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The first time I attended an All Day Ministers’ Seminar as an ATI (Advanced Training Institute) student, a kind lady approached me. “Are you an ATI student?” she asked. “Yes, I am,” I responded. “What do you think of this passage of Scripture?” A perfect stranger was asking me for counsel on biblical topics just because I was in ATI. I felt so important. Because I had no answer for her, though, it became apparent to me that I needed to live up to the expectation others would have of me as a young person wearing blue and white.
I realized that most of the world had no idea I was supposed to have lots of wisdom. That’s okay. I’d share it anyway! After going to the Basic, Advanced, and Counseling Seminars, I would have so many answers ready to share.
Now I cringe at the advice I, an inexperienced youth, gave to people.
I instructed married couples in the proper times they were to abstain in their marriages (Advanced Seminar Textbook pp. 170-183), including the completely extra-biblical concept that Bill Gothard taught us that we were to apply the guidelines for abstinence after the birth of a baby to miscarriages. I greatly regret putting such rules on young parents going through the pain of losing a baby.
When a newly-converted single mom came to me for discipleship, I focused on areas such as getting out of debt, the need to homeschool and which articles of clothing that she had were “eye traps.” She ended up quitting her well-paying job and taking only jobs where she could keep her young child with her. Getting out of debt was her focus, but it was hard with the job choices she had. She kept changing jobs, trying to get out of debt, and she took jobs that kept her completely out of fellowship. She walked away from the Lord. Oh, how I wish I could go back and encourage her to just love Jesus and not worry about all that extra stuff.
One piece of Gothard-inspired counsel that I gave I’m especially ashamed of now. A friend confided in me that she had been sexually abused. After trying to comfort her, I mentally went straight to the seminars I’d attended and started spouting the things I’d been told to say in a situation like this.
Had she reported it? Until she did, she was just as guilty as he was. Had she forgiven him? He had only hurt her body, but her bitterness would hurt her soul.
I can’t believe I was so calloused.
I’m happy to be able to say that in spite of my horrible representation of the compassion of Jesus to this friend, she has since come to Christ. She’s told me how horrible it felt to share that with me only to be told she was at fault. Thankfully, she has forgiven me for my “counsel.” I was recently talking to her about how I’ve had to change my wrong views of God since coming out of ATI. She told me that she’s had to do the same thing since coming to Christ, because she obtained her view of God from me. She encouraged me to “just ask God to show you His love and He will.”
I may have given her horrible counsel, but I’m so glad that she can now give me such wonderful counsel and point me to the God who is Love.
I re-read some of my high-school era journals recently, and the level of arrogance was astounding. To think we were encouraged to act that way ...
It is sooo sad that legalistic teachings lead to arrogance. The principles (whether Gothard's or from a local legalistic church) are taught as the only answers and so we become certain that we can "assist" others. For most of us, I don't believe it was done with an intent to hurt or give wrong information, but to help some poor, uninformed person see the light. I thank God for His grace and mercy in helping each of us on our journey to change and leave legalism behind. What a blessing that your friend has come to Christ and together you can experience the freedom we have in Him!
Thanks for the article, I've come to the same conclusion about the principles I could spot off back in the day. It took getting slapped around by a real job out in the real world when I was much older to see how little I actually knew and how screwed up the ATI belief system is.
I still cringe when I think about the counsel I, as an ATI volunteer, gave to much older adults with kids who were looking for real wisdom. Like you, I hope they've forgotten anything and everything I told them--I just have to trust God that they have abandoned it and that they're getting much more applicable guidance at this point.
While I agree that a lot of young people have give the wrong counsel, often arrogantly, because they thought they were doing God's will, the structure of IBLP encourages the problem of young people giving bad advice. IBLP puts untrained, experienced unqualified young people in positions of authority and influence that they have no business being. At Verity Institute one of the young men in student affairs falsely accused me of not engaging in a particular task, saying he believe fellow students would respect me if they saw me doing such and such. I told him I had already done that. He ignored me and never told the students what I had done. He then went onto spiritually, emotional, psychologically abuse and manipulated me into agreeing to something against my personal and religious beliefs while attacking me for being depressed. When I went back to example to him that that was wrong, he just cut me off and stuck his finger in my face and said as though he had all the arrogant authority that I "need to work on my mood swings." The prerequisites Verity had for this young man's position are the subjective "humility and the fear of the Lord," something the young man did not display. Even after I've told the higher authorities at Verity about this, they still left the guy a higher position then he had before. How I pray that IBLP, Verity, ALERT, etc. would realize the spirit damaging mistake of unqualified people young people into postilion of spiritual power.
Yes. Power-posturing is a major part of abusive systems: https://www.recoveringgrace.org/2012/07/the-subtle-power-of-spiritual-abuse-chapter-5-identifying-the-abusive-system/
It is so great that you two guys can be so honest with yourselves and with God about everything, God bless you in your growth and progress.
I just read this article for the first time. Thank you for telling your story. So many things are adding up after the past month or so... We were in ATI for at least 11 years - but the residue hangs on much longer.
In ALERT and EXCEL and Children's Institutes, the blind were leading the blind - to the point of almost literally falling into a ditch. A fake, wanna-be young medic type person for something as strenuous as ALERT back in 2004? Really? Such an immature EXCEL 'leader' that you don't even want to hear the stories? That is when my eyes were opened to this student leader thing - after our daughter attended EXCEL (2003) Mr. Gothard used, abused, exploited, and over-worked young people. He had his own army of blind young people whose parents had been duped - often with very good motives but duped nonetheless.
I want to thank each one of you young people for your honesty on RG. We need to hear it.
A Mom - Julia Fetters