I wrote, “The Final Feast”, not to tell believers exactly how to become a Tabernacle Christian but rather to help those interested personally explore this undiscovered country. Learn about the spiritual fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles and Divine Love here…
As I spoke with Esther the other day, she remarked,
“I like being connected to you because I don’t have to wonder where God is anymore.”
It is a fundamental truth of Spiritual Connections that they are “God with us”. Many people pray all the time wondering where God is, however, when you have a Spiritual Connection, you always know where God is.
Finding God in us
God in us must be experienced to be fully realized. In most charismatic churches people raise their hands to the church ceiling during worship. This is because many believe that God is somewhere up above them. However, since the day of Pentecost, God has indwelt those who ask for the gift of His Holy Spirit. Now, the Spirit of God, which is Holy, is in each one of us. Therefore, we don’t have to wonder where God is any longer, we simply reach across the aisle connecting with Him in our brethren.
God manifest in the flesh is a very easy thing if we allow it to be. Loving each other, to the degree that His Spirit leads, is the most natural thing in the world. Divine Love is instinctive because we are acting and reacting in this world as we do in the next. In the New Heavens and New Earth everyone is completely free to do and be as God wants. To the pure all things are pure, therefore we need not worry about sin when we walk in the Spirit. Allow God free rein to do whatever, whenever and with whomever He likes.
Let go and let God be who He is
Sometimes we need to be held or kissed, but this is not all the time. Sometimes just being together, as God leads, is enough. Connecting is a “free” flow of His Spirit between brethren without natural minded structure. In fact, until God directs, you don’t know what will happen, how it will happen, when or with whom. Spirit led people live in the moment and don’t plan anything.
You don’t have to judge what God does
What the Spirit does, we don’t have to wonder about. If the Holy Spirit wants to do it, we do not need to fear it. God does not give us a spirit of fear and when you obey His Spirit, peace naturally follows. The will of God is the definition of proper no matter what it looks like in the natural.
God always meets the real need of the person He wishes to touch without regard for earthly sensibilities. If you allow our Father to love others through you, He does so unreservedly. There are no boundaries except what His Spirit sets at the time He flows through you. When you walk in the Spirit, you do not think, judge, or question, what God does; you simply do it.
Of all the negative experiences I had at Community Chapel and Bible Training Center, dealing with the “counseling center” during the connection move of the Spirit was perhaps the worst. Firmly in control of the pastor’s wife, Barbara Barnett, these people sought to control and manipulate those whom they believed behaved inappropriately. The person I dealt with most is a person named John Burgen.
At that time, people did not know what connections were. All we knew is that God was leading us by His Spirit. Connections, usual male female relationships, felt right in God. Suddenly, alive in God, John chapter 17 made sense. Don Barnett, the pastor of CCBTC, tried to guide and “balance” the connection move through a sermon series entitled “Spiritual and Solical Relationships”, but in effect he touched the ark of God.
The counseling center
As the church split into two parts, the counseling center morphed into a control center used to reign in people the fractured leadership disapproved of. In this spiritual Auschwitz the biggest threat was disfellowship. Disfellowshipment is a form of “shunning” that community Chapel leadership employed to ensure that people within the church followed their dictates. If you did or said anything the pastor or leadership felt unacceptable, they warned you to change your ways or risk being “put out of the church”. Disfellowshipping meant you would no longer be allowed to attend church, expelled from Bible College, and barred from interacting with other church members. If they cast you out, close friends and even family shunned you.
People who go to mainline churches often do not understand the diabolical power of shunning. To people who believe your teaching is “special” and that you’re destined to become the Bride of Christ, shunning is frightening. What no doubt began as a way to protect the church from actual harm, ultimately degenerated into the method of controlling every aspect of people’s lives.
