Even if you kids were only propositioned, as you appear to be claiming, that is also a crime.

You say your children are away from the church? That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Away from the church can mean closer to God. It depends on their hearts.

Please tell us your evidence for your charges.

These scandals are always messy. And painful.

But what is most painful is the pathological failure of the Church to come up with a means of dealing with stumbling pastors and leaders.

A very good friend of mine (he was best man at my wedding) was a pastor in an AoG church and was forced by his wife to file for divorce. He expected to be removed from his pulpit, but what hurt the most was once the news of his divorce and removal was announce HE NEVER HEARD FROM ANOTHER MEMBER OF THE CHURCH AGAIN! And he had been the pastor of his church for more than three or four years.

Not one congregant. Not one fellow pastor. Not one overseer ever called him or visited him or offered counsel to him in any way.

His pain was deep. And now, nearly ten years later, he is only just beginning to re-establish a relationship with God, shaky though it is.

Unfortunately we had lost touch with each other before these events and didn’t reconnect until six years after.

We are all sinners, saved by grace. The church needs teams of “trauma surgeons” to be dispatched to treat cases like these. Even when the wounds are self-inflicted. Especially when the wounds are self-inflicted.

But we’re afraid to. Especially with sexual sin. Why? It seems to me Christians feel the same terror at sins like adultery and homosexuality as the world reserves for convicted child molesters. We seem to not believe they can change.

Maranatha! Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Thanks for writing an article allowing Ted’s side–and the TRUTH–to be told.

I love New Life Church, but I would like for someone–anyone–to go to the Overseers and confront them on the way that Ted & Gayle were treated.

The church blew it big-time.

You just got on my list of heroes. But take it further. Continue your quest for true family in the family of God. Especially continue to love the folk who disagree with you. In their own way they are trying the best they know how. Thanks for not giving up on Ted, don’t give up on the church family that has been so wounded by this. Some of them will open their eyes.

The questions you are asking are the right ones. You already know that. Families have trouble. They all have trouble. Determine to draw a circle that includes even those who exclude you.

They drew a circle that put me out
“Rebel!” “Heretic!” a thing to flout
But love and I had the wit to win
We drew a circle that took them in

Someone put those words in my hand when I was being excluded. The advice worked wonders.

I really need to read the rest and soon because this hurts my heart. Three very dear friends of mine belong to this church and this kind of commentating only continues to fuel more division and angst among the believers there and around the world- in my opinion, of course.

Yeah… I am sorry Ted feels like the secular world saved him and the believers turned their back when they exhibited what they considered to be church discipline by letting him go- but he’s right… his willful choices as a leader and someone who spoke out against the very things he was doing is what got everyone into this tangled mess.

I emailed Ted (through his website) asking about Gayle, how she was, how she was coping, was she getting the support she needed and of course inviting her to P4P since this is what I do… minister to women who have been affected by the sexual sin of someone they love. My email went unanswered… I’m sure he gets a lot of mail.

I look forward to reading more.
-mt

I too struggle with anger and resentment towards the church; it is a constant battle within me…the battle of good and evil in my mind.

I continued to attend New Life Church for over a year after Ted left. I kept thinking, one of these days we are going to talk about this. Maybe when Ross Parsley (the interim pastor) gets settled in, but nothing…not a word about what had happened. Then I thought when Brady Boyd came in, now we will talk about what happened…but nothing.

Living here in Colorado Springs I find very few New Life people with a heart of forgiveness. My wife and I were part of a couples Bible study group for almost a year, we had to quit three weeks ago. There were 10 couples, all from New Life except us (It was not a New Life sponsored group). Back in January Ann and I spoke about seeing the HBO Special; we were verbally attacked for even mentioning Ted’s name. We continued to talk about our contact with Ted and Gayle and this group continued to ostrasize us and tell us how wrong we were to even be communicating with him.

Three weeks ago I stood my ground with this group and I asked for them to please sit down and watch the HBO special, to just listen to the “other side”. The group leader, whose home we met in, decided to go ask the pastor of New Life Church Small Groups if he thought it would be a good idea to watch the HBO special. This pastor told our group leader not to watch the video, he came back to the group and told them that New Life would not allow us to watch the video…THAT WAS THREE WEEKS AGO! Ann and I resigned from the group.

My experience and it is MY EXPERIENCE has been that the best way to describe New Life church would be to open with the clip from the movie A Few Good Men…You can’t handle the Truth.

This is a group of people who don’t want to read what the actual by-laws said about how the Overseers were to act and what they actually did. This is a group of people who do not want to hear that there was no restoration process. This is a group of people who do not want to watch the HBO special. This has been my experience.

If you want to change the temperature in a room of Christians here in Colorado Springs, just mention Ted’s name, and you will feel the change in the room…it is palatable. And as long as I am alive I will continue to challenge every Christian I meet to look at what happened here.

One thing many NLC people have said to my wife and I is “Why did Ted go to HBO to tell his story!!”. I ask the same question, only with a little different inflection in my voice…Why God, why must this family go to the secular media. Why God can’t we trust in you and sit down as a family? Why? Just as you said, you cannot have restoration without communication…it is what keeps divorce lawyers swamped with work.

We love you Ted, Gayle and family…welcome back, welcome home…we missed you.

Thanks again Donny, love you brother.

Steve and Ann G