**article composed by wikigoat**

**May cause controversy**

As the self-appointed exit counselor for UBF, I have much to share on this topic. Since 2011, I have interacted with over 40 UBF members while they were at UBF. Most of them have now left UBF for good. I plan to submit a few articles to Eddie, for this topic is of great interest to me. I also plan to share a series on recovering from UBF, for those who decide to leave for good. Here are my initial three thoughts.

Options

Can you take a break from UBF activities? The options are not merely “to leave” and “to stay”. There are other options. Some of us in Toledo UBF attended a Saturday service at a local church, in addition to the UBF meetings. This earns you rebuke in the next Sunday message or Friday announcements, most likely, but it is quite eye-opening to experience other ministries.

Another option is to take a sabbatical. Even McDonald’s understands their leaders need a break from time to time. Consider taking three months with no UBF activity. Of course, this is death to a UBF missionary, for they claim their entire spiritual life depends on their UBF activity. They consider this to be God’s will for them, so expect rebuke if you take this option. This is what opened my eyes. When we “pioneered” Detroit UBF, we made an attempt to keep the UBF meetings for 1 week. Then we stopped everything except the Sunday meeting. When we stepped away from the overbearing UBF missionary environment for just 1 week, we realized how superficial the meeting structure of UBFism really is. Now it took me many years after this to untangle the rest of UBFism, but the break from the main chapter was so very life-giving.

Choice

Yes, it is your choice. And if you want to leave or to take a break, it is entirely up to you. The teaching UBF missionaries instilled in me was “Be a man of mission”. They taught me that if I ever wanted to “be my own man”, I would be acting like Satan. They prooftext this with scary-sounding verses from the Bible, such as John 6:66. This is nothing more than a Jedi mind trick. If you never learn to make your own decisions, your adult growth is stunted. Many of us who spent much time at UBF have frozen identities from our youth. I am just now seeing this age-regressed identity thaw out and melt away from my life. Learning to be an adult is invigirating and most assuredly the will of God!

Collusion

I suggest avoiding collusion. To collude is to come into a secret understanding for a harmful purpose; to conspire against something or someone. I made two commitments during the 4th UBF crisis event. One commitment was that I would not participate in any kind of reform attempt. I see reforming a group like UBF to be wholly wasteful. Such reforms have already been attempted, and by Koreans no less, for 50 years. The first three crisis events were all about reformation. But still, UBF continues onward with little or no reform. They merely repaint their outer walls with shiny new paint after each crisis event.

The 4th crisis made more progress than the first 3, in part, due to the lack of collusion among former members. We did not all meet up. We did not constantly check our plans with each other. It was freeform, with free-radicals making their own decisions. Some were attempting to obey the Holy Spirit. Others just winged it. This obfuscation is what is needed, I believe, to be effective. UBF loves a scripted environment. Heck, you can even script out your own rebuke!

The best antidote to UBF is not an organized effort, but a chaotic, unscripted, unprecedented sharing of public information and stories.  If there is no ex-UBF, how can there be a UBF?

The other commitment I made to myself was that I would not participate in any collusion activity. So when I was admin of ubfriends, I listened to some feedback from time to time, but I acted independently for the most part. The Korean peninsula exists on a yin/yang principle. North Korea needs South Korea, and vice versa. This idea of binary opposites seems deeply ingrained in the older generation of Koreans at UBF. In fact, in my mind the only reason UBF exists in 2016 is because of the ex-UBF movements in the past.