I will be sharing quotes from all 3 narratives as I continue to work out my personal theology. That blog is open to discussion as well.

The main reason why I am no longer able to attend conferences and staff events is the continued, stubborn refusal by leaders to get real and address the serious problems that we have raised, problems that have been around for decades and have never been acknowledged. This continued refusal year after year to acknowledge what we are saying has made it impossible to remain in fellowship with them. Their mantra has been, “These things should be discussed only in private, not on a public website” is a complete load of crap, because they have NEVER been willing to actually discuss these things, even in private staff meetings. At the last senior staff meeting that I attended more than a year ago, several of us (Ben, Sharon, and one or two others) brought these things up, and with few exceptions, everyone else in the room remained silent. They humored us and let us talk for an hour or two and them moved on to planning the next conference. I can no longer live in a such a strange pseudocommunity.

Seriously though, the number of human readers is somewhat difficult to get exact numbers on. We can tell how many non-spam computing devices have connected to ubfriends.org to view a page, and how long the readers stayed, and where they are from.

I’ll take a look at Google Analytics later today to see what the stats show from 1 year ago to now.

No matter how we look at the numbers one reality is clear: People are talking about ubfriends, talking with ubfriends and talking to ubfriends.

Excluding all the spam, the cumulative number of comments on this website has essentially *doubled* over the last year. I don’t know what has happened to the number of readers, but I think it’s safe to say that has significantly increased as well.

I will be accused of making a broad sweeping generalization, but for 50 years UBF has chosen to only express “positive, encouraging works of God” (which are often exaggerated and inaccurate accounts of what happened), and never speaking of “negative, discouraging mistakes and sins.” This is triumphalistic and quite unrelatable to the reality of life.

We say we must build people up. I agree. But no one is truly built up by ignoring and refusing to listen to parts of the past that we do not like. This creates an unsafe place (the church) where people must behave and follow protocol.

This creates what Jean Vanier calls a pseudo-community: http://westloop-church.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-pseudo-community-avoids-messes.html

“My purpose here is varied. But my purpose in writing articles here have never been to get anyone to agree with me. Nor is my purpose to convince anyone to leave or stay in UBF ministry. My purpose is to spark conversation about topics that have traditionally been taboo in UBF circles and to be a resource for any former member or outside party who has questions about UBF. Primarily however, my purpose is for myself– to document my story of recovery from UBF without losing my faith.”

Still your point is valid. I was told nobody wants to read or discuss what I have to say several times back in 2012.

If we are so bad and nobody wants to listen to us, why are the top cities from main ubf centers? And why is South Korea always in our top 10 list of countries in the readership stats?

One year ago, we had accumulated about 8,000 comments on this website.

Today we will exceed 20,000.

Often I can only find expression in song. When I think of forgiving and reconciling with ubf leaders, I often return to Kelly Clarkson, Because of you and stronger.

Katy Perry has spoken the words of my soul as well, as in part of me.

Pink has also been a big part of my journey, as in try.

Here’s a decent article on forgiveness that I ran across today. Simple, not earth shattering, but maybe it will help. A quote from the article:

“But the Scriptures are full of God’s admonitions to confess our sins, to him and to one another, and to “remember.” We can’t turn and heal from sin unless we acknowledge what actually happened. We can’t move toward the right without acknowledging the wrong. In the OT, God details the Israelites sins with shocking, graphic detail.

When we choose to cut out whole parts of our memories and lives, we’re going to lose a whole chunk of who we are, and we’re going to lose out on reclaiming those dark rooms. And, we know as well that erasure of pain and trauma from our memories often signals mental illness rather than health.”

Those words about mental illness are harsh but true. There is no way for UBF members to become healthy and whole without openly acknowledging and talking about the trauma that they have experienced. There is no way for the community to begin to heal until the things that lie buried are brought to the surface. Until they do this — and yes, this is harsh, but I believe it is accurate — until longtime UBF members acknowledge what actually happened to them, their meetings and conferences will continue to resemble gatherings of the psychologically ill more than gatherings of the redeemed.

One year ago, when I posted this article and this followup article, some UBF members contacted me privately to tell me that I had done something wrong by airing UBF’s dirty laundry. They said I had misapplied the instructions of Jesus in Matthew 18, and so on. But I believed that I was doing the right thing, and I still believe that it was right to do so.