Hollie's Story
"I was just like you years ago. There was a mass exodus from Liberty. I didn’t question it, not really. I relied on others I trusted to inform me of why people left. There were mumbles that it was just personality conflicts. That was good enough for me. I was at a point in my life where Liberty provided the security and stability I needed to understand my world and current circumstances. So I put my head down and sang a little louder.
About 18 years ago when I gave my life to Jesus at 15, Liberty soon became my church home. The leaders became my spiritual parents. They walked me through the darkest seasons of my life including the breaking of my porn addiction in my college years and the death of my beloved-by-all-at-Liberty mother.
When two broken people are united in marriage, it doesn’t make one whole. It magnifies the brokenness. Jon and I experienced deep marital conflicts. I fled to Liberty leadership for support, and I received it. Though it took me 2 years of counseling with David Vaughan to use my voice enough to demand change about non-adultery issues, with David’s encouragement I finally did. I knew that Jon didn’t fit the typical “Liberty husband” persona. I began to press for mild church discipline for Jon. They granted it.
In the meantime, I began counseling with a LPC familiar with Liberty. This person created a safe place for me to process my choices and explore roots of bitterness and boundary issues. I credit this counselor for saving my marriage with Jon. During this season, I also became aware of Liberty wives experiencing profound emotional and sometimes physical abuse. This was reported to David Vaughan. To date, nothing has come from it.
Jon bravely decided to return to school to get a 4-year degree and 2.5 years ago we relocated to Rolla Missouri. We both left on great terms with Liberty, and I knew I’d never find a church as awesome as Liberty here. After attending several, we finally settled on a Vineyard church, though I knew that Liberty would have called it an “easy believism” church, as did I initially. I didn’t feel we had a lot of options though in rural USA, so we put down shallow roots in the church. I had trouble becoming fully invested. I visited Liberty often and deeply missed the known and familiar relationships we left behind when we moved.
I couldn’t understand why I was crying so much during the sermons at Vineyard. The message of God’s acceptance and unconditional love was something I knew to be true theologically. I heard it at Liberty often I thought. While receiving love from the Father was something I’d always struggled with, this seemed beyond that. The messages I heard every Sunday were radically different from what I heard from Liberty. Not easy believism but grace-based acceptance.
I began to bloom. Jesus was wooing me to be fully loved and all parts of my sometimes “unfeminine” personality embraced. My churches mantra, “everyone gets to play,” rocked me deeply. Lightbulbs were coming on left and right, and I began to explore my previously held beliefs.
Several months ago I reached out to people who had left Liberty. Up until this point, I never allowed myself to ask them what really happened, though with my vocation, I worked closely with some of these people. I didn’t fully believe the stories of the first few people. After all, these people weren’t walking with the Lord anymore so surely their stories must be tainted.
It wasn’t until I reached out to several families still walking with the Lord that things began to fall into place. The sick and twisted things that others alluded to were not embellishments by bitter people. They actually happened.
So here I am. My family and several dear sisters and brothers in the Lord adore Liberty, and it kills me that my exposure pains them so. I did life with these loved ones for over 15 years. We raised families together. Walked through the hellish years of young mothering together. Sang my best friend (my mom) to sleep together.
The insidious part of a spiritually abusive church is cultivating a subtle distrust of anyone whose beliefs expand beyond not only the biggies (trinity, Bible as sola scriptura...) but also the cultural norms of that church community. Apparently this isn’t normal in healthy churches, lol, and thank God otherwise we’d never been accepted at Vineyard--we are definitely not fully on board with Vineyards cultural norms. There’s still lots of Liberty beliefs to be examined and possibly undone in us. You can imagine the straddling I face on Sunday mornings.
Had those godly families that left quietly done what I’m doing now back at the last exodus, several other people would’ve been spared the harsh shepherding of Ezekiel 34. Let us not sing a little louder and close our ears to the abuse going on. Let us shine light, hold up beliefs to the light and with full knowledge decide what our journey will be henceforth."
Do you have a story to tell? Has Liberty Church hurt you? Email your story to petertkintz@gmail.com and I will have it posted! 
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