So in January 2024 the conference went on and the new leader gave the “new year word”. If you don’t know what that is it may be because it has rarely if ever proved to be clear, provable or testable as prophecy. It is welcomed by many of the more emotional Struthers members as some kind of proof that God is with Struthers in a special way and most of them are unaware that many churches have such a tradition. Not that that proves any “new year word” to be from God. The word given - like every other claimed prophecy - needs to be judged according to biblical guidelines.

 

The new year word is on their website. We do encourage people to read the Struthers websites often. Especially now that the focus for the first time in 30 years will be what the churches actually do in their locality rather than tales of distant schools and toasties and cake. But they contain other distractions. The scenery photo on the “London” church page is very scenic. The lists of beliefs given by each branch are fun to try and compare and contrast – like in a standard grade English essay. Few are the same and none mention gifts of knowledge being used for naming and shaming congregational members; or that Struthers churches are a place where exorcists try to perform exorcisms. You can check again and tell us if we have missed something but as far as we can see none mention that this is a feature of their meetings. Perhaps they should tell people about that before they come to a meeting? Some of the church web pages also feature many architectural photographs but are alarmingly devoid of people – actual human beings. Some of the churches don’t even have a picture of their leaders – in fact maybe one does. All are in urgent need of updating.

 

So go and read the new year word there. We are more concerned about the sermon which accompanied it which we were encouraged to listen to because there was a rumour of an apology. So we did. And there wasn’t.

 

But we were once again deeply, deeply alarmed by what was said on this occasion:

 

The Sermon

The new supreme leader of all the churches was talking about the impact of the terrible things that had happened in the life of the Struthers churches during 2023. This was (at that point) the schismatic departure of Mrs Speirs with her coterie of supporters, the financial mess caused by years of foolish leadership decisions, no intelligent understanding of the massive risks the charity was facing, the closure of the cake shops and the redundancy of all the workers and then the weird resignations of Grace Gault and Jennifer Jack from overall leadership but continuance (despite their both being in their late 70s) in local leadership.

 

So to help people deal with the serious mess facing the church 100% caused by the leadership she tried to help the congregation understand what was happening and what was really going on here and which was still threatening to get worse. And a reasonable person hearing the new year word she gave could be forgiven for thinking a reasonable interpretation of what she was claiming to prophesy was that things would now get better and all the problems would disappear in 2024.

 

Some transcribed quotes:

And I get the feeling that some of you have been terribly tormented by the devil.
Tormented by the fact you didn't stand up for yourself by the fact you feel the years are wasted.
Tormented by the fact that perhaps you're child has left the church and you think as a result of not being treated very well.
And we can torment ourselves with the fact we didn't do more about it.
And we didn't sort the situation out or we didn't stand up to somebody.

 

Hang on! Who is responsible here? Who told us for 40 years that to "stand up" to certain people who led Struthers was the same as Miriam & Aaron opposing Moses and was a punishable affront to God? In the time we have been away from looking at Struthers the term Gaslighting has become much more common and well understood. The leader is gaslighting the congregation here. We can see here that the only problem the leader wants to acknowledge is that people might be feeling bad because of what they did and didn’t do in reaction to 30 years of Speirs leadership. This is to deflect from the humiliating truth that Mrs Speirs was imposed on the church and backed up at every stage by the core leadership team .

 

Well okay – maybe they should be feeling bad. Some of us wanted nothing to do with a church that chose for leadership such a boorish and unpleasant personality and left right quick. Mrs Rutherford seems to be telling us now, many years later, that wasn't a bad idea. If we had not left we might still be among those “tormented by the wasted years”. Good for us then.

 

Ruins, Deserts & Wastelands

As the sermon moved on we have to admit there is a startling appropriateness to the new leader using a verse containing the words “ruins, deserts and wastelands” in reference to the state of Struthers Memorial Church at the start of 2024.

 

In addition to the issues outlined above the church was also facing the online forum sharing testimony to the damage the leadership have done over decades as it reached 100 separate contributors. The reputational damage from this needed to be addressed since 2011 and the cry for justice only increases. But the only action take by those responsible for the damage they caused to so many has been to continually assert from the Struthers platform that these people are both satanic and liars. The school was clearly under serious threat of closure and was in no way guaranteed to see out the year as a going concern – and it didn’t. And though seemingly long forgotten, there is the failure of Hugh Black's vision of ongoing church planting. At the time of his death it was claimed he had planted 19 churches. 12 of those have subsequently failed and closed. This disastrous failure under his appointed successors - the present leaders - is never spoken of.

 

Nobody in the congregation is responsible for any of those things and there is not one thing they can do to fix them. But according to this sermon there is no crisis and no need for concern. That must be a relief to the members. All will be well. The leader is claiming God will do the following in Stuthers Memorial Church this year:

Isaiah 51, verse 3.
The Lord will surely comfort Zion
and will look with compassion on all her ruins.
He will make her deserts like Eden,
her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the sound of singing.

 

We hope this gave comfort.

 

But it is October and as it stands those who care about truth see this:

 

• The ruins are more ruined as the huge school project crashes down as did the cake shops.

