two separate trips. Not only had Matt been eagerly looking forward to using his internship as his survey trip since he was a freshman in college, and had even started the process as a New Testament Church Pioneer in 2001, but by 2016, he was married with two children, working full-time, needed to request the time off from work, and had a two-week minimum requirement from the college for the internship. We finally understood why Stauffer had always encouraged Matt to first go to a country or people group that was closer and more financially feasible to visit for his internship before taking his survey trip to the country God had laid on Matt’s hearts for years.

We accepted Stauffer’s strong disagreement with our family’s future ministerial plans, but we also recognized that he overstepped the bounds of individual soul liberty by purposefully attempting to prevent a trip that had nothing to do with him. More importantly, however, Stauffer overstepped at a time when my family’s life was potentially in danger, and we believe it all had to do with Stauffer’s pride.

All for Another Win

In June of 2016, just before the meeting with Pastor Andrew Ray, Stauffer participated in “The Great Rapture Debate” in Colorado as part of his evangelistic work, but upon returning to Antioch Baptist Church, Stauffer carried himself as a man overly proud of his accomplishments, believing himself to have succeeded against a pastor in proving a pre-tribulation rapture. I believe Stauffer took the opportunity to make my family’s trial into a power-play to pamper his own pride. Maybe he truly cared about my family’s safety and about us seeking after God’s will, but why else would Stauffer be unwilling to admit the fallacies of presenting my husband as an incompetent, ignorant fool, even after Matt showed him proof of the contrary? We concluded that Stauffer’s actions were merely his attempts toward another victory on his personal scoreboard after “The Great Rapture Debate,” rather than to aide us on our journey.

Preparation or Power

Truly, Stauffer could argue that he was trying to prepare us for the missionary field considering that he did eventually confess that he evaluated a missionary’s potential success by how he handled discouragement, seemingly Stauffer’s discouragement specifically. Possibly, in whatever goodness Stauffer was capable of, his actions were meant as a test of endurance. Were this the case, however, I never realized painting a future missionary as reckless and irresponsible when their family’s life was at stake was the Biblical method of measuring one’s ability to successfully make it to and stay on the mission field! During the meeting of 2016, Stauffer had even gone so far as to suggest that if God truly wanted us to go on our survey trip in 2016, and that it was not simply Matt’s half-baked plan, God would work out the financial situation we had requested assistance with. Ironically, God provided through a lost man, and Stauffer essentially had to eat crow as he handed us a check from the church AFTER everything came together!

The Conclusion of the Matter

In reality, I believe Stauffer attempted to stand in the stead of God in our lives by questioning my husband using his mission’s degree internship as his survey trip and portraying the mission’s trip as a decision made outside of God’s will. I believe he presented our situation in whatever light he felt was necessary to be the most beneficial to Douglas Stauffer, as shown throughout the meeting and in the days to follow when Stauffer never admitted he was wrong and never apologized for his deceptiveness. Moving forward, we thanked the Lord for the safety in the multitude of counselors, which did NOT include Douglas Stauffer. We thanked the Lord for their encouragement and advice to change the dates/location for the trip, and we determined that our initial hesitations about Stauffer barely scraped the surface of the destruction he probably left behind. But, oh, how different things may have been had we heeded our hesitations in seeking Stauffer’s “wisdom” in the first place!

Thankfully, though, we never had another run-in with Stauffer until his messages in 2018 about the people who left, but by that point, we knew he was a Diotrephes and could not be trusted. Though we were still floored by his confidence to throw out darts behind the pulpit, what surprised us the most was when we heard Pastor Andrew Ray agree with his statements and say, “Amen!” Had Stauffer influenced him that much? Could it be he was just severely wounded and trying to heal? Instead of admitting the truth, we concluded that Stauffer had likely had some influence on Pastor Ray, but he and his family were just severely wounded and hurting. We knew our pastor’s heart! Unfortunately, we had NO idea what Pastor Ray was actually doing behind the scenes until some of it slowly came to light despite our desires to support and trust our pastor.

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: TBD: Pastor Ray” (this was never posted) or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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

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

Before continuing further with the meeting, I would like to present the email that Matt sent to Pastor Andrew Ray himself about Doug Stauffer’s actions that evening, considering that Matt was the one in the meeting while I was either in the nursery or outside with the children.

