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Well never sell your personal information. That was one of those things that was swept very much under the rug. She said her stepfather would play emotional games that kept her up well past midnight. *Empowered by God to reach others for Christ* 2023 Eagle Brook Church . We had conversations about him being the guy to succeed me. Working at Eagle Brook Church | Glassdoor And this guy basically interviewed all my friends, my family members, my staff, anybody who knew me and asked two questions: What's good about Bob? Her mom suffered from gaps in her memory due to the emotional and physical trauma, Villareal said, but when she tried to talk to other women in the church about the abuse she was told to come under and stop gossiping. For a woman, that was pretty much the only career option until youre a mom, Mandville said. Chauvin actually wanted to get married, but I was looking around at my selections. Do you remember this church on the hill there? What Happened When Chuck Swindoll Left - Entrusted with the Gospel Eagle Brook - Apps on Google Play When she was 19, her father, who was an elder, went to his fellow leaders with theological questions what he saw as contradictions between the lifestyle at Gospel Outreach and the teachings of the Bible and when their answers didnt satisfy him he left the congregation, taking his whole family with him. At the time, she explained, I believed I was respecting my elders. She eventually told her mom what happened but said her mom chose to keep it private. Eagle Brook Online Watch Live on Sundays at 9 & 11 AM (CST) Connect with us Learn More About Jesus Request Prayer Here's what's happening with Eagle Brook Online: What are your questions about faith? From the parking lot attendants and front door greeters to the coffee shop and expansive kid play areas, the church offers a visitor-friendly experience. Thats you having independent thinking. Sex Abuse: 'A Time of Justice' | Christianity Today Criticism & Conflict | Eagle Brook Church Message Criticism & Conflict Jason Strand | Nov. 26/27, 2016 Have you ever lost sleep over a heated disagreement or harsh words? It starts with spanking but leads to much more and reporting it is considered uncovering your fathers nakedness., Sarah said she was beaten and molested by a younger church member. . "It's just less formal.". Merritt said he plans to take the next few months to quiet his mind to figure out what God is calling him to do next. At one point it was all I could do to feel. I have a career. Watch Live Sundays at 9 & 11 am - Eagle Brook Church Hes very loving but Im always waiting for him to hit me or berate me. "It's very comfortable, very comfortable here," said volunteer Phil Resendez of West St. Paul. DeSoto remembers being intimidated when, as a teenager, he became one of the boys tasked with preparing and serving coffee to the elders at these meetings. EAGLE BROOK CHURCH - LINO LAKES - 13 Reviews - Yelp No one is immune to it. At some point I think it was when we went swimming in the summer he saw the scars on my legs., She was told to go talk to Pastor Szcepanski and his wife. [8] According to a church census released in 2020, it claimed a weekly attendance of 25,340 people and 9 campuses in different cities. It was how we knew our parents loved us because they cared enough not to spare the rod.. Many church members assumed that Durkins son, Jim Durkin, Jr., would take over, but instead it was a man named David Sczepanski, whod been among the early residents at Lighthouse Ranch. We also sent emails and left voice messages asking to speak with church leadership for this story but got no response. All of that, as a child, thats [treated as] your problem: Why cant you talk right? Embarrassingly to admit, I was horrified, Chauvin said. I called the current E.V. The multisite Eagle Brook Church in Minnesota announced it has dropped the plan to build its 11th metro-area campus in a residential neighborhood in a Minneapolis suburb after backlash from local residents. If you werent daily giving your all for the glory of Christ, why were you even here? Thats a reference to a passage in Genesis in which one of Noahs sons, Ham, finds his dad drunk, passed out and naked inside a tent, and instead of covering him up tells his brothers about it. So, instead of avoiding eye contact, let's face the tough stuff together, using the Bible as our guide. Merritt said that counseling not only saved his career but also saved his marriage. She and others said the phrase often employed to reinforce this lesson is come under. Anyone showing signs of independent thought would be told to come under their leader, be it a babysitter, a soprano coach or an elder. Worse was getting singled out for judgment. This will be the 11th campus. "Churches can be so weird," he said. and State College Blvd. Eventually someone cries and then we can go to choir practice it was really so predictable like that. Eagle Brook Church Locations Anoka Services Saturdays 4 & 6 pm Sundays 9 & 11 am, 4 pm Learn More > Apple Valley Services Saturdays 4 pm Sundays 9 & 11 am Learn More > Blaine Services Saturdays 4 & 6 pm Sundays 9 & 11 am Learn More > Ham Lake Services Saturdays 4 pm Sundays 9 & 11 am Learn More > Lino Lakes Services Saturdays 4 pm Sundays 9 & 11 am Most of these allegations concern incidents from many years ago that were not reported to law enforcement or child welfare services, making them impossible to corroborate via official records. Watching. Jesus asked