World Revival Church in Kansas City, MO

[formergothardite]

12 minutes ago, ThatOneGuy said:

you’ve only grown more bitter toward me

Why do you think I'm bitter? That doesn't even make sense. Why would I be bitter against you since I don't know you and you haven't hurt me in any way. I have literally nothing to be bitter about. You are a stranger on the internet who I am having a discussion with. I'm not taking any of this personally. 

12 minutes ago, ThatOneGuy said:

you should have known that because apparently now you’re an authority on showing kindness.

Nah, I'm a total bitch a good bit of the time.  I'm such a grump. Though I do get really upset about people who flee danger and can't find help in America because of laws Trump has passed. I get really annoyed that people claim to follow Christ can look at that and not care. 

 

12 minutes ago, ThatOneGuy said:

Would you like to address your accusations toward me, or shall we sweep them under the rug? Or how about your bitter tude toward me?

Sure! Tell me exactly what you want to address. Again, I'm not bitter. I'm at the moment amused that you think I'm bitter. 

Edited January 15, 2019 by formergothardite

[ThatOneGuy]

Ok...

@formergothardite... my apologies for the “Pentecostal” comment. I didn’t realize it was from someone else.

I do have a question for you.

There is gang activity in nearly every country in the world. We have it here. We also have our own homeless crisis, overflowing prisons, and starvation. We’re 21 TRILLION dollars in debt. How does anyone in the world come and DEMAND (which IS what they were doing) that we let them in, take on their burden of joblessness, homelessness, health care, crime, and education? How do YOU propose that this is paid for?

@Palimpsest Like most churches, we believe in God the Father, Jesus the son & Holy Spirit. The word that is preached contains quite a bit of history as far as contextual culture. One guy alledged  that it was done in order to confuse. It actually helps me to understand what was going on in the culture & give some background to a lot of scriptural text. We believe in worship & prayer, not to the pastors as accused, but to God. Do we love our pastors? Sure we do, mostly. Do we idolize them? No.

we have several pastoring couples. Pastor Steve & Kathy Gray are the founding pastor. There are 5 other pastors, and generally their wives are kinda looked at as pastors, too. I don’t believe any of the wives are ordained.

As far as the list goes, sure, some of those can be checked. In what church, honestly, can one go to that DOESN'T have some of these?

Also, please see Jesus as an example. Not the American humanistic idea of Jesus, but the scriptural one. I guess He and His disciples are a cult, too?

[Coconut Flan]

35 minutes ago, ThatOneGuy said:

Also, please see Jesus as an example. Not the American humanistic idea of Jesus, but the scriptural one. I guess He and His disciples are a cult, too?

What do you mean by the American humanistic idea of Jesus vs the scriptural one?  What are the characteristics of each as you see it or as your church teaches it?  Are there any similarities and what do you see as the differences? 

[Destiny]

44 minutes ago, ThatOneGuy said:

Also, please see Jesus as an example. Not the American humanistic idea of Jesus, but the scriptural one. I guess He and His disciples are a cult, too?

And how do you see the "humanistic" idea of Jesus vs. the Scriptural one? The Jesus of the Scriptures, for example, told us to take care of the poor and refugees. How do you justify your opinions on taking refugees with what Jesus actually SAID?

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

I guess he got tired of answering questions? I went from page 2 to page 3, and , he's deactivated his account. 

[AliceInFundyland]

That's a full troll card BINGO blackout. Every variety possible in just under a month.

[formergothardite]

Aww man! He already ran away! This had the potential to be a fascinating discussion on the teachings of Christ and how the church should respond to those asking for help when fleeing violence in their own country. 

I'm going to guess his running has to do with him realizing he has no explanation as to why his pastor had a woman on her knees begging him or why his pastor threatened people with the loss of their children if they got angry at something the pastor did. There is no good way to explain that away. 

[nelliebelle1197]

@formergothardite The ebil Catholics on the border are claiming the wall is a violation of their right to freedom of religion because they offer sanctuary as part of their ministries. WWJD?

Too bad he left. I could totally discuss all day how an appropriate progressive tax structure could Make America Solvent Again. You know, like it was in the 50s.

[thatsecondguy]

He deactivated his account? Well that’s no fun! To answer some of the questions - WRC is a nondenominational Charismatic Church. They aren’t tied to any other organization. WRC falls under the business umbrella of Jubilation ministries which has the pastor, his wife and their adopted daughter as the officers. 

As far as the cult classifications - of all the list I’ve read on what makes a cult, they usually check 90% of the boxes. 

On politics - they actually as a church try to be apolitical. Pray for your leaders is about as political as it gets. They don’t even really attack the gay community. 

The community support they give is BS. They do give to the two ministries named financially, but there is no active community participation. Also, they aren’t on good terms with the inner city churches liked claimed.

 

While there are POCS that attend, they are almost treated as tokens than anything. Like - oh, let’s have our black singer come up and sing a gospel song.

 

Any other questions, feel free to ask. Can’t promise I’ll respond quickly, though.

[Palimpsest]

Darn it.  He ran away just as we were getting going.  I hope the second and third "That guys" come back to clarify some more stuff though.  I definitely think this church smells like a destructive and potentially spiritually abusive cult.  It sounds very good at taking people's money too.

Also, I should clarify.  Calling something a cult is not necessarily a bad thing.  A cult is technically a small group with an identified system of religious beliefs and ritual.  They are not all destructive and evil.  When cults are all grown up and respectable, with many members, and lots of money, we call them religions.

The checklist I gave above is for destructive cults.

19 hours ago, ThatOneGuy said:

I guess He and His disciples are a cult, too?

Well, yeah.  I'd put good money on Jesus and his followers being considered a cult by many of their contemporaries 2,000 years ago.  

And if Jesus and his followers came back to Kansas City and started a church proclaiming Jesus the "Son of God" and only "True Way to Salvation" today, some people would either declare it a new cult or try to pink slip (involuntarily commit) Jesus.  Perhaps people  including @ThatOneGuy.

Or perhaps not.  Perhaps this is exactly what Steve Gray is trying.  @thatsecondguy, thanks for your responses.  

When you have time, I want to hear more about the prophesying.  Also why did World Revival Church come up as a heath facility when I googled it.  Do they do a lot of faith healing there too?

Edited January 16, 2019 by Palimpsest

[formergothardite]

Is the woman kneeling and begging the pastor something considered normal? I can't imagine being in a church where people wouldn't be shocked by behavior like that. 

[thatsecondguy]

@Palimpsest Faith healing stuff is pretty much a given for Charismatic churches. WRC actually has a House of Hope and Healing on their property where people can either call in or come in freely for prayer. It is also fairly common to have an alter call during their services for it too.

it is definitely a destructive cult. Many I know who have left the place have had to go into professional counseling have been diagnosed with C-PTSD due to their time there. And that is not even touching on the money issues.

One person I know was asked to be on a board for a fund raising project for the church due to her years of experience in that arena. When she asked what the budget was, a normal question, she was kicked off.

[thatsecondguy]

Here's another weird one. The pastor said what seems like vigilantes are wanting to go after a former member because he was apparently speaking out against the church. The former member recorded the conversation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nJRxTF8R30&t=23s

[Thatthirdguy]

this church has had years of abuse and cover up that is coming to light and check out below of  some of the stories of real life people that went through this cult and got out 
 

 

https://www.facebook.com/kccultsurvivor/

[thatsecondguy]

Here's a new update - yesterday the Kansas City Star put out an article talking about how World Revival Church covered up a rape. https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article247821580.html