Email from Matthew Olds to Pastor Andrew Ray
Date: June 29, 2016 at 4:14 PM

Dear Pastor,

    After our meeting I realized how important it is that you know as many of the details of our trip as is possible due to you being the one who will decide to take it before the men of the church or not. I would also like to take the time to apologize for being so defensive during the meeting. As you may remember, Brother Stauffer mentioned telling me I did not do my homework and that “It was not very nice to say.” He had told me that just before meeting with you and I had just finished informing him otherwise. So when he mentioned it and didn’t tell the rest of the facts it left me defensive. I am sorry for my attitude while I was in there. I also feel that Brother Stauffer attempted to mislead you to believe that the missionaries I am conversing with are not from America, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. I do not know if he was attempting to cast more doubt upon their counsel in where I found safety or if he is just genuinely  being cautious, but I feel it is best to have you as thoroughly informed as possible. The missionaries I have been corresponding with are [The Dickens*]. They are missionaries specifically to the deaf in [Zambian city*] and they actually run a school for the deaf there. I learned about them my freshman year in college and have been keeping up with their prayer letter ever since. I have also been conversing with Brother Smith*. They minister in [Zambian city*] which is where we desire our flight to land. He tells me that the [Zambian city] is an open door for deaf workers. I have also been in contact with the Simmons* from a town [a certain distance from*] Lusaka. The latter two families Brother Colvis helped me find. They are all American missionaries, and [they*] have all suggested that I postpone the trip or at least change the destination to [Zambian city]. If the dates were kept the same, the additional costs would still be present even though it only involves a different destination. 

    The following is a concise timeline of all that has transpired as well as to our reasoning of it. None of it excuses the fact that we didn’t seek the Lord on the timing, but hopefully this will shed some additional light on the subject:

    As you know my wife, and I have been desiring to take our survey trip for quite some time now. To be honest, the desire to see the field that God has for us grows stronger with each passing moment. In the early part of February I began reaching out to missionaries that I actually knew, but there were no responses. I don’t know if the Prince of the Power of the Air was snatching them up, or if they were just being sent to their spam boxes. It is beyond me. At the same time, Crown has been pressuring me to take my internship, which is doubling as my survey trip. They are threatening to give me a failing grade and making me pay for the class/ opportunity again if it is not taken care of by the Fall.  This is mostly due to their becoming accredited and having to run things differently from how it was done before. Prior to their becoming accredited, the college had me pay for the class and told me to take it when it was possible. We have since then spoken to the college about what the previous counselor had said and he said that I could take it whenever the Lord allowed. As much of a blessing as that last part was and is, there is still an underlying pressure to get it done and I do want to do right by the college as well as the Lord.

We went ahead and purchased the tickets for later in the cool dry season so that the cost of the tickets would be lower, but still avoid the time when the mosquitoes would become worse. This was in March that we did this. We bought the insurance for them thinking it would cover emergency situations, so that we could change them if need be, but it turns out that it does not include civil unrest, only a documented medical emergency or death in the family. In the middle of May, missionaries began responding to me only to tell that they were on furlough. This was very disheartening. Finally a missionary said that they could host us only to change their mind two weeks later. At the end of May the Lord opened up the doors and several missionaries began saying that they would host us! This is a great blessing, but they are also asking that we postpone the flight anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks due to our flight being scheduled to land in Lusaka, the capitol, on the day of the elections. During the time of the purchase, there was no mention of this on the Embassy website. Now that the elections are a little over a month away, the website is filled with it. We do feel it would be best and that the Lord is leading for us to postpone the trip until September as well as change to destination to [Zambian city*]. This works out well because the missionary families live there and it is [several hours in a direction away from*] the capitol, away from the majority of the developing civil unrest. 

To make these changes, it will cost us $200/ person. (there are four of us.) plus the difference of the cost of the tickets which is currently about $400 per person. There are also the penalty fees that the airlines will not release the costs of until the changes are made. Thankfully the Lord has provided for a large portion of this within the last few days although the funds will not be available until July 1st. We are still seeking the Lord’s face and asking for wisdom in how best to spend it. 

In His Grip,

Matt Olds

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 Motives Revealed” or click on the link below.

For a list of the complete series, click here.

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