I’ll Stand
You stood before creation. Eternity within Your hand. You spoke the earth into motion. My soul now to stand.
“The Stand” by Hillsong United
You stood before creation
Eternity within Your hand
You spoke the earth into motion
My soul now to stand
You stood before my failure
Carried the Cross for my shame
My sin weighed upon Your shoulders
My soul now to stand
So what can I say
What can I do
But offer this heart O God
Completely to You
So I’ll walk upon salvation
Your Spirit alive in me
This life to declare Your promise
My soul now to stand
So what can I say
What can I do
But offer this heart O God
Completely to You
So I’ll stand
With arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all
So I’ll stand
My soul Lord to You surrendered
All I am is Yours
“I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.”
Martin Luther
Mark, if something is not true, I will recant it. I’m not afraid of eating crow :)
good point: it may be even harder to recant untruth than to stand for truth..
on Christ Alone we stand (man is unworthy so all other ground is sinking sand)
So… 3 people don’t like these worship videos? That’s odd.
Brian, I am wondering about this one. Why have people chosen to dislike a posting of songs? If anyone in future does so should there be a forward to clearly say what inspired and motivated the special postings of songs? Are people reading way too much into Brian’s choice of selection? These are Christian songs exalting Jesus our Lord. Anyway, maybe a short paragraph stating the purpose or inspiration for posting songs should be considered.
You make a valid point gc. My posting of worship songs without a reason is just as bad as the President of ubf posting quotes for no reason.
I was just SO depressed after reading the Toledo UBF messages (I had to get caught up after not reading them for awhile). I was going to just post the songs… but then I decided to also share how hopless I felt after the latest Toledo UBF message. I remember Sunday after Sunday feeling so hopeless after reading the Toledo UBF messages, and then trying to write my own for Detroit UBF. I guess I had hoped for some improvement, but didn’t find much.
Anyway, good night y’all. All I can say is “yippee skippee” to Terry… I guess your stories prove that ubf is such a happy place afterall with no real issues to address except all those bad people who left and were such wimps and couldn’t make up their own mind.
Don’t mind my ramblings, I’m just part of the fertilizer who got ground up in the ubf machine so that such wonderful things could happen…
Brian,
Thanks for misrepresenting me. :-) And thank you for mocking me with your question: Why do I speak this way? When I shared I wanted to start a thread, “Why?” and posed a series of non-threatening questions that I found to be interesting… :-)
I am very thankful for the critique that is going on here about real issues and problems happening in UBF. I NEVER said there were no problems, but you certainly want to ‘pin’ that allegation on me. What I DID SAY, is that UBF is not a cult AND I think calling Msn. Samuel Lee a cult leader was weak and unimpressive… And I still believe that regardless of how much you misrepresent me or mock me…
Have a good night. :-)
I will tell you all what is most impressive to me are the few stories that Joe shared about when he brought up the issues to elders and leaders and their responses. Chris shared his own experience and that is impressive to me. It is those those stories that resonate the most with me.
I know that it must be hard for our leaders to have to address some of these issues, especially mistreatment by those who are in leadership positions, but they should or else it will only come back to bite them in the behind. I’m very glad that this website is here because there are real issues that aren’t being addressed by the ministry and it should be.
But I also believe that it cuts both ways. It takes two to tango. Chris, brings up a matter of his time in UBF and his labor and it appears that he does so to add to his grievance, but it isn’t very persuasive to me at all (if that is what he is doing). Also, he brings up the matter of the young woman who was engaged to him (I don’t know if he eventually married her or not, but if he didn’t), and he brings it up as though UBF wronged him about the matter. If the young woman decided not to marry him, even if at the strong advice or even at the ‘misleading’ of the director, by calling him ‘unspiritual’ or whatever, in the end it was her choice. Chris may be upset and angry and he has every right to be, but this young girl is not ‘his’. And his time in UBF, I imagine was done because he believed he was serving God. If that is the case, he has lost nothing. God knew what he did and did not see it as a waste, but accepts it fully and completely. But if it is part of Chris’ grievance against UBF, it is not persuasive to me, because he offered that to a man (his director) and he should have never of done such a thing. ALL men will eventually disappoint us in the end.
