In principle, I agree. However, in reality you can’t speak (write) in a way that pleases all others. Unless you write about trivialities and that would be boring. A blog becomes interesting if it presents a strong opinion, maybe even in a provocative way. And that will always displease some of the readers.

Also, I don’t think this website should be only a blog. It should be a platform for discussion among Christians. And I don’t think that speaking in a way that others love to listen to you is the ultimate guideline for a Christian. Sometimes you need to address stuff that nobody wants to hear. Ideall this should not happen so often and should be settled quickly. Our problem exists only because UBF is so stubbornly avoiding the discussion and therefore unnecessarily dragging it on, for decades now.

In your last comment you wrote that our judging or rebuke was wrong or problematic because judging or rebuke itself is always wrong, and trying to keep a relationship at all cost is the way to go, which is simply not the case. This is a very important point, and I really want us to agree on that point before we can continue the discussion, and I also want us to agree on not always restarting discussion on that fundamental level again.

You say “If our blogging on UBFriends is primarily a full frontal attack against a few bad leaders”. Ben, the leaders I criticize most are not “a few bad leaders”, but the founder, general directors and Eurpopean directors, i.e. those who influenced the whole organization and created the “UBF system” and “UBF heritage”, who implanted their ideas, teachings and practices into the minds of everyone through the hierarchical pyramid of influence and manipulation. We are not talking about a few bad apples, but about the core teachings of UBF, the teachings that even the nicest and well-meaning UBFers are subconciously following to at least some extend, because nobody can be free from their teachings and influence in the UBF universe, since the indoctrination is so intense, repetitive and long-running and using mind-control methods. So I think it’s really fair and appropriate to criticize these “few leaders”, and at the same time the UBF system, because the UBF system consist of the things these leaders did and taught. It is not a set of rules written on paper, it is the behavior of these leaders that has been copied.

Concerning the “UBF system” or more generally the “shepherding/discipling” system I can only be negative, because it is harmful and wrong in so many ways.

The only way for me to be less negative would be to talk about something different than the UBF system and shepherding/discipling. I’m not sure if this will be really helpful and if I could do that, because to me it will always feel like overlooking the elephant in the room. To me it also has a smell of Dennis Rodman going to North Korea to play baseball and be good friends with Kim Jong-un and even singing “happy birthday” to him.

“I know that you do not care (and really, neither do I), but might it be that our blogging contains more truth and salt than it contains love and full of grace?”

That might well be, but when I’m talking about certain things, I need to send an unambiguous message and make it fully clear that I’m not talking about a side issue that can be solved or cannot be solved, but about a crucial issue that must be solved. When Jesus said “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” you could also blame him for speaking with more truth and salt than with love and grace. There is a time for everything, there is time for love and grace, but there is also time for truth and salt. Sometimes you just can’t wrap your salt in love and grace because it would stop being salty. Or with the words of some prophet, you can’t talk about “peace, peace”, when there is no peace.

Concerning the young UBFers, I’m not really sure whether they don’t understand when I speak very clearly. One problem is that the elder UBFers are always mudding the waters by telling them we are just bitter people, they don’t need to listen to us, what we tell them about our experience and the sins of the former leadership is not true etc. As I said, there is a willful blindness in UBF, on all levels. There are the top leaders like Sarah Barry who, as she admitted herself, simply deleted all email coming from people who were said to belong to the “R-group”. This is willful blindness because it means she was unwilling to see the points of the other side. Her image as the mother who has an open ear for everyone is not true to reality. Then there is the middle tier of members who always appease, deny, downplay, cover up, and refuse to get informed themselves. One of them wrote here he never read the 1976 letter and will never read it. I call this willful blindness as well. And then there are the immature young members who are just too happy about the freedom they got in Christ (that will gradually be taken away from them) and are so over-enthusiastic, naive and trusting that they cannot imagine any UBF leader could have done anything bad. They are the most innocent. Yes, it’s hard to reach these groups. But still, there are always some who can be reached. Brian is an example. I am an example. I read the articles of the reformers with an open mind, and started to see the problems, not caring about the tone of the articles. There just need to be enough people who see the problems and really start to talk about the problems, with urgency and repetition, without stopping to talk until the problems are solved, with the same obtrusiveness and stubbornness and repetitiveness as the Korean leaders when they are indoctrinating us with the UBF system ideology. That’s my opinion.

Ben, do you know how the unjust east German system has been overcome? Did it happen by people discussing the many good sides of the GDR (which also existed)? No. It happened when enough people were fed up with the dictatorship, bondage and injustice, left the country and went on the street shouting “we are the people”.

I know that you do not care (and really, neither do I), but might it be that our blogging contains more truth and salt than it contains love and full of grace?