• The deserts are becoming more deserted as people continue to flee the organisation in numbers,

• And the wastelands are becoming more wasted as the few remaining churches shrink and the church plants close and the literal buildings lie most of the week empty and expensively crumble to the point that bankruptcy of the charity is a possibility.

 

The leader failed to prophecy that possibility in January - but is mentioning it in sermons a lot by October.

 

A Nest of Vipers!

But don’t be fooled into thinking any of this concerns the leadership.

Don't you believe it! Not one bit! The new year word sermon ends - word for word - as follows:

And it begins by coming to the cross of Jesus,
it is the only place, and giving yourself to him there once again,
and allowing him to take all the snideiness, the deceitfulness,
the two faced-ness, the speaking behind your leaders back,
all of these things to break it, recognize who you are,
and what you are doing in the church,
and some are like vipers in the church at the moment.
It's not even foxes, you can shoot a fox,
but getting hold of a viper is like vipers in the church,
spreading unkindness about, take that vipers and stand on it in the name of Jesus.
Put the heel of Christ on it within your own self and in your own personality,
and recognize what the devil is doing in you to destroy the work of God.
There is only one way, and it is the way of love through the power of the cross.
He brings us through.
Let's pray, shall we?

 

By far the biggest issue in the sermon around the new year word is how the individuals in the congregation must not think about any of the problems – far less speak of them and far less try to solve them.

 

The speaker engages in an alarming rant becuase she is convinced that those sitting in front of her are not the faithful remnant.

 

You might think that those who have sat, with her, in Struthers meetings for 40 years or so are the fine upstanding outcome of that well-spring of pastoral care and attention.

 

Not so it seems. These are not fine Christians. Not at all. The accusation against those new year conference attendees sitting in front of her includes:

 

• snideness

• deceitfulness

• two faced-ness

• speaking behind their leaders back

• they are trying to break their churches

• they need to recognise how truly awful they are inside

• some are like vipers in the church
  

• she expresses regret that they are not foxes because that would make it easier for her to shoot them (!?!)

• they are spreading unkindness

• they have not dealt with the many vipers in their personalities

• they have not even recognized what the devil is doing in them to destroy the work of God

 

 

Well

 

 

Blimey

 

 

I’m sure people were ready to pray after that vicious verbal vituperative viper-filled assault.

 Or

40 years in Struthers, it appears, has resulted in Christians of such poor quality and of such questionable character that, to quote PG Woodehouse:

"the best that can be said of them is that, as far as it is known, they have not actually burnt down an orphanage".

 

So - as we said - not really an apology for what those with all the authority and who make all the decisions did to acknowledge the mess they have made and the wasted years they have created. Far less that they by their cack-handed leadership decisions and entirely missing management skills caused the deserts, wastelands and ruins - which were then and are still facing Struthers Memorial Church.

 

What we find here is the normal gaslighting and the attempt to claim is: "HERE IS WHAT THE LORD IS TELLING US TO SAY FROM THE PULPIT”. "IN GODs EYES" our leadership failures are not important and must not be spoken of, described or even silently thought about (!). The reaction to these events by those in the congregation is all that God is concerned about.

 

2 problems with that

 

1    It is neither true nor remotely biblical. It is heretical and also obvious nonsense.

 

2    It is clearly and only designed to use the pulpit to try and make the life of the leaders easier. This is a disgraceful thing to do. The pulpit is sacred and is for the building up, teaching and encouragement of the people. To use it continually as the Struthers leaders do to help them to avoid proper and necessary accountability is shameful. They use it to cover up their own failure as leaders to hear the voice of God and resource themselves and others to move in accordance with His will. 

 

As Mr Black often claimed in better days “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.”

 

So – if what he quoted is true - what sin or massive misjudgements are the leadership now involved in which have squandered that supply and messed things up so publicly and so spectacularly?

 

 

The Fading Hope of a Declining Number

 

Struthers may or may not survive this. There are many inside and out who now think cessation would be the best outcome rather than letting this harmful shambles continue. God may bring it to an end. But that is not up to us and will only affect those still there. Many of us are now watching this train wreck safely from a distance. We got our families out of there long ago.

 

But the only helpful advice we can even reluctantly give relates to our observation of the words and actions coming out of the charity and churches.

 

It is this. There is no reality here. There is no engagement with the real. There are low ability delusional fantasists running the show. If there is anyone who wants this organisation to continue there needs to be an engagement with the real and the actual; and the courage to speak the truth about how bad things truly are; and how far God has allowed this to go. If there is anyone who even cares any more - get on your knees and ask and seek and knock until you can find what God is saying about where things went so badly wrong. The present leadership are not doing this. Find what needs to be repented of. Find what you have to ask forgiveness for. There is little confidence that this is even possible any more but it hinges on an unpleasant task. The present leadership need to be examined and if they are found to be, by their ignorance or folly, troubling the church they need to be identified, named as troublers and removed.

 

This is what Paul, Peter, Barnabus and James would have done. It is the New Testament way.

 

Or leave them there to carry on as before which, based on what any sane person can easily see, risks the final end of what remains.