The same goes for Brian. He speaks of how miserable he has been in UBF these 20 years, but the simple question is: Why did you stay so looooooooong????? I think that’s a really great question and just blaming others for manipulating you is not a very persuasive answer. You are a grown man and you had your Bible and you lived in a city far from everyone else. Saying that UBF is a really sophisticated cult and really good at manipulating people, just rings hollow… You made choices and you allowed yourself to be deceived.
There is an old Japanese proverb that says: “The deceived is worse than the deceiver.” This is not to exonerate the deceiver. The deceiver deserves to be punished. But the deceived allowed themselves to be deceived and they can’t blame others for their part and folly.
I love what Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet,
“Well, look how you play me—as if you knew exactly where to put your fingers, to blow the mystery out of me, playing all the octaves of my range—and yet you can’t even produce music from this little instrument? My God, do you think I’m easier to manipulate than a pipe? You can push my buttons, but you can’t play me for a fool.”
So, I don’t think every thing is ‘yipee’ and ‘skipee’ as you put it, but at the same time I don’t think all is as bad as you paint it and would like everyone to believe…
Terry, I think that ubf was successful in manipulating because it “focuses on campus evangelism”. When you are fished into ubf you are very young, you are the easiest target for manupilation. And btw ubf is going to focus on campus students no matter what the Bible says (:)))
I think many people who share here do this for sake of those campus students so that they wouldn’t be such easy targets as we were.
Also they do this because they are right, and are following the Holy Spirit. (and for the sake of ubf people, “if God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth”)
Vitaly,
I find it interesting that Brian thinks that I paint everything as “Yipee” and “Skippee”. I think you paint everything about UBF as “dark”, “menacing”, and “evil”. Hmmm… I guess it’s a matter of opinion…
“There is an old Japanese proverb that says: “The deceived is worse than the deceiver.” This is not to exonerate the deceiver. The deceiver deserves to be punished. But the deceived allowed themselves to be deceived and they can’t blame others for their part and folly.”
Terry, this may be a Japanese proverb. But according to Christian ethics, the deceiver is clearly worse than the deceived. Deception is clearly called a sin in the Bible, but I haven’t found credulity described as a sin very often.
Also, if you really believe that allowing yourself to be deceived is so bad, why don’t you inform better about UBF, why do you always say “I don’t care”, “I will only address real, live people” etc. Isn’t this a recipe for getting deceived?
For instance, how can you make educated decisions in elections as a citizen of your country? Do you meet every politician personally and talk with them to find if you can trust them?
gc,
Personally, the ‘like’, ‘dislike’ buttons IMO are not very helpful.
Vote on this comment for the buttons:
Like on this comment = keep them
Dislike on this comment = get rid of them
Okay, I am going to say no matter on this thread or another. (Maybe it’s easier to see here since there are few comments.)
Leave Terry alone about the use of his expression. His stories and analogies reveal his personality. There are real points he is making even if they seem a little long. Some people are direct and short, others are long but factual. Everyone has their own way of sharing with others. I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with anyone, but just bear with Terry and be happy that he is willing to come back. He is also willing to be personal. I once said about Wesley that I appreciated the fact that he was personal, but too many attacks has left him maybe as a silent reader.
As for the picture that is being painted by his stories I can see from what Terry says that there is more to the story, but he is rather examining graceful or positive experiences. We need a counterbalance to all of the abuse, otherwise, why would anyone really stay in UBF at all?
I’d like to share another stoy.