The offensive and abusive leaders that you are targeting will not (maybe never) read whatever you or I write. But others will. If our blogging on UBFriends is primarily a full frontal attack against a few bad leaders, it just creates a negative distasteful tone, especially to younger UBFers, who may benefit and be enlightened by our comments. So by our relentless full frontal assault, it becomes a turn off, even to current younger UBFers.

Excessive negativity (even if true), which UBFriends is now being accused of, does not promote or encourage anyone to come and read, comment and discuss, primarily because of fear of being “attacked” by us if they ever dare to say anything good about UBF.

“UBF believes that if they keep ignoring us, that the criticism will stop some day because it will become boring to us, and we will look silly to repeat the same old issues.” – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2014/01/15/the-shepherding-movement-and-ubf-part-1/#comment-11976

I generally see Chris’ comments as helpful and rather detailed insight into the ideological fabric behind the topics we discuss. I don’t see Chris as “constantly judging them, caricaturizing them, accusing them, etc” and his comments generally have quite a few “likes”. Chris is sharing his perspective, and whether people regard his perspective as mere subjective musings or not, his perspective is highly valuable. Right now ubf leaders have a treasure trove of helpful perspective from me, bigbear and Chris. But what happens when each of us actually do leave the ubf conversation?

I suspect you already know this but we former ubf leaders aren’t really seeking a “meaningful relationship”. It is rather clear that Chris and I won’t be able to share in any kind of ministry with ubf people any time soon.

I for one do not want a relationship but reconciliation. Does reconciliation require restoration of relationship? I don’t think so, especially in that case of some kind of abuse.

We former leaders experience some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after leaving ubf. I and my friends from Toledo certainly experienced psychological abuse, spiritual abuse and financial abuse to varying degrees. Bigbear can tell of sexual abuse. Just as the first 3 groups of reformers confirmed abuse stories, so have we.

The point is not to delve into every story but to see our perspective. And our perspective, while edgy, is exactly the perspective existing ubf leaders need to pay attention to, not to form a new relationship with us, but to find out how to begin reconciling and seeking healing in ubf ministry.

If they refuse this 4th reform movement, I wonder how much longer God will put up with them?

Our sin is the result of our broken relationship with God and others. Thus, sin can be solved only through restoring relationships. God paid the price to restore relationships with us sinners through the blood of his Son. We can restore relationships with each other when we learn God’s humility, incarnation and condescension.

But if we constantly judge them, caricature them, accuse them, etc, then I really don’t see how any meaningful relationship can ever happen, from which some resolution and reconciliation may happen by the Spirit.

What is the gospel? When Jesus started to preach, he said “The time has come, The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Without repentance, there is no gospel, no Christianity.

Ben, I understand you want to say, they are just too blind or stupid to see their sins. But these people are not stupid. All the top leaders have been students from elite universities, many take pride in Ph.D. titles. They are not Bible illiterates either because they take pride in making more Bible study than anybody else. Is it really so difficult to see that something went wrong? When you read the 1976 letter and all the other letters and articles, is it so difficult to see that Samuel Lee’s practices and methods were wrong and sinful? Can anybody be so stupid not to recognize that is awfully wrong if a church leader pushes a church member to have an abortion, even accompanying her to an abortion clinic? Can anybody be so stupid or have so distorted ethical norms?

And if they are blind, then it’s a wilful blindness. The bible is all about the willingness to open your eyes. “But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” People who don’t want to see, don’t want to hear, don’t want to speak, they are not like Christians, they are more like the three famous apes.

There is only one thing that would prove the UBF leaders “get it” — reconcile with me or bigbear or Chris. When they do that, then they will demonstrate that they are obeying my two demands: 1. admit abuse 2. release the shepherd/sheep bonds.

These demands of mine have not changed in 3 years. And my 2 demands will remain for the rest of my life, Lord willing, the next 40 or 50 years. Nothing else matters.

I listened to a few criticisms of my message, did some research on my own, and admitted “I am wrong”. I’m not say this was easy, but ti was not a miracle of miracles.

I think you are wrong. I do not think it will take a miracle. UBF leaders just need to open their heart and take 1 small step toward me or bigbear or Chris or any other former UBF leader.

This is indeed possible as you and I both witnessed this past Monday with AS. Did he not take a step toward reconcilng with me on Monday? I think so. And it was not a miracle, it was a change of mind (repentance) on both of our parts.

“Also, Chris, I hope I’m wrong, but barring a miracle from heaven, in my lifetime, I really can’t see UBF doing what Mumford did when he said, “Discipleship was wrong. I repent. I ask forgiveness.” – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2014/01/15/the-shepherding-movement-and-ubf-part-1/#comment-11946

While I agree with you that “…just because they disobey Scripture in being yoked with an unbeliever does not mean that they are no longer Christians.”

