Recently ubfriends was requested to review messages from El Camino UBF, in California USA. I must admit that I have no patience anymore for the garbage that churns out each Sunday from UBF chapter directors and shepherds. The messages are so shallow that they hardly warrant a review. Reluctantly, I took a look at the latest El Camino UBF message. What I saw intrigued me. Here are my thoughts.
What is your name?
The latest publicly posted message from El Camino UBF is on Mark 4:35-5:20. The conclusion is what peaked my interest. At the end of the message, the messenger asks, What is your name? This intrigued me immediately because I am confused by the name of El Camino UBF. They claim to be “Shepherd’s Church”. Their website makes no mention of a UBF connection. They give no address to contact them other than they exist somewhere in Torrance CA.
What are they trying to do? This is the trend I have recently seen in Canada: some satellite UBF chapters, outside of Chicago, are making an effort to disassociate from the UBF International organization. Clearly they are still UBF, for their photos show them attending the UBF conferences and the draping of UBFism is all over their websites and messages. But officially they are publicly disconnecting themselves from the stigma of the UBF name. So what is the name of this group on several California campuses? Are they El Camino UBF? Are they Shepherd’s Church?
Shepherds Church – A UBF Name Change and Front Group
I get it. It makes sense. UBF carries the cult label and all the negative accusations that I an others have leveled against them. So you don’t want to be known as University Bible Fellowship. Instead of addressing the reasons why people call you a cult, you change your name to Shepherd’s Church. Still the cult control and authoritarianism of UBFim is recognizable. Any UBF sheep can spot the traits of UBFism.
One thing for sure, John Chun Baik is the leader. His name is the registered owner of shepherdschurch.org and he is the one reporting to UBF. Here is a blog post tying the two names together: UBF: Ur Being Fractured
The Message
Ok so here are my thoughts on the actual message given lecture style in Shepherd’s Church/El Camino UBF.
My first impression is that this lecture is a fairly typical, shallow handling of the Bible text– par for the course at UBF. This is a “look at verse” type lecture every UBFer knows oh so well. The messenger clearly has not obtained theological Christian training, employing a weak exegesis, jumping into a hermeneutic of sacrifice and delivering the standard homily of loyalty to UBFism.
Some Statements that stand out
“Name represents the person’s true identity.” << Really? Maybe they should apply this themselves…
“This lost identity of their own person is actually a common problem people have.” << Ah ok. This is one reason why I entitled my book Identity Snatchers…
Rating – Sermon Danger
On the Karcher Sermon Danger Scale, this message gets a “Severe – The Electrical Fire”.
Characteristics:
1. Definition: almost no details are explained about the problem
2. Purpose: the purpose is not explained and requires individual repentance
3. Scope: the problem is found in some of us
4. Research: the viewpoints of other people are dismissed and disparaged
5. Strategy: vague solutions are presented and not explained
6. Results: the picture of how we will be better is vaguely painted
Rating – Messenger Qualities
On the Karcher Message Rating Scale, the messenger gets “2 stars – robot (structured, predictable, uninspiring)”
This messenger tries to follow some sort of prescribed formula for delivering a message. They often share a message that stifles the audience. They may state the gospel but don’t know how to reveal or articulate the gospel of Jesus. The message may inspire the messenger to a degree, but the message falls flat for most of the audience. This messenger usually has potential to become a preacher, but falls short of preaching a sermon.
Here is more intel on the El Camino UBF chapter:
http://ubfriends.net/el-camino-ubf-harvest-southbay-church-gardena-the-list/
The Shepherds Church website is fascinating. They publicly admit to the shepherd reports (fishing quotas and one to one studies).
http://www.shepherdschurch.org/home/one-to-one-instructions
The pressure to meet these quotas is damaging to students trying to take classes and/or work.
Speaking of one-to-one quotas and all the guilt and peer pressure to meet those quotas (usually 12 per week), here is a tip that was actually given to me as “spiritual direction”…. by a top leader at ubf:
Have Bible study with stuffed animals
So the prayer topics never changed. It’s still about quotas, which is not surprising to me any more because cults exist for the benefit of their founders and leaders, not for the well-being of their members.
The legitimate church that my family and I are currently attending announces a variety of prayer topics to meet the different needs of individuals, families, and the community.
For example, people (not just the people at this particular church)and I , of course, have been praying for my health. I am happy to report that I am now cancer – and drug-free!
Another person was healed from stage 4 cancer although his doctors had declared that his cancer was incurable. God is good!!! All this happened last week. Actually two more healings took place.
At the UBF organization, people rarely prayed for healing. One prayer topic I never heard was for someone’s salvation because the real needs of people were not important. I realized that it is the purpose of recruits to meet the needs of the cult and their leaders, such as the need for power.
“I am happy to report that I am now cancer – and drug-free!”
Amen for that!
Brian can you review my recent messagee?
Sure, where is it posted? Do you mean share a review here on ubfriends?
I’ll email it to you sometime today. Yes, you can reproduce it, review it, and post it here.
Moriah, my experience in UBF was exactly the same. Actually, the fact that nobody ever prayed for salvation, only that sheep would remain in UBF, was the first red flag that I noticed.
