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Dear Connections,

I have heard many people talk about the “sin” of Community Chapel & Bible Training Center.  I believe, almost exclusively, those who do are referring to physical intimacy and divorce.  Though, from unspecified rumors, some excesses did occur, I have no personal experience in this regards.  However, for fairness sake, let us just agree that some did not handle Divine Love properly.

Be that as it may, I view the sin of Community Chapel & Bible Training Center quite differently than most.  In my considered opinion the sin Don Barnett committed was this:

Community Chapel & Bible Training Center made marriage an idol before God”

In other words, though God was obviously breaking up earthy marriages He didn’t author, it was Pastor Barnett’s stand that divorce could not, in most cases, be allowed.  In fact, the whole “counseling center” was built upon the notion that marriages were sacred and must be preserved at all costs – even at the cost of those who comprised them.

Even when I spoke to former members of the Church of Agape, they perpetuated this notion that divorce was unacceptable and a misuse of Agape Love.  Don Barnett, according to reports, never accepted that Barbara Barnett divorced him and still considers her his wife until the day he passed over.

Be careful what you ask for

The leadership and congregation of Community Chapel & Bible Training Center earnestly asked for God to come to them.  I remember mass prayer services where people beseeched the Holy Spirit to bless them.  However, when God did show up, first in demonic deliverance, then in spiritual connections, many did not like it.  What offended most is when marriages started disintegrating and mass divorce began to take place.

To me, standing against the dissolution of earthly marriages, rather than aiding people with their transition from man made contracts into Divine Unions, is the  cardinal sin of CC&BTC.  Persecuting those God led out of unholy matrimony is what destroyed Community Chapel.  When God came to His own, His own received Him not.  The “counselors” (which in reality were merely “doctrine enforcers”), opposed God’s will in breaking up earthly marriages He did not ordain.

Even the remnant ultimately failed

Ultimately, according to reports, even the Church of Agape broke up and left the doctrine of connections.  I believe this is because they never truly embraced what God was doing in the first place.  Even those who stood firm on connections, denied the consequences of Divine Love, which is often Divine Divorce. The fallacy of assuming holy matrimony in every case where a legal marriage existed is what ultimately led to CC&BTC’s destruction. Thus, in the end, when people didn’t allow God to have His way, the Holy Spirit departed.

As usual, the truth in God is quite the opposite of what natural minded people believe.  The sin of Community Chapel & Bible Training Center was not its acceptance of spiritual connections, but it’s refusal to accept Divine Divorce.  At least, if people had gone the distance with God there would be a remnant left instead of total loss.

God’s Spirit is more important than Bible training

In truth, I don’t know if any others fully embraced the move of the Holy Spirit.  I hope there are some who survived the wreckage and journeyed on in Divine Love.   If you did, I would like the hear from you.  I realize, nowadays, that if we request the presence of God,  we must accept however He comes.  Basically, CC&BTC was prideful of their revelation, therefore they mistakenly assumed a natural ability to handle anything God did.  However, when YHWH came, they were not the chosen, but only poor, blind, and naked – pretty much like all of us.

Sincerely,

Michael

Lay Down My Pride by Jeremy Camp

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