However, if someone will never repent and never ask forgiveness and never reconcile with ex-ubfers, never include Jesus in their mission statements, then HOW THE HECK can we consider such a person/group as Christian? Are they not denying the very core of Christ-likeness? If we remove the core of Christianity what are we left with?

We former ubf leaders can live with any sin or issue but we cannot deal with the rejection of the core of Christianity by ubf leaders.

You may call what Chris and I are doing as a “frontal attack” but that matters not to me. We will continously call out the abuse and the bad shepherding ideology in UBF as long as the Lord allows us the means to do so. We DO NOT DO THIS for the sake of UBF leaders, but FOR THE SAKE of the “sheep”.

We are creating a space for the Christain gosepl to advance, and for that we are crucified, facing “death” (consequences) each day.

But, imho, fwiw, trying to badger, blog, bombast, blast and bash UBF until they admit and change will not work either. Also, I do not believe that this is the gospel way to effect gospel change.

So while I fully agree with your assessment of UBF’s unhealthy and unbiblical shepherding practices, I cannot say that your method of an unrelenting frontal attack will ever work.

It is like trying to force a Christian to not marry a non-Christian with whom they are already madly in love with. But just because they disobey Scripture in being yoked with an unbeliever does not mean that they are no longer Christians.

Without in anyway justifying UBF’s errors, all of us Christians, churches and ministries, to whatever degree or proportion are a varying mixture of both good and bad, right and wrong. This obviously includes UBF, even if they will never ever admit it.

“As numerous passages in the New Testament indicate, the words “elder” (presbuteros), “overseer” (episkopos), and “pastor” (“shepherd”)(poim¯en) all refer to the same office. In other words, overseers and pastors (shepherds) are not distinct from elders; the terms are simply different ways of identifying the same people.”

In UBF, they distinguish between a shepherd and and elder, and make them different offices. Elders exist only pro forma or they don’t even exist at all, as in my chapter, and they have no importance at all in the UBF universe. Shepherds are always “personal”, “1:1” shepherds, and the word “shepherd” is also used as a title, and they build a hiearchy of shepherds with the general director and founder at the top. It is a completely different concept of shepherding from what we can find in the Bible.

I disagree with you on this, Ben. The only way to really get rid of these unhealthy teachings is to reveal and expose them, to start a discussion about this issue with UBFers, so that they recognize the error in these teachings, repent and actively seek to fix all the problems that relate to these teachings, now knowing exactly what these problems are.

After leaving UBF in 2001 and reading books and Internet articles, I soon started to see that the “UBF system” was indeed, as tortilla_chip says, a part of the sheperding/discipling movement, with just slight variations and additions and saltened with Confucianist ideas. I agree with Joe that Koreans are probably particularly susceptible to these wrong teachings because of their culture, and what’s even worse, they are particularly susceptible to never admit their failure because of their culture, because they think they would “lose face”. That’s why most American sheperding/discipling movements like the “Lauderdale 5” including Mumford, repented.

And see, Ben, this happened because Mumford started a discussion about these issues. And this finally ended with an official admittance of the error, repentence and apology (you can read it here). This is exactly what needs to happen in UBF. The only thing that hinders UBF leaders to repent is their stupid pride and “saving face” mindset, and the only thing that hinders UBF members to discuss is that they have been indoctrinated to believe that discussion is always bad and dangerous, and they must continue with UBF style mission not looking left, right or back.

As I said, I have been writing about this on the Internet since 2001 and trying to talk with UBF members, but to no avail. I never got a response from any UBF member whether they think shepherding/discipling is good, and what they think about why it failed and lead to abuse in all other groups, with only UBF being an exception. They don’t even talk about this. That’s the problem. If they were so sure that shepherding/discipling is the right thing, they would be willing and ready to defend it, but they don’t and they can’t. Nobody can defend it since it’s clearly unbiblical as any non-superficial Bible study shows.

“Many times terms aren’t used at all; it is the actions that tell you what is going on.”

Outsiders are easily fooled by the ubf leaders who are steeped in deception and manipulation. And then of course nothing is documented. ubf shepherds have a power superiority position over their sheep, so sheep are easily persuaded by ad hominem replies, love-bombing and “immitate me” teachings.

For more information on ubf shepherding, see my exposure of the UBF shepherding ideology on my blog and the Ohio group page that still lists UBF in their shepherding section:

“While Christian Growth Ministries, Crossroads, and Maranatha are among the most prominent of the shepherding organizations, there are many others. Most of these are self-contained; that is, they retain the internal sheep-shepherd structure, but may or may not include the pyramidal hierarchy that culminates in a nationwide or international organization. Among these groups are “Gathering of Believers,” led by Larry Tomczak; Carl Stevens’ “The Bible Speaks,” Hobart Freeman’s “Faith Assembly;” “Last Days Ministries,” founded by the late Keith Green; “University Bible Fellowship;” and “Champaign-Urbana Ministries.”

