In our last published article we quoted the thought for the week from the Cumbernauld leader - Thought for the Week 3/11/2024. Just as well we did because even though we are continually assured no one in SMC ever reads or is allowed to read anything on here, or the Rick Ross Forum, as soon as we published our article that particular thought for the week (and only that one) was mysteriously removed.

 

No matter!

 

We quoted from it and noted its remarkable similarities to the view the same leader expressed in 2024 New Year Word 2 - New Year by Gaslight. Something was rotten in her disloyal and viper filled congregations and she was calling it out.

 

QUOTE: 

2.      Believe in the prophets. 

….The second is vital if you want to succeed spiritually. You learn to trust in the prophets, the ministers and leaders. If you lose your trust, you lose your footing. Satan will have won by creating a wedge between you and the prophets. Very soon, you no longer see them as the prophets of God. This is disastrous for our spiritual lives. The enemy has won, and you will have lost the unity, the bond, and the trust that bound you in the body of Christ. 

 

 

Fine and dandy. The teaching of SMC is (for once) clear.

 

But there is a problem this teaching now raises which needs to be considered.

 

In the quoted section the “disastrous” failure that results from failing to trust the prophets is clearly laid out and the dire spiritual consequences. The very enemy would win. No more unity, bond and trust.

 

However recent events in Struthers church raise an awkward question that undermines this Thought for the Week and this teacher.

 

If the Struthers overall leader believes her own teaching and holds it to be true, should she herself not be demonstrably the finest example of living it out? If she wants to succeed spiritually is it not necessary for her to trust the prophets, minsters and leaders? Must she not even more so obey the injunction to believe the prophets? Did the earlier leadership in Struthers not repeatedly claim to be prophets and they (while using that same prophetic tone) appointed her to leadership of a church? Then more recently by the same voice she was appointed to overall leadership of the charity. She was identified as a leader by those in Struthers who we were told, and she reiterated, were “prophets and to be obeyed”.

 

Then why doesn’t she now honour their prophetic words?

 

Current events reveal that she simply has not the slightest regard or intention of obeying the prophets in Struthers who came before her.

 

Case 1:   Everyone knew for decades that Andrew Jewell had been identified in prophecy and anointed prayer by Taylor, H Black, M Black and Gault as a future core leader within Struthers. The prophets spoke and we (the mere pew fodder) were repeatedly told – and we mean hundreds of times – to regard these leaders as prophets and their words as from God. Exactly the same message the Cumbernauld leader repeats in this very thought for the week.

 

And yet she has not honoured these prophets, nor obeyed, nor trusted their words because in relation to Andrew Jewell she has not honoured the prophetic word she heard from them.

 

In fact by insisting that she took control of the monthly Saturday night meeting in Glasgow she seems to have acted deliberately to prevent him having his prophesied role in the central leadership of Struthers. Does she not trust the prophets? Or is it somehow different when it doesn’t suit her and the accrual of power in the organisation to herself?

 

Because that's what it looks like.

 

And yet she’s done it again!

 

Case 2:   Pauline Anderson was a central leader in the church since the 1980s and one of those trained by Hugh Black in the way the new overall leader described as “special”. We took a look at her view of appropriate leadership training in our article 2024 New Year Word 3 - Leadership Training in Struthers Memorial Church. To be fair we were not convinced that her grasp of leadership training was particularly..er..healthy but no matter. In relation to the demand placed on the church here she does not explain why she can ignore the prophets repeated indications that Ms Anderson was a future leader of the Struthers churches, so identified often by Hugh Black, and that word was to be regarded as from God via his prophets.

 

Surely she cannot have put her own desire to be the only one in central leadership ahead of the word of such revered people of God so foundational to Struthers? The consequences of that (she claims) would be disastrous - and clearly would reek of hypocrisy. So, since it cannot possibly be that, what has happened? How can she be obeyed in the way she claims a prophet must be, and how can she revere the people that gave her leadership, when she doesn’t seem to regard them as having spoken the will of God?

 

That’s quite a conundrum.

 

The usual get-out would be to claim that in both these cases the people had taken themselves away from the prophetic word given accurately. But there are two very serious problems with attempting that claim.

 

1   God knows the end from the beginning – he does not make mistakes.

 

2   If that is her argument then she claims that by human action prophecies given by any past Struthers leader can be voided. Which sort of 100% undermines all the predictions, claimed words of knowledge, claimed discernment of spirits, new year words and even baptismal promises ever given out by these people. So prophets and prophecy - but not the sort that is delivering the eternal word of God as we see it in the bible.

