Many of you know that I have been diagnosed with ALS. I don’t have much time left to share what has been given to me. Please respect me in this effort by lending me your attention one last time as many of you did while I was in the work. This is my attempt to try and explain what has happened to the fellowship that I used to be a part of. Some people call it “the Two by Twos.”
As many of you know, I was a minister in this fellowship for 20 years. I always worked with the CA/AZ/HI staff. Maybe you could make that correction. I started in AZ in 1990 and left from the Asia staff in 2010.
I was born and raised in Montana. You might say I was born into it because my parents were second generation. I grew up going to fellowship meeting in the home and we had the workers in our home many times. My parents were honest people. They respected the workers yet disagreed openly with workers when they felt that they were wrong. Towards the end of his life, my father expressed that he was ashamed of the workers in their area and he would not invite anyone to gospel meeting.
He also told me some years before he died, that something was wrong with Dean Bruer, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. I minimized his feelings and arranged for Dean Bruer to speak at my dad’s funeral. For which I am now deeply ashamed. I feel fairly confident that had my parents lived through the exposé that happened after Dean Bruer’s death, they would have also recognized how the ministry has turned away from Jesus.
I think we need to make it clear that for some of us who have recognized this turning away, it is the ministry and the wrong doctrine that we have rejected, not Jesus. Some of those who are still going to meeting, including some workers, are misrepresenting us as bitter people. The truth is, that you who are still “inside”, some knowingly and most unknowingly, have accepted a false doctrine, are mostly unaware of it and are unwilling to step out in faith as the Bible tells us in Hebrews 11.
Many of those who continue to go to meetings under the authority of the current ministry are affected by fear. They are afraid to be alone, they are afraid to leave what they have known, they are afraid to carefully consider all that has happened, preferring to cover their ears and avert their eyes. They are afraid to follow Jesus whatever the cost might be. So they justify their choice with the thought that “their” group of believers have a good spirit.
The older brother workers are to be blamed for perpetuating this false doctrine. The older sister workers are to be blamed for not following Jesus. Let me make this clear with an example. There is a sister worker in California who is fearless—when it comes to correcting brother workers who she has seniority over. But, she will not correct brother workers who she does not have seniority over. I am one whom she has corrected. But she will not correct older brother workers who are wrong. How do I know this? Because she is still in the work. Had she corrected them as the Bible tells us, in Matthew 18. She would no longer be in the work. They would have kicked her out. Therefore, I can logically conclude that she cannot have done so. She is an example of all the older sister workers who are afraid to follow Jesus in the example of Matthew 18 when they absolutely know of wrongdoing. Being a woman “in subjection” is no excuse.
I will now explain to you this false doctrine. It is the simple act of placing the Holy Spirit in a higher position than Jesus. This is contrary to what Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would do. The older workers openly look to the Holy Spirit to guide them. They openly say that they trust the Holy Spirit is guiding them. This is evidence of false doctrine. We do not follow the Holy Spirit. We follow Jesus. The Holy Spirit will encourage us in our efforts to follow Jesus.
The first time I recognized how this doctrine was being used was on 2009 when I caught my older companion, the overseer of China, J.C. grooming a young woman in China to be his secret lover. At that time, he was a short, overweight, homely individual in his 60s, and had almost succeeded in convincing a young Chinese woman who came to meetings, to be his secret lover while he continued in the work. Let that sink in.
To accomplish such a thing, one has to have experience. A book cannot teach you how to do this. When I left the work, I began searching for a woman to spend my life with, and it was difficult to find a date. But J.C. had become a predator. He was not interested in a life of giving this woman the love and honor she deserved, he only wanted to take from her. And when he was caught, he was so angry. He told me this, “Let’s not say anything to anyone until the Holy Spirit can guide us”. Let that sink in.
That was his doctrine while he lived the life of a sexual predator. Really! Think about that! His doctrine, while he lived the life of a sexual predator and hypocrite, a wicked evil person, his doctrine was to wait for the Holy Spirit to guide him. Do not just read my words and move on. Take time to really think about it. Try to understand what he was doing and how he had learned to hide in plain sight while using this doctrine to fool the sheep. I’m challenging you to spend days wrapping your mind around this. If you’re not willing to accept this challenge, then you may have closed your ears and eyes from using God given tools of logic and clear reasoning. Remember that Jesus used these tools to be free from blind traditions. Mt 15:16-20.
So, I waited for several days. Until it dawned on me that the Holy Spirit will never say anything different from what Jesus lived and taught. The answer to my dilemma was in Matthew 18:15-20 and the Holy Spirit wouldn’t budge in a billion years from pointing to this escalation of a demand for repentance. I had gone to J.C., and he would not listen to the need to repent.
The next step was to bring in others. When I told him this, he became very angry. The next person I involved was Richard Denherder, the second brother worker in authority in China at the time. Richard told me over the phone, and I quote. “I am not surprised—he has done this three times before”. Let that sink in again.
Richard knew what the man was capable of, and he never warned me to be on the lookout for the safety of that young woman. Richard was already poisoned with this doctrine. He judged people according to their “spirit”. He had convinced himself that J.C. had repented. He had convinced himself, that J.C. had a good “spirit”. Do you see the evil of this doctrine yet? How many of us thought that Dean Bruer had a good “spirit”? We were not good judges of who had the “spirit”. Do you see how we have been fooled into accepting this doctrine in place of understanding the fruit of following Jesus?
