Introduction

 

There was a great deal remarkable about the sermon by the new leader of the Struthers churches on the 2024 new year word and although we have already covered parts of what was said in two previous articles there is a completely separate section towards the end that deserves to be noticed.

 

In this section we see that the speaker is trying to:

 

1 Help people to reframe what they had all seen go so badly wrong in the leadership split and the church finances in 2003. Not as a thing to be concerned about but to accept what had happened as either God’s perfect will; or at least nothing serious enough to disturb their peace in God.

 

This strikes us as dangerous yet depressingly familiar ground. Don’t look at the facts of what occurred. The leaders are instructing members to substitute their perception of events in place of any view people might have formed themselves based on the facts and the damaging and worsening outcomes the church is still facing.

 

2 Help people to understand that it might be a problem if they found themselves thinking less highly of the godliness of the leadership based on what the leadership had done wrong, and openly admitted they had done wrong.

 

This strikes us as dangerous yet depressingly familiar ground. The leaders are instructing the members to see them as successful in their accomplishment of their calling. And this was even more necessary in the present situation where the leadership failures (actual factual admitted church-damaging failures) might be causing a challenge to that view.

 

3 Crucially - to help people see all that was happening as just part of the Christian training of those attending the conference. It is not clear if that is specifically training for leadership; or training to remain in a pew, as most do, for yet more decades. The important thing is that members see the need to react according to official Struthers policy (that teaching being given in this sermon). This may be the test God requires them to face and pass and must be seen as part of their “training” in order to achieve….well....unfortunately what this training achieves is not made clear.

 

This strikes us as dangerous yet depressingly familiar ground. The third part is the main thrust of this part of the sermon - and we are not making up what follows.

 

 

 

Some quotes from what was said:

 

Amy Carmichael said, in acceptance lies peace.
And the truth is this, that God could have
stopped or prevented any of the things happening that have happened to you.

See it as your training ground.
Nobody's training ground is particularly easy.
Grace and I have talked about this from time to time,
that we look back to our younger years,
and we don't particularly have happy memories of being trained.
Get cuffed about the ear here and there, and sometimes misunderstood,
when you haven't meant what it seemed to be you said,
that happened to me several times.

But God allowed it to happen, and it was a training time.
It was a learning to be obedient, and keep your mouth shut, and get tough.
Get tough with yourself,
and not sit there and be molly coddled.
See it as a training ground.

.but one day you will look back and thank God for the years of training.

I hated mine. Absolutely hated mine.

One of the things Mr Black did to me, and I know I've told you the story before,
but one day I was his special person that he took with him,
and the next day he booted me out the nest.
It was 24 hours.
And one day, and then he took somebody else and began to train them.
And I struggled big time with them.
I struggled with him for lots of different reasons,
but I struggled with him because I was jealous.

And one day, after a hard day at college,
I was walking home with two big heavy bags full of books.
Walking along the road, and it was torrential rain coming down,
I was walking along like this.

And I was going that way, and Mr Black drove that way
with this other person in the car.
And the two of them just waved at me, and drove on.
And I just thought, death to self.
I might not have died to self-guys even though I was turning and going,
oh, stop that car and pick me up!
I still remember it and felt absolutely miserable with the time I got home.
It was a training
ground.
It wasn't an easy time, but God brings us through.

 

 

 

We are not the ones who brought this subject up

 

Now let us make it very clear. The new leader of the churches brought this up in January 2004 – not us.

 

And she brought it up it as a reason why people should shut down their concerns and defer to the church leaders, and in particular herself, even though the facts show that these very leaders have messed up royally. This despite years of saying they were uniquely led by God and therefore could be trusted to make Struthers uniquely successful as a church and loyalty would bring unique Christian success in the lives of those who gave it.

 

That she brought it up is why we are talking about this and shining a light on this topic. She used her teaching on “Christian training in Struthers” as a reason people should see staying loyal to the leaders as God testing the godliness of her listeners.

 

This is a staggering claim to make based on the story she tells - and we believe it may contain both heresy and manipulation.

 

This is an astonishing and disgraceful thing for her to do.

 

But she brought it up so we are going to talk about what she said.