the people around him some tough questions while he was on earth. She was a proponent of pro-abortion, pro-gay rights Republican Arne Carlsons campaign for governor in the early 90s. At the height of her depression, she started having dark fantasies. al. Eagle Brook's approach to church has Minnesotans showing up in droves, and senior pastor Bob Merritt says it's partly because Eagle Brook tries to make the church experience less weird. I was four or five; he was 15 or 16, she said. But I knew in my spirit that he was ready. Stelton was raised Lutheran. "We're trying to hit that 80 percent.". Most of us have. We were expected to stay in the kitchen. Weekly church attendance was 25,340 people in 2022. Eagle Brook megachurch opening Lakeville branch, its 8th in MN. "It's not about being big, never has been," he said, adding, "It's justGod keep using us, and we'll try to follow.". Return to homepage. The church has six campuses across the metro: in Blaine, Lino Lakes, Woodbury, Spring Lake Park, and White Bear Lake. ), DeSoto said kids are expected to maintain a cheerful demeanor. Retiring pastor of Minnesota's largest megachurch opens up about his And we never talked about it again., Sarah blames the church culture more than her own parents. Maybe. What kind of church would remove the Bible from their teaching? Theyre listening to the devil.. But the workload and responsibility on Merritts plate as a seminary teacher and pastor might've gotten the better of him as he struggled with issues of anger and depression. Eagle Brook is great for people scratching the surface of Christianity, and really, getting people to hear the Word is a good thing. Traditional, non-traditional, doesnt matter. The music is the best in the Twin Cities. She asked if anything was sexual, Villareal said. We were charged $20 fines if we left something at home, Esther Mandville said. Vanessa Hinrichs - Pastor of Campus Operations - Eagle Brook Church He said I could have just told him I wanted to leave, but I had been telling him, Sarah said. [5][6] As of 2019, it had opened 8 campuses in different cities in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. There were scripts you could follow. She was a proponent of pro-abortion, pro-gay rights Republican. Church greeter Shelley Stelton has a more common backstory. Follow Samuel Smith on Twitter: @IamSamSmith. Ah, yes, but the next statistic was even more interesting to me: 1,000 people leaveand giving stays the same? The Outpost was unable to confirm the COVID outbreak emails and voicemails left with Gospel Outreach went unreturned, and when we knocked on the churchs doors, no one answered. Brainwashing is kind of an overused phrase, but it really is brainwashing.. But Merritt is happy with the fact that in all the years he has been with Eagle Brook, there has not been a single scandal. That was, like, a big rule: You dont talk to anybody that left the church, Abigail said. I would cut my legs, just places nobody would see higher up on my thighs. Skipping meetings and playing hookie werent really options, according to DeSoto. I remember that at least part of the building appeared circular. I did it to my shoulders as well, she said. Im hoping if someone is having doubts and they know about this article, Im hoping they can get some clarity, she said. You might be thinking, "No definitely notthe tree is up, presents are wrapped, Christmas music on repeat" Pause. The message is beamed. The former members of Gospel Outreach said talking to people from outside the church was discouraged, and so virtually all social interactions, including work, school and family, occurred within the group. Unfortunately, the cons are many. So on behalf of Eagle Brook Church, as its senior pastor, I need to say that we are not that kind of church. Looking back, she realized that in her teens she ticked all the boxes. The skinny (as my aging brain remembers) that I once heard was thatwhen the famous preacher Chuck Swindoll left Fullerton, attendance dropped by 1,000, a huge hit even for a mega church seeing attendance in the 6,000 range. Leadership really works hard to create a culture where employees feel their individual job is important to the mission of Eagle Brook, which is to reach people for Christ. Your email address will not be published. If the elders decided he qualified, theyd recommend someone to him for marriage, she said. All the music, the meetings youre hardly sleeping. In the days that followed, other former members reached out wanting to tell their own stories. 'Resenting God': When Christians Feel Anger, Where Churches Fail, and Why the Bible Is Vital, Actor Corbin Bernsens powerful message about hate and anger', Harvest Bible Chapel formally disqualifies former pastor James MacDonald, citing 1 Timothy 5, Pastor Jonathan Stockstill says ministry leaders should have character, not just gifts. They're not even allowed to drive from our office to our main campus, which is just a mile away from our office.. And by the way, we've never had a scandal at our church.. That situation developed into [some of] those young kids, the victims, reenacting those experiences with other very young children, he said. So, what keeps people in it for the long haul? My parents didnt intend on being morally wrong [or] bad parents, but they take all their issues to the church. I wasnt doing well, he admitted. the Christian hippie commune at Lighthouse Ranch, the hippie utopia that was Lighthouse Ranch, registered with the California Department of Education, employed by