It’s about me. There were several times that I felt like leaving UBF, after I got married. I had built up my greivances against the ministry, I felt that I had been wronged in this way or that way. And I would tell my wife, I want to leave, I’m tired of being disrespected or why does Msn. Isaac like so and so better, when I try so hard and many other things. And everytime I would bring up this or that, my wife Mari would say, “What about you? What’s your role to play in all this?” Why doesn’t Msn. Isaac respect you? Have you given him any reason to do so?” Depending on what I said, she would always turn it back on me. At the time, I really, really didn’t like when she did that. I would think, “But what about them? And what they did?” But she always reminded me of all the good they did for me and also to look at myself again and again and again. And now I am sooooo thankful she did so. I learned that often times my greivances weren’t exactly as honest as I painted them to be. I easily blamed others, but conveniently overlooked my own part to play in the whole matter. And when she did this, she helped me to learn that my greivances were FULL of personal bias and blame, but it wasn’t that honest. It was not easy to accept what my wife said to me, but I’m so glad she stood up to me and was willing to be the bad guy so that I could come out of my bitterness and anger and realize that it wasn’t nearly as bad as I made it out to be.
I should share with you my wife’s name is Mari. In Japanese it means Truth. My wife’s sister’s name is Megumi it means Grace. Interestingly, they both live up to their names. My brother in law married Grace, but I married Truth. And amusingly that is what I needed. If I was allowed to think whatever I wanted without being challenged by my wife, I would have been the real loser, but by God’s grace I got to marry someone who was willing to call a spade a spade and tell me things I didn’t want to acknowledge or admit.
I have to say my whole life I blamed others for my condition. My mother and father divorced when I was young. My father ‘kidnapped’ me and one of my sisters (the one he sexually abused), when he had visiation rights for the weekends, but he kept us for several years. We were only found when I went from apartment to apartment asking for milk and cereal, because my father had spent all the money on alcohol. I was returned to my mother. But my mother had married a physically abusive man, who was also a massive drug dealer. Eventually my step father slept with an aunt of ours. And the relationship between them was broken. My mother found a girlfriend and became a lesbian. I went to 7 different high schools in 3 different states, California, Mass., and Washington State. I went through a great deal in my life. And I used to blame my upbringing and all the chaos on why I am the way I am. I used to seek people’s pity and mercy to get what I wanted.
Now I should say, that I am truly a man of great weakness and that is no exaggeration. I have committed grevious sins. Some may have heard some of them in my messages. But I am so thankful that I am no longer bound by my past or make excuses for it to cover for my failings and wekanesses today. I shared about being vulnerable and I really do believe that the real reason anyone can be vulnerable is when they truly know that they are in the hand of God. I can apologize, I can confess my sins, I can make myself vulnerable, but NO ONE can harm me. And part of that is being honest. And I thank God for giving me a wife who always held me up to the truth and to stop looking at others and blaming others.
The real reason I don’t go and read all the ‘testimonies’ of those who left is because it is only ‘one side’ of the story and I am going to imagine that they are no different than me and put the blame fully and squarely on UBF and don’t see their own part to play in their time in UBF.
Terry, you have many valid and good points. Your contributions are very valued and important. I respect you so much and have such a warm memory of how much you made me feel loved and welcomed as a brother. When so many people around me acted as my shepherd or my father, you acted truly as my brother. It revealed to me the love of Christ and what it is like to enjoy mutual fellowship as believers in Christ so clearly.
However, I quite strongly disagree with your above comments. I don’t think that Bible teachers and Bible students should bear equal blame (although I don’t like that choice of words) when their relationship dissolves, because they didn’t have an equal balance of power in the relationship to start with. When a Bible teacher by his (or her) own teaching expects to treated as a father, as one above, not as an equal in Christ, the relationship is not equitable. I was implicitly taught that obeying my Bible teacher equated to obeying God, and vice-versa. I can own my own actions, but it isn’t fair to neglect the un-equal atmosphere in which I acted. Perhaps an analogy can be drawn to battered woman syndrome–due to the imbalance of power, she chooses to stay. It was her decision, but there’s a reason behind her decision. That’s how I feel. True, I decided to remain in UBF, marry by faith, neglect my children, pressure my Bible students, and turn blind eyes to unethical things. Those were my decisions. But there’s a reason why I made those decisions.
