Hello Friends & Family,
Mark and Abi here. You may have heard that we recently stepped away from meetings. We wanted to send a letter explaining the reasons behind this decision we’ve made. Firstly, we want to stress that we did not make this decision lightly or from a place of overwrought emotion. Months of discussion, Bible study, heart-searching, and prayer went into this choice.
We feel we owe our closest friends and family members an explanation, so you won’t have to “wonder” about us. We cherished our fellowship and time in meetings, but events of the past year have revealed much about this way and ministry.
Without beating about the bush anymore, here are our reasons for stepping away:
#1. Practical safety concerns: the sexual abuse crisis, cover-up, and continued callous response.
- The sexual abuse crisis hit very close to home for us in the person of Ira Hobbs. Learning about his duplicitous nature and repeated crimes deeply shocked us. When Ira left the work, he temporarily lived right next door to Mark’s family with Mark’s grandparents. Unfortunately, Ray Hoffman and Barry Barkley did not adequately inform Mark’s parents or relatives of the allegations of sexual abuse, rape, and molestation against Ira. The scope of Ira’s behavior was glossed over or fully omitted, thus granting Ira access to numerous small children in that region’s meetings. His many victims were dialed down to a single person, who was portrayed as an “unstable” grown woman. To this day, to the best of our knowledge, neither Ray nor Barry has apologized for this dangerous omission, which needlessly jeopardized the wellbeing of children and impinged upon the trust of Mark’s family, who would never have permitted children to be around a known child abuser. So when Ray said he “never relocated an abuser near children” …. Well…
- At the date of this letter, none of the leaders of the ministry have accepted accountability for their part in covering up decades of sexual crime and sexual immorality. To the best of our knowledge, none of the overseers involved in relocating predators, silencing victims, or de-fellowshiping advocates and survivors have admitted culpability nor stepped down from authority, In fact, when Mark and I broached the topic with Kelvin Naef, specifically in regard to the lies about Ira Hobbs, Kelvin acted appalled that we would even suggest such a thing. His words to use were “You don’t know what you are asking. They [the overseers] are good men.”
- The leaders of this ministry have demonstrated a chilling lack of empathy for victims. As evidenced by Kelvin’s handling of the Augusta, GA victim case, when a victim requested an advocate at his meeting with the workers, only to be expressly and rudely denied that right. (To be clear, I have read the entire email exchange between the victim and Kelvin, shared with me by the victim’s family.) That apathy is further evidenced by the refusal to remove predators from meetings, refusal to establish a victim fund, refusal to write adequate guidelines or amend the ones written, and reluctance to even answer emails from concerned friends.
- Because of our lackadaisical response to crime and due to the lack of consequences for predators and “cover-uppers,” many predators have indeed returned to meetings, including Robert Flippo, Ira Hobbs (who even has a meeting in his home), and Jim Chafee. Leslie White was “helping out” at gospel meetings as recently as this year!
- Meanwhile, ministers, elders, and friends who advocated for victims and for change are either ousted from fellowship, punished with the revocation of privileges, or backed into “resting” periods.
I would like to stress that I, Abi, did not reach the above conclusions from hearsay. I spoke with private investigators, victims, victim-advocates, family members, former and current workers, and even federal agents to make sure I understood the problem and was operating with factual information, not gossip.
#2 Doctrinal concerns. Over the course of the year, Mark and I have developed some doctrinal concerns and have had trouble reconciling Scripture with our traditions.
- Mark and I believe that Jesus Christ alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Meetings are not “the Way” or “the Truth,” although sadly we did call them that for years.
- I once believed that “Jesus died for me, yes, but…” After that “but,” I inserted the necessity of following the true ministry and attending meetings. Unwittingly, I was limiting Jesus’ sacrifice by that little word “but.” I was diminishing the power of His death and elevating my tradition to the same level as Him. I was ascribing redemptive saving power to meetings and the ministry. I was ascribing holiness and righteousness to those things. Had I drawn a pie chart of my faith, the pie would’ve been carved up into “home meetings,” “2 x2 preachers,” and “conventions.” Yes, God was in my pie chart, but so were those other earthly elements. I was drawing my sense of “rightness” and “identity” from those things—not from Jesus Christ alone. But Scripture tells us plainly that we are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). Period. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We are not saved by a particular ministry or a particular form of worship—but by Jesus Christ. He has provided us with a complete gift; we do not add to it. Two of my favorite passages of Scripture that illustrate this principle are Genesis 15, (when God cuts the covenant with Abraham alone, while Abraham sleeps) and the story of the thief on the cross.