Christian slavers as justification for human bondage, PARTY COMPLAINT 400 Block of BAYSIDE CT, Animal Hazard at Hillcrest Dr and Humboldt Hill Rd. It can ruin you, Merritt said. So much of it is being told the same thing over and over again until you develop a language and phrases not used in the outside world., Sarah remembers the schedule as exhausting. Villareal said her stepfather regularly abused her and her mother for years, starting shortly after he married her mom, continuing during their missionary work in Mexico and following their move to Humboldt County. David Sczepanski, the pastor and sole school administrator, was brought in. Her dad apparently felt otherwise. Jason Strand is the new pastor of Eagle Brook. How will he lead Our values are to pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion both locally and globally. Months after announcing his plans to retire, the 63-year-old Merritt officially stepped down as Eagle Brooks senior pastor on his March 1 birthday, giving way to longtime teaching pastor Jason Strand to assume his position. I was just trying to keep all the balls in the air. I will not be leading another church. Eagle Brook Church (Woodbury) - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go Looking back she thinks that this containment, this narrowing of the world into a hermetic and rigidly controlled society, is as damaging as anything else at Gospel Outreach. Back in the day when Christian radio stations played James Dobsons Focus on the Family and other talk programs (along with a smattering ofChristian Contemporary Musicby Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Carmen, et. She said it took her a while to be ready for that. Butwhat if tough questions weren't the enemy, but the gateway to breakthrough? I also wasnt eating properly. Eating disorders were common among girls in Gospel Outreach, Mandville said. Her dad followed her and tried to order her to come back home with him but she resisted, with support from her friends family. Sermons | Eagle Brook Church The proper forum to challenge the Republican Party platform is not in the media but through the process established by the party. Therefore, He is ultimately the only one we should ever look to for spiritual sustenance, though we recognize He uses undershepherds. I remember looking around the room going, Were all depressed and just not talking about it., All of us were just constantly sick. He called me outside and told me that because I was living with my fianc I was in an evil spirit and I was a puppet of the devil., Mandville believes there are plenty of good people at Gospel Outreach, including their parents, but my dad has really bad depression and a really horrible guilt complex. And in the last couple of weekends, we've had 31,000 people [attend] and 25,000 watch online. Most of us have. Its got to line up with my giftings. Merritt did not believe First Baptist Church, which was the name of the church since 1945, was a good name to reach people. He sat on that opinion for about five years as he gained credibility and confidence with the congregation before suggesting that the name be changed. He was very physically abusive and my parents would tell me it was my fault because I was antagonizing him, she said. I grew up in the church and its a dark place, Christen Chauvin said in an email. Quite often that reason is just made up.. It was part of his controlling thing, she said. Weekly church attendance was 25,340 people in 2022. You dont think of a cult as something you see every day you think of it as, like, sister wives and all that, she said. As the pastor of a Twin Cities church, I was bothered by the Feb. 27 front page article No Bibles, no hymnals, no pews. If you do something evil? After the attempt, she remained despondent and numb. As evidence, she and others described a pattern in which children attend a church-run school, girls primary career path is teaching in the school, boys can aspire to work in a handful of businesses owned by church members, male elders confer to arrange marriages and family ties make the prospect of leaving feel nearly impossible. Therefore, I apologize for what Wednesdays front page article may have communicated about our church. Thats you. Eagle Brook Church to buy downtown Minneapolis church campus Well call her Sarah. Which, I believe, is why it is so popular- nobody asking you where you were last Sunday, no committees and such to dodge, etc. In his messages, Merritt often speaks of his past personal struggles. At that point I was particularly vulnerable and I fell into a relationship with someone toxic from a sister church [in Olympia].. But a lot of it was I just didn't have any capacity to deal with the demands on my life. Its all very interesting, looking at it afterwards, she said. I lived VERY close to there at the time. As a child theres how I describe it is brainwashing, she said. In Shakespeares play, a man named Petruchio marries then tames a headstrong shrew of a woman, Katherina, by employing psychological torments telling her the sun is the moon, for example, until she agrees, at which point he says the opposite. Some of the safeguards we put into place for the church are that all of us have a lengthy floor-to-ceiling window in our offices by our door so that anybody can see into the offices when they walk by, he explained. An irregular but steady stream of young adults have defected from Gospel Outreach in recent years or escaped, as several of our interviewees characterized it. He brought me through a full year of counseling. After [these meetings], church families would go up to Lighthouse Ranch, and thered be just hours of us kids doing whatever we wanted, she said. Get started with your Free Employer Profile. 