 

 

 

Some background to Struthers teaching

 

Struthers is a strange mix of Exclusive Brethrenism and early 20th century quasi - Pentecostalism. Quasi because of the determination not to focus on directing the Pentecostal experience towards outreach and growth, like mainstream Pentecostalism. The focus is rather towards mysticism, emotionalism (often incorrectly referred to as “being spiritual”) following restrictive and unbiblical rules (often incorrectly referred to as “being holy”) not having a life outside the church (often incorrectly referred to as “deep committent”) and having untrained, unpaid ministers imposed by an autocratic central leadership.

 

So quasi – Pentecostal.

 

This was also from the beginning a “holiness church”. The standards which people, including very young people, were held to were staggeringly strict. Some of this had some biblical root and a great deal of it did not and was simply Pharisaical burdens. But in this strict regime one of the greatest efforts was to split the sexes in camp, conference, church and even in social situations so that nothing untoward could happen BUT ALSO so that nothing could happen that could be claimed to be untoward.

 

This effort in which considerable time was invested had two roots.

1    A reasonable understanding of young people and temptations and a reasonable attempt to minimise situations where it could arise. Not much wrong with that.

2    A Brethren / holiness / late 19th century version of this where even to be in a room with someone of the opposite sex unsupervised could lead to accusations of impropriety (even where none existed) and a view that this “harmed your Christian witness” so was to be avoided.

Billy Graham spoke in his biography of his version of this which was that once he was married he would never be alone or have dinner alone in a public restaurant with any woman other than his wife. In an age of scandals involving evangelists, which he successfully avoided, this seemed to serve him well.

 

We like many formerly in the congregation can trot out the teachings given over decades why the Struthers version was better; and was the real thing God wanted; and why the Struthers leaders were special and uniquely uncorrupted.

Yet over the years many of us understood in our dealings with God, scripture and a determination to be living in reality that this was wrong. And now the evidence of its inadequacy as an approach is seen in the wreckage now emerging.

Yet in this sermon the few remaining members are still being encouraged to pretend nothing bad is happening really but everything is, in fact, fine and they are just being “tested by God” and "trained".

 

 

 

The Training Space

 

And the speaker says the church situation in 2024 reflects the same dynamic she and other leaders faced in the past as part of their “training time”.

But God allowed it to happen, and it was a training time.
It was a learning to be obedient, and keep your mouth shut, and get tough.
Get tough with yourself,
and not sit there and be molly coddled.
See it as a training ground.

 

Then in this new year sermon we are encouraged to consider the training of the “spiritually tough” who were appointed to prominence by Hugh Black many years ago. So a tale of a Struthers training experience is given.

 

The problem is this.

 

In this “holiness” church where this careful separation of the sexes teaching was well understood Mr Black exclusively chose very young women for “Christian training”. He would very often concentrate on one favourite at time and making them a very close companion for a period of months or years. He drove around with them in his car, frequently took them out for meals, and to visit and stay in his home, and rarely attended a conference or went anywhere without one of these young women accompanying him. He would also push them into public roles within the church often to a bewildering degree – as if no one else had any thing valuable to contribute at the point he was lavishing a particular favourite young woman with time and platform opportunities.

 

As the speaker indicates in her new year sermon she, when a young student, was for a period one such person; and then wasn’t.

but one day I was his special person that he took with him,
and the next day he booted me out the nest.
It was 24 hours.
And one day, and then he took somebody else and began to train them.
And I struggled big time with them.
I struggled with him for lots of different reasons,
but I struggled with him because I was jealous.

..And one day, after a hard day at college,
I was walking home with two big heavy bags full of books.
Walking along the road, and it was torrential rain coming down,
I was walking along like this.

And I was going that way, and Mr Black drove that way
with this other person in the car.
And the two of them just waved at me, and drove on.
And I just thought, death to self.

 

It is also true - and creates even more major questions - that the “somebody else” who became the next ”special person” the speaker refers to here was a schoolgirl. At the time Hugh Black was still a headmaster though not of her school. She still lived in her family home and her parents had made it known they did not want their daughter attending any branch of Struthers. Not only was she smuggled into meetings without her parents knowledge but the fact that that occurred was a matter of pride for Mr Black and the other leaders as the girl was asked to testify to it regularly at meetings. Frequently after meetings she would be driven away as the only passenger in Hugh Blacks car.