Brian, thank you for reviewing this message. I always thought that the Shepherds Church website was interesting as well. It used to be registered on Google maps as a business at that address too, but last year it was marked “permanently closed” for some reason…
Hi, Hertoa,
In the end, I realized that it’s not about loving God and one’s neighbor. It’s about using God, the Bible, and people to advance UBF goals.
They didn’t even teach us anything useful, such as proper hermeneutics because they don’t know it themselves and don’t think it matters. That’s why their messages are so superficial and filled with UBF ideology.
Have a great day!
Exactly, Hertoa and Moriah, what I and the other leaders in Toledo finally figured out. What UBFers care about is their supreme value of loyalty and their supreme goal of self-preservation.
UBFism is a theology of sacrifice that seeks eternal life through a lasting heritage. All the 1:1 quotas are just to feed the system with new bodies who become resources to preserve the legacy of UBF.
I found this out by asking a lot of questions about the gospel. Christians care about this question, but sadly nearly all UBFers don’t. Oh sure they will talk about the gospel for awhile, but they soon just say “We already know the gospel, so get on with your UBF mission, which by the way is God-ordained and irrevocable.”
I want to explore this hermeneutic comment, for this is of utmost importance. To be a Bible student and/or teacher, you must pay attention to three elements of actual study:
exegesis – extraction of meaning
hermeneutic – the lens by which we interpret meaning
homiletic – the lesson we are communicating
The shallow messages on Sunday at every UBF chapter week after week are due mostly to ignoring these study methods.
UBF claims the inductive study method. What they mean is they do the following, mostly without thinking about it:
The UBF exegesis is a superficial observation of facts in the passage.
The UBF hermeneutic is always “mission”. Every verse they claim is to be interpreted in light of mission and if there is no mission you skip over the verses as being not relevant.
The UBF homily (lesson) is always “be loyal”. The Bible passage and the lesson is aligned every Sunday with an element of UBFism (one of the 12 heritage points such as “Spiritual Order”). This seems so magical until you actually study the Bible. Then you see all the contradictions.
In the end, because UBFism is built more on repetitive reductionism than actual study, they live a scripted life void of actual learning. I’ve learned more about the Bible and Christianity in the last 5 years since resigning than I did in all 24 years combined.
UBFers should make use of my ubferator generator instead of wasting so much time sitting on folding chairs each week.
Shepherds Church just released a particularly troubling message on its website: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=c2hlcGhlcmRzY2h1cmNoLm9yZ3xzaGVwaGVyZHMtY2h1cmNofGd4OjM0ZDVmMDJlNTljZDNlNDU
So many half-truths. So many warnings that have an element of truth, but then proceed into the danger zone. There are parts of this message that are, quite literally, an “anti-gospel”.
The whole point of the rich young ruler is that he was depending on his works, his righteousness, to earn salvation. That’s why Jesus told him to sell his possessions and follow him! He didn’t need to work harder to be saved; he needed a new paradigm, a new foundation–a new life.
Yet, look at the UBF interpretation:
“Because the standard you must meet to enter the kingdom of God is so high – you have to keep the commandments, and in order to keep the commandments, you must not have anything you hold back, instead, you must sell everything you have, give to the poor and follow Jesus as his disciples…. People want to inherit eternal life, but most of people fail to secure eternal life, because they do not sell everything they have and give to the poor.”
In other words, it’s not about Jesus’ atoning sacrifice. It’s not about the divine grace of God, loving and saving us even while we were still sinners. Rather, to be saved you have to follow all the commandments, and then another one! That’s not “good news” at all.
“But those who love something else in this life and thereby, refuse to sell it reject God’s invitation and eternal life.”
If you love anything, that means that you need to repent, or else you are not saved!!! It is remarkable that UBF messages place fear-inducing statements like this adjacent to the command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Did not God make the world “good”? Was it not our purpose to subdue and rule it to His glory, and to live in loving fellowship with our fellow humans?
There is so much characteristic, flawed UBF theology in this message. There is so much un-biblical twisting. I could respond to every paragraph in this document with scripture references if I had time, but I don’t. Instead, I’ll close with a section that was particularly troubling to me:
“…from time to time, [believers] wonder if they are saved or not; when this doubt rises, they are so scared. At that time, what do they do? They struggle hard to suppress this burden, and try hard to believe that they are saved, saying, ‘No, I believe I am saved.’… [The rich young man] was such a sincere person unlike so many Christians today.”
This is troubling because of how cleverly manipulative it is. Faith in Christ’s work on the cross? Justification by faith? The paradigm shift of recognizing that no works, no organization, no Law could possibly save us and that it is only by the grace of God that we can be restored to right relationship with Him? According to UBF, this is just “hypnosis” (yes, that’s in the document!). What’s more, John Baik puts so much emphasis on this point: “he was sincere”. In other words, even believers who have sincere faith will be shut out of heaven because they are not good enough.
UBFers always talk about “blaspheming the Spirit” incorrectly. They think that when former members criticize UBF, they are committing this “sin” by knowingly speaking out against the work of the Spirit. Ironically (even though this is a flawed interpretation), UBFers do the exact same thing by condemning faith in Jesus as pure “hypnosis” and presumptuously claiming that in order to be saved you have to be fully submitted to UBF doctrine.