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Eagle Brook Church Sep 2020 - Present 2 years 7 months. Resendez is one of more than 20,000 people who finds weekly comfort at Eagle Brook. During Merritts tenure, Eagle Brook instituted strict rules for church staff to ensure they never get too close to that boundary. In the first year, almost didnt make it, he recalled. No biology. He didnt show Moses, necessarily, what was ahead or Paul. They dont go very high just Algebra 1. Hope youll give us another try and check out some other articles. A self-proclaimed introvert, Merritt speaks from Lino Lakes. At first my dad didnt think it was that big of a deal he thought it was just my hands, Abigail said. And the fact that Humboldt Countys mental health services are just not enough to address the need. The more immature people on the other hand they were followers of a celebrity pastorand werent giving anything anyway. Theyd say [to students], The sky is green? and wed say, Yes. The grass is blue? Yes. Youre supposed to repeat back illogical things to teach you not to disagree with what the leadership tells you.. Some people left the church as well because they werent sure I was the guy. April 17, 2017 / 10:10 PM [1] The senior pastor is Jason Strand. It was very loose, not a lot of parental oversight. But one of the aspects of cults is that they push teens to make bigger ultimatums youre either all in or all out, he said. After over nearly three decades of leading what has grown to become the largest church in Minnesota, pastor Bob Merritt has retired from the nine-campus Eagle Brook Church. They wanted you to adhere: Dont stray off the script., Chauvin got the same message. Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. Music varies from campus to campus, with no organs in sight. It does not award high school diplomas or offer special education. Pastor Bob Merritt of the multi-campus Eagle Brook Church in Minnesota. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Roger's reflections on grace, God and other grand topics. Eagle Brook Church will be going into the River City Church building on Hennepin . So over 50,000 people are watching us and listening to us every week. As soon as I left, everything got better. She freaked out. Long hours with little respect for time away from full time ministry. Mission: Empowered by God to reach others for Christ. The one building grew to nine campuses, from Wayzata to Woodbury to Rochester, making Merritt one of . We love THE Church. Wed climb trees for hours, run down to the beach, jump off the bluffs. Eagle Brook Church is a Baptist Evangelical multi-site megachurch based in Centerville, Minnesota. They left and financiallythe church didnt feela thing (All this is initial. "I think it's a sin for people to come into a church and be bored," he said. " Back in May, two former members of Gospel Outreach of Eureka, a church that grew out of the Christian hippie commune at Lighthouse Ranch, contacted the to report a COVID-19 outbreak among the . Regularly, our sources said, one student would be singled out for some infraction, such as having a bad attitude or failing to recite the Ten Commandments, and be made to confess and repent. She was told that Sczepanski had a talk with Todd and warned him not to do anything like that again or else Sczepanski would be legally obligated to report him. But her just-now-stated position against a foundational Republican Party platform and principle lacks integrity. Merritt recalled the one statement from the pile that hell never forget. And so what you got to do is you got to build safeguards and boundaries in your life that you just never violate because this happens in churches.. If your homework assignment was late you werent allowed to go to choir practice or play on the weekend. "Most of my adult life I had not attended church except for maybe on the holidays," she said. Required fields are marked *. Notably, Guatemalan dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt became a convert and, following a 1982 military coup in that country, he employed Gospel Outreach in the notorious rural pacification program known as beans and bullets. Church members supplied food, medicine and clothing to local residents before Montts forces came in and razed their villages, killing hundreds of indigenous Mayans and rendering survivors wards of the government. Each one is around 30 minutes. Because criticism and conflict are never comfortableand often we dont know how to deal with them. Some readers may be unfamiliar with Chuck, but many will know that he is the longtime radio preacher for the radio program Insight for Living. He worked out an agreement with Strand that he will always be available to offer advice but will not do so in an encroaching manner. Eagle Brook will pay $6.2 million for the church's campus, which spans an entire city block on the west side of downtown Minneapolis I taught for the next three years. "Although we would have loved to become a part of the community, we have made the difficult decision to not pursue the development at . I should be in the office, interacting with my colleagues and thinking about the message and getting busy with writing that. I know a lot of other girls had health issues when they were there that subsided when they left.