Our dear friends, [in our Sunday morning meeting]
It was very clearly revealed to me last August that the reason for the storm we have been enduring in our church was to remove our faith in the ministry and our fellowship and place it only on Jesus. I wrote a letter to our entire staff regarding these thoughts. That is attached here.
This past January another vision came to me in prayer helping me see that our ministers should be pointing us to Christ and standing by us and not between us and God. I sent a text to Darryl that morning attached here.
Unfortunately, at convention, most of the ministry are doubling down on the doctrine that our fellowship and ministry are the only way to enter into relationship with God and Christ. The plan of salvation is preached as the form of the fellowship accessed through the ministry, instead of the plan of salvation being preached as eternal life and relationship with God through his Son Jesus. Most often when the word “gospel” is used, it is referring to people coming to know this form of fellowship through the preaching of the workers, instead of the gospel being the good news about Christ Jesus. When revelation is spoken of, often the meaning is revelation that our fellowship and ministry is the one true way, and not revelation of Christ as our Savior. When we think something makes us right instead of that Jesus is our righteousness, that thing becomes an idol. When we think that attending this church led by these ministers is what makes us right, it lifts the ministry and our fellowship to a place only Jesus should hold, making it an idol.
Our fellowship could be a beautiful simple way to be in community with other believers, and our ministry could be a simple way to point to Christ, but unfortunately it has become more than that in the mind of the ministry and many members of the fellowship.
As you may know, we, mostly Rebekah, have been working tirelessly on behalf of the church and in cooperation with Darryl and many in the ministry in various ways to help us get to a safe church position. This past Tuesday the staff had a staff meeting, at which they rejected the guidelines provided to them by the guidelines team. Instead they are writing a set of broader, simpler guidelines that have scriptural references. We wanted to be careful we are not acting on a rumor, so we confirmed the events of the staff meeting with three of our ministers, and some additional confirmation from a fourth.
We hoped to help our church be safe and then to start dealing with some of the doctrinal issues we see led us to the church situation we are in. We have been acting in faith and hope in God, praying that true ministers would have fresh and clear revelation like Paul and Peter did in the New Testament regarding the error of our ways. We love how we gather and worship together but some of our doctrine is not supported by scripture. We feel God is shaking our fellowship with the aim of restoring the rightful place of Christ in our church.
This decision by the ministry leads us to believe that our church will not be a safe place for children, vulnerable people, and survivors. If we cannot agree on straightforward guidelines to keep children safe, what hope is there of moving on to issues of doctrine?
It has been the joy of our life to fellowship with each one of you on Sundays, and grow closer to Christ together. We write to you in tears that we can no longer continue hosting a Sunday morning meeting in our home. There is no other effective way to communicate that we don’t agree with these doctrinal issues besides removing ourselves from the fellowship. We feel that continuing to attend this fellowship’s meetings sends the message that we condone this false doctrine, and that we believe children, vulnerable people and survivors will be safe here, which we don’t condone, and we don’t believe.
We will be gathering for fellowship Sundays and Wednesdays with others that have stepped away. If this is a need for you as well, please let us know.
What we’ve shared above is a brief synopsis of a long and complex situation. If you have any questions about anything that has happened, want to talk about doctrine questions, or anything else, now or years down the road, we are very open and very available to have those conversations.
We believe that all who have come to God in honesty are in relationship with him. If your understanding is that the fellowship is the one true way, and its ministers are the only anointed ministers, we don’t discount your relationship with God. We believe that you love God and are in relationship with Him, and we know He loves you dearly.
With love and sorrow,
Dennis & Rebekah (Johnson) Hamon
June 9, 2024
Seattle, Washington