I hope beyond hope that any members of Shepherds Church or any UBF organization might genuinely study the scriptures and pray for God’s direction, outside the echo chamber of manipulation, rebukes, and repetitive slogans that is UBF.
Okay, rant over. After reading that message I just felt that I needed to get it off my chest.
That lecture is a classic example of a “Code Red – Nuclear Fire” lecture on the Karcher danger scale.
I am so very glad that there is a growing former member group from El Camino, California. Some of them contacted me recently. They described El Camino ubf (aka “shepherd’s church”) as not having the physical or sexual abuse that has occurred in other places. I thank God for that.
But these former members described other kinds of abuse. They told me how excited they are about discovering the love of God in Jesus, and how their Bible students also rejoiced at this love. They are SO very passionate about the Holy Spirit.
But… when this news of joy was shared with the El Camino shepherds and missionaries, the mood changed. The missionaries were so depressed and cared almost nothing about the reports of students being lead by the Holy Spirit to find the love of Jesus. Instead, they just rebuked the now-former members, saying “Are your sheep going to attend the conference or not?”
This is mental abuse. It may be more dangerous, in fact, than physical abuse. You are spot on, Hertoa, in that the lectures are twisting the Bible.
The examples you point out are part of the theology UBF teaches–the theology of sacrifice. Pinpointing the problems of UBFism is often like nailing jelly to a wall. But when we all begin looking at these lectures with our own mind, we can clearly see the problems. The flaws are so numerous that we can hardly mention them in 20,000 comments…
This theology of sacrifice could be swiftly corrected. The deeper, far more troubling aspect here for me is the fact that no one challenges the Sunday lectures!
I know why. To challenge a Sunday message is like facing death. It is not fun. It is like standing at the gates of hell. But it must be done.
This quote from this horribly wicked and poisoned lecture says everything. This is called portrayal. The thoughts below are the real thoughts of the lecturer. But he portrays them onto the Bible character in this passage:
“But despite his desire and despite his struggles thus far, he still had no confidence if he had eternal life; he was still looking for a way to have it. In his eyes, it seemed that Jesus had eternal life, because of his messages about the kingdom of God and his miraculous power.”
Ironcially, UBF is a mission field in and of itself. UBF chapters are filled with leaders and members who do not know the gospel. Even SB herself does not articulate the gospel very well. UBF is a land of dry bones, waiting for someone to share the gospel with them.
John Armstrong tried for many years, but in the end even he could not persuade the leaders to accept the gospel.
Our 20,000 comments on our blogs contain the gospel, yet the ubf leaders still refuse to repent. The ubf leaders continue to be glory-seekers with the goal of finding salvation by preserving their heritage.
Jesus is right.
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.
How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” –John 5:39-47
This quote below is a good example proving that ubf teaches students to cut ties with their families. This quote is FULL of red flags. These words fill the air with such a putrid stench that the angels themselves must surely hold their noses!
This is toxic poisoning; arsenic to the soul…this is UBFism… this is the ubf theology of sacrifice that entangles your life until you become an empty shell…
“To some people, “mother,” or “father” is everything they have, or what they value the most – it seems that they have to sacrifice their time and energy for their sick and aged mother, or father, but for the sake of serving Jesus and his gospel, they entrust their sick mother or father to someone else, and go to other country as missionaries. To some people, “children” are everything they have – their little children look at them in the eyes, and with tears, holding their hands, say, “Daddy, don’t go. Stay with me tonight. I want to play with you.” But they leave their children in the apartment, with a very old babysitter and go to serve God’s mission. In the fields, you plant and harvest crops, and with them, you support your family.
These fields are about your secured careers, or businesses and occupations that secure your life. But for Jesus, you give them; instead of holding them, you pursue God’s kingdom work, suffering financially. Jesus remembers and counts all these – what we have done for him, how much we swallowed pains and sorrows all by ourselves for his gospel, and he promises that we would receive his blessings in this life, 100 times what we have left, and in the age to come, eternal life. This is Jesus’ confirmation for anyone and everyone who has left that one thing, who has left everything to follow him as his disciples.”
Exactly, Brian. That last quote is disturbing, especially since I’ve seen it played out multiple times. Rising “shepherds” leaving their helpless families to obey an organization. A mother giving up time with an infant son to fish and attend meetings where children are–unspoken–banned because they are worldly and disruptive. The COMPLETE uprooting of biblical family principles and real love. All encouraged DIRECTLY and OPENLY by messages like this, where the speaker actually tells them “It doesn’t matter that you bring harm to those who love you, because they are nothing. Only following the UBF way of life matters, because that’s what God wants you to do.” Venomous manipulation!
How can they swear by teachings like this while prizing Genesis, a book ABOUT a family? What about Ruth, the story of a woman who leaves everything to SUPPORT the aging Naomi? Or Proverbs, Song of Songs, any of the New Testament epistles on family…really the entire Bible?
Lord, have mercy on them! It breaks my heart.