In the latter part of the 1990s, I spent the better part of two years working at the Oklahoma City Training Center (OTC). I worked primarily with Character First! Education (CFE), specifically going into the local schools and teaching the curriculum to mostly low-income children. While I now see some of the flawed philosophy behind what we were doing (trying to teach Christ-like behavior without Christ just didn’t work all that well), working with CFE was actually a fairly enjoyable experience. Overall, the leaders were genuine people with a heart for children. I still count a few of them as friends today.
However, the general training center experience wasn’t positive at all. One of the philosophies that seemed to pervade all Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) training centers was the idea that if the students and young adults were kept busy at all hours of the day, there wouldn’t be time for them to get into trouble. This concept, coupled with the simple fact that the training center required lots of work to keep running, was a recipe for what I now consider to be physical, spiritual, and emotional abuse.
Let me walk you through a typical day. Keep in mind that it’s been more than a decade, so I’m trying to remember the details as accurately as possible. We young men were required to be downstairs for personal devotions at 6:30 a.m. each morning. If you were unfortunate enough to be on breakfast duty, you had to be downstairs as early as 5:00 a.m. helping preparing breakfast for the entire training center. “Wisdom search,” another time of Scripture reading and prayer, was from 7:00 to 7:30. Breakfast was eaten hastily, as most of the vans left for the schools at 8:00. After a full day of teaching, we would return to the training center around 4:00. This was followed by a time of debriefing and planning/preparation for the next day. Dinner was very shortly thereafter, around 6 p.m., followed by work teams for an hour or more. I was on dishwashing duty my entire time there. Upon completing our work duty, we then all reassembled for an “evening session,” which consisted of watching one of IBLP’s many videos, often by Bill Gothard or some other key leader. Once that time concluded we were all sent to our rooms, often to spend a few more hours preparing for the next day of teaching. It was usually well after 9:00 p.m., and often after 10:00 p.m., before we were able to go to sleep. All in all, it was an exhausting schedule for young people to maintain over a long period of time. I never remember being more tired in my life!
On rare occasions, students were allowed to go on “outings” that consisted of going to a park or on a walk. One such event was scheduled in the spring of 2000, as I recall, and it is one of the worst examples of spiritual and emotional abuse that I have ever witnessed. The students were going to be allowed to go to a game preserve about an hour away from the training center. This was a highly anticipated event. However, the week prior, the training center leadership determined that too many people were falling asleep during morning wisdom search. The book that was being read at that point was Jonah. One morning, the leadership decided to surprise all of the students with a “pop quiz” containing very random, detailed questions about the book of Jonah. The overwhelming majority failed miserably. Because of their failure, leadership decided to cancel the trip. Surprisingly, there was actually enough of a ruckus caused by students and their parents that they decided to reinstate the trip–for those who copied out the entire book of Jonah by hand and turned it in. Keep in mind that this was in addition to the already exhausting schedule the students were keeping!
I share this story, not out of bitterness or anger, but simply to expose the kinds of things that went on. Most of the students that came to the OTC came simply out of a desire to help kids in poor schools learn about character. In fact, they paid weekly for the “privilege” of doing so. But at the end of the day, most were simply used as slave labor to keep the training center running, and, rather than being skillfully trained to work with children, they were being constantly brainwashed with legalistic propaganda. Rather than being trusted as maturing adults, they were constantly being watched, chastised, and punished for not being spiritual enough.
John, I worked at HQ and I can identify with the same prevailing thought that students were kept busy to keep them out of “trouble”. Most of us at HQ did get paid so that was a plus. However, MANY were told that they could not record over a certain amount of hours..and never any overtime. For such events as Knoxville many of us worked literally around the clock. Among my friends I was the only one allowed to record those hours. This was not only unfair but I believe it would be considered highly unethical. So much work with so little down time resulted in many of us experiencing major health issues. I am grateful for the work experience that I gained, and like you, the friends that I have. But living in an exhausted state has took it’s toll and left me very sick.
This incident really upset me when I learned about it. It was an eye opening experience for me that "all wasn't well in Gothard's kingdom." I was confused that the leadership would require such a ridiculous thing of these young people who were there to teach CFE. Good grief. You all weren't there for a Bible course. How dare them make the young people take a test over the book of Jonah! And then to have those who failed write that book word for word. That's ludicrous!
John, like you already mentioned, you all were paying to be there and worked grueling hours. It truly is slave labor. Keep the young people single and working long and hard hours everyday for free all the while we as parents thought/think we are building godly character into our children.
From all outward appearances when I visited the OKC training center, everything seemed so heavenly. Friendly people dressed neatly with great smiles who didn't seem to have a care in the world! Little did I know there was much pain behind some of those smiles.
Our family spent a few months at the OTC just volunteering. It was during this time that I saw and experienced many things that destroyed that heavenly image. I had no idea at the time that God was going to use it all as well as some other things to set my family and I free from a lifestyle of legalistic bondage. "To God be the glory!"