- Both paired ministry and home churches are beautiful things which can be used for beautiful purposes. However, until this year, I believed salvation was exclusive to our fellowship and asserted that other Christians were deceived and not saved. Unwittingly, I had crafted an idol of our ministry and meetings. I claimed to believe in an omnipresent and omnipotent God—but then squashed Him into a box by saying that He only operated through workers and meetings. This was an unscriptural error on my part.
- Mark and I are also concerned by the legalisms in the fellowship. Unspoken rules such as women’s attire, reading only the King James Bible, not owning a television, refusing emblems to believers outside the fellowship, and dating/marrying only within the fellowship, to name a few. We aren’t concerned by these unspoken rules because we so desperately want to read a study Bible or own a television (we’ve owned one for years). Rather, we are concerned because these rules do indeed determine a believer’s “value,” “understanding,” or “holiness” in many parts of the country. Without going into detail, I personally experienced this when I was verbally chastised in my own home for owning a television, dying my hair, and not attending gospel meetings regularly enough. I truly don’t harbor any anger about that—it is what it is, at this point. And we understand that these rules vary from state to state; having lived in six states, we’ve encountered a variety of “meeting cultures.” We are voicing our concern now because we believe that shrugging off these “rules” only fosters a toxic church body where appearances take precedence over actual behavior. We see this in the cover-up of sexual immorality. Mark and I fear that, as a church body, we have strained at a gnat (appearances/legalisms) and swallowed a camel (pedophilia, abuse, affairs, rape).
- Finally, I have grown concerned that we have “added” things to the gospel. What I mean by this: over-emphasizing the importance of the “two by two” ministry. Over the course of the year, I re-read the gospels, Acts, and Romans trying to better understand the first apostles. When I re-read Matthew 10 and Luke 10, I was startled to learn that:
1) Jesus forbade the twelve to go to the Gentiles but limited their range to Israel alone and 2) told them not to go “house to house.” Later, in Luke 22, Jesus urges the disciples to “take their purse and also a bag” and to “take a sword,” which changed several of His commandments to the twelve given in Matthew 10.
He then stated that “what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.” He was about to usher in a new covenant by sacrificing himself on the cross. In another place, he states that his disciples are known “by their fruits,” not by going forth in pairs. Then at the end of the gospels, once he has been resurrected, he instructs his disciples to “go unto all the world” and, in John he specifically states, “As my Father sends me, I send you.” Finally, throughout Acts, the apostles carried the gospel in pairs as well as groups of three, four, five, and more. Taken together, this body of Scripture seems to imply that:
1) the 2 x2 ministry was a specific mission to Israel for a specific time (intertestamental period) to bear witness to the arrival of the Messiah; and that
2) the Spirit and the message matter so much more than the form.
The conclusion that I reached is this: a minister is not automatically “right” because s/he preaches “two by two,” nor is a minister “wrong” because s/he does not preach “two by two.” Instead, Jesus and the original apostles state that a true minister of the Word is determined by their fruits, the Spirit, and the message preached.
Over the course of this year, Mark and I realized we had become self-righteous and judgmental, especially against anyone who left meetings. I mistakenly labeled most as bitter, confused, or lost. I’m so grateful that God revealed my own errors to me, how I had allowed exclusivity to make me unloving.
When Mark and I decided to stop attending meetings in August, we did inform our meeting elders, our parents, and a few close friends. We did not attend conventions. Sadly, when we informed the workers of our decision, no workers responded, not even in acknowledgement of receipt of our email. In fact, across the board, only a handful of people reached out to us: [three names removed for privacy]. No one at our home conventions reached out. No ministers reached out. To be honest, we were shocked at the silence; but then I remembered that I rarely ever reached out to people who left meetings either. I usually stayed silent for fear of offending or seeming judgmental.
So in conclusion of this massively long winded email (so sorry, it’s just a lot to process!) … we just want to assure our friends that we still view our meeting friends and family as brothers and sisters in Christ. We have not lost our faith or our love for God. While we are disappointed by recent events, we are not bitter. Nor do we have any desire whatsoever to “burn down” meetings or convince anyone else to stop attending.
We cannot personally attend meetings at this time, due to the convictions and concerns listed above. Our only hope is that the exclusivity doctrine will be amended and that our dear friends will have safe fellowship, free of predators.
We are happy to talk about this to any of you. And of course, we don’t mind if anyone disagrees with us! We just hope you will respect where we stand right now, with all that has unfolded. And above all, we hope (and plan!) to maintain our friendship with you. You mean so much to us, and we love you and your families very much!
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this WAY TOO LONG email. You know me, I cannot rest unless I lay out every detail.
With much love,
Mark and Abi Hobbs
Taylors, South Carolina USA
October 2023
Mark and Abi Hobbs sent the above email to close friend and family in October 2023, a few weeks after officially separating from the fellowship due to the sexual abuse crisis.