Our critique of the Message
We attended Cloverdale Bibleway, probably the largest Message church in North America, for 37 years. We left when we found out that the pastor of the church, Ed Byskal, had covered up the sexual abuse of a minor. About two-thirds of the church left at that time, and several new message churches were started. We started Living Word Fellowship, one of the churches that started as a result of While we had no doctrinal differences with the church we left, we were seen as apostates by that church and by those who associated with them. We were eventually asked to leave the church when we started asking questions.
The issues below are from our observations both while we were in the Message and from our interactions with the Message after we left.
The Message is more important than scripture
The Message is all about self-protection
When pastors are entitled to all of the tithes of the church and are ill-equipped to do anything else, other than pastor a Message church, they will do almost anything to protect their livelihood. As a result, protecting THEIR church becomes nearly impossible to separate from serving God. In many Message churches, such as Cloverdale Bibleway, the church becomes a family business, with the leadership passed down from father to son-in-law to grandson. The survival of the organization begins shaping theology, priorities, and decision-making in ways hard for a congregation to recognize.
Correct beliefs become more important than whole people. Churches often invest enormous energy defending theological precision while overlooking emotional health, psychological maturity, relational capacity, and compassion. People can possess impeccable doctrine while remaining deeply wounded, fearful, lonely, or emotionally underdeveloped.
Building the church replaces serving the world. Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God. Churches often become preoccupied with building their own kingdom. Branding, attendance, fundraising, expansion, and organizational success quietly eclipse the larger work of loving communities and contributing to the common good.
Control is mistaken for discipleship. Many churches assume people cannot be trusted with freedom. Approved books. Approved studies. Approved teachers. Approved questions. The result is dependence upon institutional authority instead of mature spiritual responsibility.
Sameness is mistaken for unity. The homogenous church growth movement taught churches to attract people who look alike, think alike, vote alike, and live alike. That may build organizations efficiently, but it rarely produces communities capable of engaging the complexity of the real world.
Image becomes more important than honesty. Church culture often rewards appearances of blessing, certainty, happiness, and spiritual victory. Doubt, depression, grief, failure, loneliness, and ambiguity become things to hide instead of realities to bring into the light. Performance quietly replaces authenticity.
Footnotes