John, thank you for sharing this! I also was at Oklahoma City Training Center in the late 90's, in fact I remember you from that time. I was only there for one month, May of '98, but that brutal schedule definitely took a toll on me. I was sick the entire last week I was there... after only three weeks of maintaining the TC schedule! I can't imagine how it would have affected my health to be there longer term. I can definitely relate to what you say, Tammy, about how heavenly it all seemed. It seemed like that to me when I first got there, too. But over time, I just started feeling more and more strangled. No time for yourself, very few opportunities to "blow off steam" and just have fun, such incredibly high expectations, over-spiritualizing everything, the lack of any kind of freedom at all... I remember the girls walking laps around the parking lot, during a few free moments here and there. When I first arrived, that seemed so weird to me... but after a week or so, I was out there walking laps with them. Because that was the only way to get some fresh air, other than the occasional times when we could go outside on recess with the kids at the schools and play with them. We were not allowed to leave the training center without permission, and were told that the neighborhood was unsafe, to keep anyone from going on walks or jogs alone or even in small groups. They even built a wall around the parking lot "for our safety", and because (I was told) there was a problem with sketchy-looking guys (read that as anyone NOT in ATI-style clothing) were ogling the girls as they walked laps. It just started to seem like some kind of twilight zone, after a while. We always found ways to blow off steam and have fun anyway, the sad part is that we also knew that if we were caught, we would be in trouble... no matter how innocent the activity was.
When I was on staff at OTC in '96, I had a much better experience. My sister and I badly overslept and missed most of Wisdom Search. We apologized profusely, expecting at least a "project." The director said that we "probably needed the extra sleep" and continued with the Wisdom Search. Okay, see, that makes sense. We DID need extra sleep. Why wasn't that the automatic conclusion when all those young people were falling asleep in Wisdom Searches? Why punish them as if their physical tiredness was instead spiritual lack?
As you know, John, I was there too. So I'd like to point out another fact in that story. The visit to the game reserve had been announced earlier that week. So not only was the "quiz" a surprise, so was the idea that there was a going on this outing came with a condition.
I vividly remember that quiz. I wasn't angry at the time, just surprised and a little confused. As I wrote down the very few answers that I knew (I mean, really, why was it important to know Jonah's Dad's name?), I thought about writing down ten insights that people had shared during the Wisdom Searches that week, which is what the focus of them were anyways. To this day, I wish I had. I wonder what their response would have been? At the time, I was mostly bugged by the fact that I was tested on something I didn't realize I was supposed to be paying attention to (and I HAD been paying attention. For some reason, I must've been getting more sleep than you. I think the boys had it worse than us girls.) But as I wrote out the book of Jonah that day and thought about it later as the months and years passed, I realized what an abuse of power that was. It basically came down to one of the leaders being a grump and not wanting us to go on that particular outing so he devised this way of dividing the "most deserving" and making most of us stay home. (I overheard part of a conversation among the leadership which gave me the impression that this certain leader didn't approve of the outing. Why they had that conversation in the lobby, I have no idea.)
I remember, too, during that time we had to petition for one "free" evening because some of us didn't even have enough time to write letters home.
As one who was in leadership at the time, I can attest to the fact that this whole Jonah disaster stemmed from the director's disapproval of any sort of leisure activities. I remember that as the absolute low point of that year. It's hard for a written description of the event to convey the absolute feeling of hopelessness and despair such a seemingly trivial experience brought to all of us there.
And I agree that the lifestyle imposed there was physically, spiritually, and emotionally abusive. Although I was in leadership, I strongly disagreed with about 90% of what was happening there. Why did I stay? I have no idea, except that I felt an enormous level of obligation that makes no sense to me now. And I loved the opportunity to work in the schools. I now wish I'd gone to college instead. . . a degree in education would have given me a much more sustainable way to work with children.
I came home from that year completely exhausted in every way. I was spiritually floundering and physically, my health was nearly destroyed. I have so many regrets, the greatest of which is that I actively participated in perpetuating this abuse on so many of my peers, however reluctantly. Thankfully I was able to rebuild and make it through. Sadly, I know several others who didn't, and there is no justification for that.
The last part of your post made me mad! Health nearly destroyed! Sick what they were doing to ya'll!
[...] destruction that has taken place. His refusal to acknowledge or address the sexual, physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse that is daily being brought to light by Recovering Grace and other former ATI [...]
Thankfully the director at the OTC who arrived at the beginning of '96 when I was there opened my eyes to the error of IBLP/ATI - though inadvertently. I willingly left college to work at the training center in June '95, but when the director changed, the entire atmosphere changed and I saw legalism at its worst. Thankfully by God's grace I came to begin to see my own legalism by being exposed to someone who was deeper down its path. On one occasion, I missed dish duty (though I had a friend take my place) when another acquaintance showed up at the training center to visit. I gave this person a tour and took the time to explain the center to this person. However, this was interrupted as not being a "servant" enough and I was told to consider the possibility of going elsewhere - maybe HQ. Though admittedly, dishes are not my favorite chore, I was disturbed my actions were interrupted that way. Though there's more to the story than I'm able to write here, thankfully ultimately my decision was to leave the OTC. Within a year, I was back in college (after, of course, working through the guilt of whether it was Christian to go to a public institution...)
I was there in 1997 - 1998 working with CFE. Went home after coming down with vertigo from exhaustion!