[askseek]

Don R. on family

In the LC there was a real lack of vision regarding the very crucial and critical role of the family in God's plan and purpose. Sadly, in the LC, many parents made serious mistakes and did not receive needed healthy instruction regarding raising children for the Lord. Frankly, I absolutely love to speak of the family and how powerful the four generational wall of testimony is.

Jane A. responds

LC teachings were off concerning marriage and family. How many Christian churches can you go to today that teach you the church comes before marriage and family? Where is this in the Bible?

We were taught that if you take care of the Lord and the church, God will take care of your marriage and children. This is clearly not biblical, but we bought it. I remember in my first years in the LC being told that Samuel Chang said the most important thing we could do for our children was to be consecrated. That translated into consecrated to the church.

Children need time. They need a lot of hands on involvement, praise, encouragement, etc. They need to know they are important. Both of my children have told me that they always knew they came in second when it came to the church. If there was an event for them (school or recreational) and a church event at the same time, the church event took precedence. Suffice it to say that because the church took all our time, their events got basically none.

In the years after we left, God made me face squarely what I did wrong in my family. I had to do some serious soul searching and repenting to my husband and to my children. Then, I had to change my behavior and show them they were important and that their things were important. I'm still working on that. I will need to walk that way the rest of my life. I will never be able to make up for my neglect. I can cry thinking about it.

If you want to understand why so many kids grew up with problems, ask the sisters. They had to deny their most basic instincts concerning the family. Most of the brothers were happily off with their heads in the meeting clouds. The sad thing was that everything in me wanted to do the right thing for my children, but the unhealthy teaching I was receiving told me that was my "self".

I am thankful every day that the Lord has had mercy on my children. The one thing I did right was not cram the program down their throats. If they didn't want to be involved, they were free not to be. I never made them "call on the Lord," etc. I knew that God had come to me and won my heart as a child, and I wanted the same for my children. I prayed that He would win them, and He did. Mercy.

Don responds

I did hear from some like Samuel Chang such statements, but this teaching was among those that came from peculiar personalities. In my history I mentioned this phenomenon of peculiar personalities having outsized influence in the LC. I should have developed it much more, but I was afraid I would come across as too negative and decided to let this part of the history go. This thread illustrates that was probably a mistake. There were a lot of odd teachings that gained some traction here and there. The anti-marriage stuff was ridiculous. I shot it down whenever I could. The baloney about how miserable the wives could make the husbands and vice versa was one of my favorite targets. I would never let it go by. I would counter about my own experience with Sheryl and report about many other very happily married couples.

The LC collected a lot of peculiar people who were damaged in some way. They often applied things in an extreme way. Some of the leaders did not practice proper leadership because they were themselves damaged and odd.