“Thank you for pointing out Bevere’s book. Sometime in 2005 or so, an ex-ubfer asked me to read that book. At the time, I said “no” and rejected any such book as heresy. Now I see it was foolish of me to do so.” – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2014/01/15/the-shepherding-movement-and-ubf-part-1/#more-7397

I suppose that person wanted to strick up a conversation about the dangers of shepherding ideology and the “Under Cover” book’s similar submission to authority problems. I suppose it was still foolish to reject such a book and discussion as it might have helped me see the problems of ubf sooner.

In any case, if I would read this now, maybe I would still say the book is “heresy” :/

Your comment made me recall something that ubfers commonly overlook: “you” in the bible is not always singular but plural. The “overseers” and “elders” are groups of people, not individuals as ubf always claims. God is speaking to the group of overseers and elders in these parts of Scripture who all should acknowledge that there is one Shepherd, one Overseer and one Lord– that is Jesus.

Yes Jesus spoke to Peter individually, but I for one cannot fathom any sense that Jesus was intending to atomize His followers into insular shepherd/sheep bondage.

When we read Scripture we really ought to consider both a community narrative and an individual narrative, especially when it comes to commands.

Welcome to the discussion chip, I look forward to your future articles and comments!

Further, the UBF method of 1 to 1 shepherding is nowhere found in Scripture. I’m all for 1 to 1 bible studies where there is equality among participants, and preferably without a set of pre-made questions. But the idea of 1 to 1 shepherding is foreign to Biblical teaching. Instead, even the Scriptures you mentioned points to the idea of Shepherding a flock, a congregation, and group of people. Never is it 1 to 1.

When UBF suggests Shepherding should be 1 to 1. They create a demand for shepherds that can only be met if the assume that all people are called to be shepherds. This inevitably leads to unqualified people becoming shepherds, which in turns leads to cases to abusive shepherding.

Thank you for submitting this article. I didn’t know much about the Shepherding Movement or the teachings of Bevere. But I skimmed over Allan Clare’s document and it sounds rather familiar; there are many similarities to what I’ve experienced in ubf.

The shepherding movement and Bevere developed their teachings very explicitly. In UBF it was more implicit. Leaders did use certain terms like “keep spiritual order” and used a stories from the Bible to warn members of the dangers of disobedience. But they never developed an explicit theology about this. They didn’t have to. The idea that you had to “keep spiritual order,” and the sense of hierarchy based on age and credentials, were already ingrained in the Korean mind. The Confucian culture provided a ready-made framework of hierarchy, the hooks on which ubf leaders could hang their ideas.

Just about every ubfer will immmediately react to your article by quoting one of three bible verses, John 21:17, Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:2.

They immediately will justify their shepherding ideology with the claim that Jesus mandated shepherding of one another “one to one” with these verses.

But this is sheer shallow stupidity.

When Jesus said “Feed my sheep”, how can you claim Jesus meant “go to campus and bind every major life decision of college students to UBF slogans”?

In Acts 20:28 there is a command “Be shepherds”. Yet ubfers skip the sentence right before that command which says: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers…” This is a command to “overseers” who have been appointed by the Holy Spirit, not anyone randomly met on campus by UBF people.

In 1 Peter 5:2-3 there is a command “Be shepherds”. Yet ubfers skip the verse right before this, in 1 Peter 5:1, which says: “to the elders among you”. This is a command to “elders”, not to every Christian.

If ubfers really want to stick with their shepherding ideology, i have two suggestions:

1. Read Jeremiah 23:1 and Ezekiel 34:2 when you think “I am a shepherd”.

2. Document your shepherding ideology and enforce it among all ubf chapters.

I think that to anyone who knows and honestly assesses UBF the answer to your question (Does the Shepherding Movement sound similar to church UBF style?) is quite obvious.

As a UBF lifer, I know that I came to Christ through UBF. (Some of you might like to say, in spite of UBF.) I know I heard the gospel through UBF Bible study and teachings. I also know genuine and sincere Christians in UBF, even if some of them cling to the so-called UBF heritage unto death. By God’s grace and help, I now want to avoid (and continue to address) the clearly unhealthy and unbiblical aspects of UBF shepherding, which is quite well articulated in your article.

But I do want to continue the positive aspects of UBF, which is an emphasis on Bible study, prayer and meditation of Scripture, vibrant community, honesty, transparency and confession of sin (especially by ME!), active discipleship, evangelism and mission, etc. I firmly believe that an active proactive emphasis on the Trinity and the gospel will remove, if not greatly minimize the unhealthy shepherding elements.