Loosing control
When the move of the Spirit, through connections, began to threaten the power base of the Pastor and the Leadership, disfellowshipment or shunning, became the weapon of choice to keep people in line. As Don Barnett began to lose control, the “counseling center” became his whip. Lead by Barbara Barnett, her connection, and some elders, they brought tremendous pressure to bear on those who they deemed went too far in spiritual love. During one counseling session, I remarked to John Burgin, “you know, the only real influence over me you have is the threat of disfellowshipment”. John replied “And I intend to use it to my full advantage”.
During the months that followed I came to truly hate John Burgen. I experienced a lot of trauma in my marriage. My then wife was not a bad person just, as it turned out, the wrong person. However, the counseling center and John Burgen did not see it that way at all. Essentially, they tried to force me, on pain of disfellowshipment, to stay with my wife while God, on the other hand, led me to divorce.
Roots of legalism
Community Chapel and Bible Training center started as an offshoot, through the origins of pastor Barnett, from the holiness Pentecostal movement. This part of the Pentecostal movement, who believed God is one, is extremely legalistic. Unfortunately, this type of attitude and belief system shaped Don Barnett and informed many of his decisions when creating the Church and Bible College. Don Barnett believed he knew best and demanded others believe as he did too. If you wished to attend his church, and especially his Bible College, that meant believing as He believed.
In essence, I faced the loss of all that I invested in Community Chapel and Bible Training center. furthermore, I had to decide whether to follow the theology I was taught, or the Holy Spirit I now knew personally. It is a very odd feeling when you realize that Bible College and God are diametrically opposed. I wanted to do what God said, yet I feared disobeying my church.
Deciding to follow God
In the end, I decided to follow God. Frankly, nothing John Burgen or any other “counselor” said made any difference to me. Chris Matthews telling me he disfellowshipped me from church felt anticlimactic at best. In my heart I left Community Chapel a long time ago before the kicked me out. I made my decision to follow the Holy Spirit and that was that.
Leaving church was not that difficult, but not seeing my connections was. Dutiful as ever, my main “mega” connection cut me off as ordered. In fact, Margaret, the secretary of Don Barnett at the time, typed the letter disfellowshiping me. Admittedly, when Margaret called to say she did that, it cut me to my core. Margaret eventually fell out of favor too, and suffered the same fate as I. Though I still am connected to her in my spirit, I know that her compromise lead to our separation.
Forgiving John Burgen
A few yeas later, during a reunion of members of the church, I met John Bergen again. The man, now bearded, sat looking absolutely miserable in a corner of the sanctuary. Like the most hated man in the world, I will never forget his eyes, hollow and sad. From what I heard later, people were not that kind to him at the reunion for he had “counseled” many. Yet, when I saw him, I no longer hated him. In fact, I felt compassion for John. Sitting next to him I said,
“John, even though I don’t agree with what you did, you did what you thought best at the time. I forgive you.”
I know he did not expect those words to come out of my mouth and frankly, I didn’t either. However, they did, and that day I put all those negative feelings away forever.
Forgiving Don Barnett
Now days, as God teaches me more about what happened back then, I realize that no one acted perfectly. Unfortunately, as Barbara and Don Barnett broke up the church became a proxy war between them. At that time, and in retrospect, hearing the voice of God meant everything. Moreover, only those who trusted God more than man survived that great shaking in our small corner of christiandom.
In conclusion, my time at Community Chapel and Bible Training Center taught me many things. I received a firm foundation in the scriptures even though many of the doctrines they taught were incomplete. God taught me to listen, hear, and obey on time what His Holy Spirit told me. I also saw, up close and personal, a foretaste of the birth of the man-child and the great apostasy in microcosm. Overall, I would not be where I am today had I not attended CC&BTC.
Those who are led of the Spirit
Finally, Community Chapel and Bible Training Center does not define me, only God does. I have moved on from that experience. Keeping the good, I put away much that wasn’t. I believe differently these days as God reveals more and more of His Rhema to me. Though people at CC&BTC possessed a very limited and flawed view of God, they honestly desired to serve Him. Everything I am today, I credit to the Holy Spirit for He has and is leading me into all truth.