From my perspective, I don’t want UBF to take the blame for the wrong things I myself did. I own those things and I’ve repented before God and (wherever possible) the ones I wronged. But let’s do address the power imbalances, lording-over authority, and works-centered gospel that exerted a tremendous and undue amount of influence in motivating (nay, I would even say, deceiving) me into thinking that every single thing I did was somehow wonderfully pleasing to God.
Joshua,
I don’t disagree with what you write at all. I’m not talking about equality of blame. What I am saying is that not everything and every grievance is necessarily the fault or blame of UBF. I agree that the one who is in a position of leadership, especially as a Bible teacher, Pastor, Chapter Director, General Director, etc. is absolutely more responsible and has a greater deal to be accountable for. I don’t disagree with that at all.
Terry, my wife was very similar to yours. Every time I had disagreement with the director she talked to me according to the “truth”. She rebuked me and asked, “Are you the smartest man? Do you think you are better than the servants of God?” And I stepped back and replied, “No, I am not the smartest. I am just seeking justice and truth”.
Once she told me crying, “If you ever leave ubf you will ruin my life”. She didn’t leave ubf, she was kicked out by the director and his wife. And she was called “worse than your husband”. Her friend in Moscow at once wrote a letter to GD. And he responded immediately. And what? He suggested our family to pioneer a new ubf chapter (following the Peace family example in Ukraine). That’s about it. Nothing was going to change, NOTHING, the servants of God are still always right and the ubf system is ever perfect.
But after my wife was kicked out she confessed that she had suicidal thought BECAUSE OF UBF several times. She couldn’t bear the pressure. And she saw me “leaving” ubf. I was physically very sick, unable to attend a meeting, unable to do anything BECAUSE OF THE UBF PRESSURE. I was very loyal to ubf. But my inner sufferings went out to my health problems. I believe that it was God’s time for me to stop attending ubf meetings and to start thinking out of the ubf system. By the health problems I mean heart problems. I thought I would literally die. That was the ubf fruit. I didn’t make it up. I just had to “leave”.
After some time I attended two meetings (my wife was still in ubf) but I couldn’t bear the meetings, I went out of the center before the end of the meetings. I had some time to think and to pray and the ubf reality and its messages without the circle of ubf activities’ influence on me seemed to me sick, very unhealthy. Then I left and shared my thoughts with brothers and sisters. To tell you the truth they told me the same things you share now. They asked me to come back many times. They stopped attending some meetings (which were daily) and stopped writing sogams. They just started to follow the director’s example absolutely )). (He didn’t do anything himself, he just trained others to do this and that). They had time to think and pray. They shut the director up every time he yelled at them. And one day they left for a healthy church.
I like Chris’s comments about all these things and I’d like to add one point: I don’t like the directors’ LIE about all who left or were kicked out. And this one thing – the directors’ LIE is enough for me to understand who they are (clearly not the annointed servants of God, but just typical cult leaders) and that I can’t trust them anything especially my family and my children and my brothers and sisters in Christ.
btw Terry, I trusted the director as to my father. He demanded the trust and absolute obedience saying, “I am the servant of God, you must obey me. You can’t dream about God’s blessing if you don’t obey God’s servant”. But this father and the servant of God actually deceited me from the start, manipulated and abused. You can never see it until you start asking questions and think for yourself and LISTEN to some out of ubf sermons and Bible study materials.
groups must pony up for collective influence (no different than gangs); if claims lead to games, a pride is paid; neglect/pressure/unethical are bad fruit from bad motives; we need gall to get good motives until bear good fruit;
the travesty is when individuals on track (sincere seekers) get blown off track by compromised ‘players’..