 

Is she arguing that all such words from a Struthers prophet may or may not come true?

Good luck building a thriving Pentecostal church on that teaching.

 

Fortunately we who are blessed enough to be outside of the Struthers hinterland are able to see and smell what this looks like. It looks like the overall leader is getting rid of any capable people who may be able to question her and with whom she does not want to share her newly found power over SMC.

 

Now - we hate giving advice in these articles because to a foolish reader that might make it look like we want Struthers to continue in its present form and believe us we don’t. Radical repentance, humility, dealing with the decades of hurt caused to people and fundamental change is needed. Or closure.

 

However - the last thing the new overall leader needs to be doing at the moment is purging the organisation of more people who can still think and have been involved in what she needs most which is outreach. To rebuild from where she is requires a team with ideas and a willingness to apply biblical principles to this historical and present mess. Yet she teaches an army of slaves is all she needs and all they need to do to succeed is think less.

 

Not quite Romans 12:2 then:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will.

 

So 2 cases exist where the overall leader has by her own definition defied the prophets and may yet be destined to come under the dire consequences she claims will result.

 

And perhaps while she is coming up with an explanation for that she could also help us understand a far fruitier tale.

 

Case 3:   Could she explain how the prophets (who the poor bewildered congregations must be fully aligned with) got it so blindingly, staggeringly, dumb-foundingly wrong in relation to selecting Mrs Spiers as a leader who proved to be such a disastrously divisive and chronically damaging appointment? Then later when we have the Mrs Goodbrand report in the public domain perhaps we will all find out if people felt harmed by their time worshipping in Mrs Spiers church and living in Mrs Spiers commune.

 

How did the prophets who must be trusted miss all that?

 

To help answer this there are 2 clear questions to address.

 

1    Was Mrs Spiers (in her time in SMC) a “prophet who was to be trusted” (in line with the teaching quoted above)?

 

2    Were those who felt God indicate her suitability for the leadership of Glasgow and kept her there for 30+ years “prophets who are still to be trusted”?

 

If someone is, lets just say, for example, an abusive power hungry maniac; are we to "trust them as prophets of God" simply because they claim to be? Or worse, because they claim to be and are backed up by the other Struthers regime leaders?

 

Would it not be far better, and far more spiritually healthy, and far more grounded in the truth if we “lost our trust” in the claims of prophetic Godliness made by an abusive power hungry maniac; and regarded them as an abusive power hungry maniac?

 

 

So not sure Case 3 helps the main argument the overall leader is making in this somewhat self serving Thought for the Week.

 

Or is it simply the case that when she is gone new prophets in turn will replace her old prophecies and rescind all her decisions she claimed were clear leading from God?

 

Well perhaps - but given the eternal nature of the true prophecy that proceeds from God those who want to walk in integrity before Him must biblically conclude that these prophecies which have not come to pass did not arise from God. The prophets were therefore unreliable. A conclusion the new leaders actions (but not her words) fully back up.

 

Or if she believes these prophecies did arise from God then she is playing a very odd game. Does she think it appropriate to insist on obedience to herself as a prophet, then she simply chooses not to respect, honour and do as instructed by the founding Struthers prophets? Are the only leadership related prophecies she accepts the ones that directly benefit her and justify her grip on power in this tiny declining church group? By her own teaching that seems both an inconsistent and a dangerous game to play. She says she risks losing:

"the unity, the bond, and the trust that bound (her) in the body of Christ.” 

 That may indeed be exactly what we see happening around her now.

 

 

Either way perhaps it is time to claim less as prophecy. It is dangerous and foolish to claim what you say is to be regarded as God’s own word when it more often resembles the latest whim of whatever leader happens to be there at the time. But the reader can decide for themselves. The habit has increased of Struthers leaders demanding obedience to themselves, and not primarily to the understanding and application of scripture, as the price of Christian success. As a result has the spiritual life and ministry arising from Struthers people significantly changed Scotland for God? Or not really noticeably so? As this habit has increased has their church group grown or precipitously declined?

 

Having Christian Church leadership awarded by the patronage of one supreme leader to her preferred candidates is a spectacularly bad and fundamentally unbiblical idea. Insisting that if you disagree with her self proclaimed prophetic status you are “falling into the hands of Satan” is thunderingly dangerous hyper controlling manipulative fallacious nonsense.

 

Does anyone really believe deep in their heart that the limping and damaged SMC can be rebuilt on that premise?