 

Can we suggest that in all of this “Christian training” the “holiness” teaching of the church itself was blatantly being flouted and ignored? It was implied that, somehow, the standards claimed to be from God did not apply to those spiritually “deep” enough. In their case, it was taught, God would identify someone for close relation to the leader and they had no choice but to mentor them like mad – even if that involved being in situations that violated the holiness rules preached in the church. There was no place in these “Christian training” situations for applying the previously mentioned teaching on holiness and behaviour which might be thought of as untoward – or even might be thought of as dangerous and openly corrupt.

 

This was the early 1980s but, as in 2024, people were told not to notice or speak of the mind blowing hypocrisy of having a married man ride around with young females alone, in violation of church conduct rules AND THEN HAVE HIM CLAIM FROM THE PULPIT that he only did so because God commanded and required him to.

 

Then, as the new year speaker indicates, the “special person” would suddenly be replaced. Some remained in the church and some did not. Quite often the “Christian training“ yielded little fruit. This was always said to be the fault of the failed, inadequately committed, over questioning, unspiritual trainee.

 

Does any of this sound familiar?

 

And we want to be clear too. No one responsible for these articles and this website want it to appear we attach any blame or censure to those “chosen” for special attention. The age, status and power imbalance in such a relationship is now much better understood as both dangerous and deeply open to abuse. In fact the safeguarding policies in place in Struthers today utterly preclude any such conduct for precisely that reason. In our view the entire responsibility for any bad outcomes of any sort arising from such a situation lies with the person with status who instigates and enables it, then uses their power in the organisation to cover up and direct attention away from what is really going on.

 

It is almost even funny to recall the disgraceful use of the platform to make the ludicrous excuses for these blatant acts of favouritism which seriously damaged the churches. It was claimed “We do not pick who is chosen – God does”. Mr Black claiming he had no choice but to, on the face of it, ignore almost everyone but the chosen one at that time, spend what other time he had with his friends and family and leave the rest of us wondering what we were doing wrong that we were not valuable to God like the favourites.

However we often didn’t have to wait long for a sermon from one of the angrier women leaders who made sure we knew that in her opinion there were many answers to that.

 

Yet in our view the favouritism was the most damaging aspect. We observed over many years the promotion of these favourites into roles which other young people already filled perfectly well as worship leaders, preachers, youth leaders and various group leaders. But in far too many cases these young, enthusiastic and capable servants of God were pushed aside to create ministry opportunities for what the new year speaker calls Mr Blacks:

“special person that he took with him”.

 

We could name dozens who were appallingly treated by being supplanted in this way who could and should have been the skills and future and strength of Struthers Memorial Church. The evidence of that is that they have brought their value now into other churches who have treated them with care and respect and gained from their capabilities.

 

In the midst of this we heard that one of the long serving male church leaders who left in the 1980s was told by a trusted advisor. Get out of Stuthers you will never have ministry opportunities here because you are not a young attractive female. He left and became a very successful Baptist Minister.

 

Those who stayed then watched the cycle continue of what the speaker here calls:

“leadership training – which she hated”.

 

We and others have been asking questions and discussing Struthers online for many years and barely has this strange “leadership training approach” of Hugh Black’s been mentioned. But now the new leader has spoken of it as important training AND a reason why people should comply with her message, we feel obliged to speak of what we saw, and everyone saw.

 

And let us be very clear: There is no planet in any universe where what she describes in this sermon is an example of Biblical Christian training.

 

If she thinks it is she must be confronted on this issue by people in Struthers who still have hope – if there are any left - and told not to speak such falsehood and nonsense from a church pulpit ever again.

Presumably too she is not entitled to praise and use as a positive example conduct forbidden in her own church safeguarding policy.

Presumably also it does not help the beleagured and struggling church for her to bring up nightmarish examples of dodgy leadership conduct from the past.

Get your act together Struthers Executive.