Joshua,
I’m so glad you responded to my post. :-) I hope your family is well. My oldest son Peter, got accepted to USC, but I’m not sure if we will be able to afford for him to go. But we’ll see. :-)
Terry,
You mentioned “spring cleaning” twice recently:
“Like I said, God is in the midst of spring cleaning in our ministry…”
“UBF is not in a crisis, IMHO, but I certainly think it is going through a really good spring cleaning by God…”
So you think God is cleaing up UBF right now? Like getting rid of the trash. Getting rid of all those leaders who think for themselves. The weak, the bitter, the depressed. Those who can’t hack it. Those who don’t agree with the UBF heritage. The creative thinkers, the critical thinkers, the independent thinkers. Those who are too family centered, too sinful, too worldly. Those who can’t handle the burdens of life. The rebellious, the trouble-makers, the disloyal, the disobedient. Those who talk about Jesus too much, love the gospel too much. The Hallelujah Christians, the raise-your-hands-in-worship Christians, the Holy Spirit filled Christians.
Yea, ubf must be so clean now.
Precisely. The people who left or were driven out were not the problem. The problems are squarely among those who remain.
To clarify: I didn’t mean that everyone who has stayed in ubf is problematic. I meant that all the people who cause the problems are still there.
Brian,
Actually, I wasn’t thinking that at all. I was thinking the exact opposite. I believe there are old wineskins in the ministry. I think there is generational change going on; I think the real issues brought up here on this site are now in the open and are having to be addressed. I think there is all kinds of things going on; this is the ‘spring cleaning’ I am talking about.
anybody left after all that religious cleansing?
thank God most don’t forever fit such ridiculous, ludicrous boxed-in mentality
yeah Mr Clean has made everyone squeaky clean all right
Mark,
Would it be me, that you allude to when you write, “ridiculous, ludicrous, boxed in mentality”?
Terry,
no, i refer to silent unchangers who hide behind the baggage like Saul, hoping to evade difficult service, preferring beneficial advantages hoarded unto their tender selves..
but i think you see issues being addressed behind the scenes which i question the authenticity of: it’s easy to make a committee to pretend to do something & say look we care; i say invalid based on history until proven trustable (skepticism is a learned attribute; show me true motives & i’ll believe change)
i agree more with what Brian wrote above that systems/organizations more easily cleanse by avoiding necessary self-change & instead purging all different/opposing views: infortunately the dross often kick out the silver, but someday the silver will wise up to go it alone without the baggage of the dross; HALLELUJAH!
no i’m not a ‘hallelujah christian’ (not really:) but i love taking people’s attention off their own presumed greatness, to instead say: PRAISE GOD (hallelujah)
Mark,
I prefer men who tell others straightly who they are talking to.
me too, unfortunately we learn not to do that since people don’t want that, can’t handle it; also sometimes we give others a dose of their own methods to give the point..
Here’s another awesome Christian worship song:
http://youtu.be/bxWncNbaWoo
Worship like this is one of the best ways I’ve found to cope with the emotions that come up on my journey of recovery from ubf.
Another excellent Christian song:
Vitaly, this is awesome! Thanks so much for sharing. I love Rich Mullins songs. It’s too bad he was taken from this life early. I also really like Third Day.
Need a “conflicted” button for this one :)
Mark,
That to me is hiding behind the ‘baggage’…
let’s stand on Christ Alone, man is totally unworthy
http://www.gettymusic.com/hymns-inchristalone.aspx
In Christ alone my hope is found; He is my light, my strength, my song; This cornerstone, this solid ground, Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
religion has been found wanting, God himself puts my family first;
sorry, religion, you are only a tool to be used for the well-being of families
works made man try to take a mission upon himself (devil deceived into thinking could do it); then man had to misuse others to try to get the impossible mission done, sacrificing individuals/families in the process…God has cursed such mistake
God has blessed simply seeking Holy Spirit help, church is only to worship God not control man…
don’t we know God can easily bring many to Himself if we just sincerely try to follow His right ways with His help; wouldn’t you be attracted to people who do so?, to a God who helps so?
In Christ alone, indeed. But is the “wrath of God satisfied” or the “love of God magnified?”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/05/presbyterians-decision-to-drop-hymn-stirs-debate/2618833/
You’ll find out on Sunday.
both; politics will never end, until Christ Alone comes again:)
may the Holy Spirit guide young & old what to stand on (too often humanism has confused the world & religious humanism has confused the church)