 

 

 

What we didn’t see

 

Hugh Black had some strange quirks as a man and as a leader. Some of us asked him about the issues being discussed in this article and about many other things. We challenged him (with some deference because we were young and stupid) and tried to make sense of the chasm between his teachings and his conduct in this and some other serious matters. These concerns he often dealt with too swiftly and in a very unsatisfactory way.

 

We believe looking back we were right to challenge him.

 

What we did not see was any of the other leaders questioning and challenging what was happening. We remember none of them standing up in a public meeting, receiving a “word of knowledge” that this so called “leadership training” was unbiblical and scandalous behaviour and publicly pointing out Mr Black and calling on him to repent of his actions and attitudes. Nor did these same leaders seem to discern the mind of God when he needed a warning that he was about to make a dangerous and costly financial mistake in the multiple share applications of the mid 80s. Nor did they feel “led” to warn him that his book publishing ventures made that financial situation worse and he should stop using church money to print what we believe ended up as 30 000 unsold and unsellable books.

 

Such “words” and public condemnations are it seems only directed at those in Struthers with no power – either to challenge the “word“ or to be dealt with with respect - which is why we recommend all such claimed “words” cease immediately. Partly because they reek of cowardice and partiality; but mainly because the testimony now is pretty unanimous that they don’t help people, they don’t result in fruitful outcomes, and time and time again they cause serious and severe mental and spiritual detriment.

 

Nor did we see that people were warning Hugh Black even privately of the damaging effect of this unedifying favouritism and riding in cars with girls. If some leader did and he ignored them, what did they then do to protect the people they claimed to be called by God to shepherd and care for? Or did they put their need of Hugh Black’s continuing patronage before their duty as Christian leaders?

 

 

These are questions which affected the church in the past and set it on directions which have led to the decline and damage the church is dealing with now. The results of this are also all over 196 pages of online Forum discussion by 100 separate people most of whom are deeply critical of the poor care given and serious damage caused to them in their time in Struthers Memorial Church. The results of this are in the fear and mental anguish of many still in the congregations. The results of this are the lost opportunities from so many who wanted to be part of things and sacrificially help build this church - but they were despised and rejected by the partial and unloving Struthers leadership.

 

 

 

This is not Christian training

 

Never forget we are only talking about this now because the new leader of the Struthers churches brought this up in the new year word sermon.

 

1 as an example of Christian training

 

and

 

2 as a reason people should shut up and only think about the chaos in Struthers what the leaders tell them to think.

 

But she brought it up so lets talk about it at last even though to do so requires some of the Christian “toughness” she says is desirable.

 

 

Riding around in a car with Mr Black for the period you are his favoured young female companion is not – as we say – in any universe biblical “Christian training”.

 

And the leader here mentioning in her sermon that she had to deal with her jealousy when replaced is not a major point to her credit.

 

At least she had a time of attention from a leader. At least she could ask questions of the leaders and be listened to. 95% of those in Struthers barely got 1 minute of that much attention. And as a result of this relationship she was given a church building.

 

A fact which raises something further to consider. Most of the present leaders of the few remaining Struthers Churches were appointed from those women with whom Hugh Black had this close, personal, particular relationship. You may, like us, think that this is a sub-optimal (and certainly unbiblical) way of identifying and appointing church leaders. And those appointed in this manner have produced the results in devastated lives detailed on the online Forum, shrunk the church and now mismanaged to extinction the coffee shop and school ministries.

 

 

Conclusion

 

But if there are people in SMC who think this leadership training approach was both a good thing and perfect in every way please produce, even for your own peace of mind, an article which presents the evidence that this has been of long term benefit and led to the prospering of the Struthers vision as of 2024. Good luck pulling that argument together. And do send us a copy. But if you choose not to we are content to leave it to our Heavenly Father himself to assess your homework.

 

This new year sermon is both heretical and insulting to those who tried their hardest and did not get one shred of time or attention. This was the reality we saw from the leaders. Love bomb their favourites; and utterly neglect and ignore everyone else who they: “don’t feel drawn to”.

 

What self serving appalling ungodly claptrap. If they carry on like this their churches will further close and shrink, and all the works of their hands will be in even more in ruins because of their pride, lack of basic human decency and extreme partiality.