Here is some proof that many workers will not follow Jesus anymore. They have wholeheartedly accepted this doctrine of following the “spirit”. In China, J.C. knew he was in trouble. The older workers told me, “OK we will take it from here. But we will not tell the Saints about J.C. They are not mature enough to deal with this.” This is the point at which they broke away from the teaching of Jesus and began following this new doctrine.
J.C. was allowed to continue in the work in South Africa. Dale Schultz later told me that he knew J.C. had lied to him about South Africa wanting him to be in the work there, but then concluded that J.C. seemed to have a good “spirit”. Jesus tells us that if the sinner will not listen to two or three, about what? The need to repent. But many workers have preempted the doctrine of Jesus and now accept the fruit of repentance to be their judgment of whether or not people appear to have the “spirit”.
The final step if people will not accept Jesus’ standard of repentance, then it must be told to the whole church and the church must decide. You can see this in action in 1 Cor 5. But many workers have accepted this doctrine into the foundation doctrine of the fellowship now. They cannot give it up. Because they have put themselves in a place where they have told people that they can tell who has the spirit and who doesn’t. They have put themselves in a place where they have told people they can tell when the spirit is moving.
Here is more proof that many have stopped following Jesus. Jesus said that if a man is lusting after a woman that he should cut off his hand or gouge out his eye. The first time that the older workers caught J.C., they ought to have turned to this verse to deal with him. What could mean more to us than our hand or eye. Our reputation, our place in the ministry. Those are the things that are as important to us as our hands and eyes, and J.C. was never made to follow the teachings of Jesus in this.
Dean Bruer indeed never followed this. He never repented that we are aware of. What he did instead was to lift up this doctrine of the spirit being more important than the words of Jesus. Oh, he would SAY that the words of Jesus were more important, because the predator must wear the skin of a sheep to fit in, but he wouldn’t do it himself and so it still is today.
Many workers are caught in the cunning web of this doctrine. They cannot put a pedophile out of fellowship because the pedophile, as a predator, knows how to fake the “spirit”. And so, the workers are prisoners of this doctrine. They must accept that person while rejecting the person who does not display the right “spirit”. If I disagree with a worker or show passion about a subject, then I am going against the common teaching of what the “spirit” looks like.
With their definition I wonder when Jesus upended the tables in the temple, the same workers would have condemned him for having a bad “spirit”. When Jesus told Peter to get behind him, Satan, the same workers may have condemned Jesus as having a bad “spirit”. They will not listen to, they will not submit themselves to the guidance of people who want to lift up Jesus. The proof of this, can be found in many places where those of us who have now recognized this false belief in the fellowship, at one time pleaded with our local workers to listen to us, to stop all the traveling, to stop all the conventions and gospel meetings and enter a season of repentance and of reflection and of doctrinal investigation until this problem was weeded out.
But the oldest workers among us, Dale Schultz, Barry Barkley, Richard Denherder, older workers overseas, who consider themselves overseers, have rejected this submission because they no longer see themselves as servants. They see themselves as overseers and leaders. They no longer see themselves washing the feet of others. This doctrine of following the spirit is a wicked evil doctrine.
All of you who still go to meeting, I encourage you to ask yourselves this question. Have you been encouraged to look for the spirit of a thing? Do you look for the spirit of the meeting? The spirit of convention? Do you look for the spirit of your fellow Christian? Or do you look for Christ in the meeting? Do you look for Christ at convention? Do you look for Christ in your fellow man?
You may never know whether someone you bump into on the street, someone who does not “go to meetings” is actually one of His. Mt 15:21-28; Acts 18:9-10. If you look for the former, then you may be influenced by this false doctrine. I beg of you to escape. Turn your heart again to Jesus. Like Abraham, be willing to leave your family and friends and kinfolk and go out as a stranger waiting for the Lord to feed you and for the Lord to guide you. The Holy Spirit will encourage you to follow Jesus. The Holy Spirit will never put itself above Jesus.
Remember what God said when Jesus was baptized. He spoke from heaven. He didn’t say this is my Holy Spirit follow him. The Holy Spirit didn’t land on the ground. The Holy Spirit landed on Jesus and God spoke from heaven, saying this is my beloved son, hear him! I beg of you friends, please consider and pray about this.
Now. Are you angry with me? Saddened? Or did this make you want to pray, to understand? Perhaps you want to prove me wrong. Or perhaps this helped clarify something that has been in the back of your mind. I’ll tell you a short story. I had a cabinet shop for a few years. My table saw had a good fence, but I kept a tape measure close by and double checked the measurement of every cut because I knew that the little sight glass on the fence didn’t align perfectly with the measuring tape permanently fixed to the saw.
The day came when I bought a new saw. It arrived in a crate and as I assembled it, I came to the fence. I learned in the directions that the little sight glass on the fence was adjustable so that I could align it perfectly with the permanent measuring tape. Gone was that extra step of measuring each cut! I loved this feature of my new saw and came to trust it. One day I cleaned up the old saw in readiness to sell. I leaned closer and discovered that it too had an adjustable sight glass! How many hours of wasted effort because I didn’t know how to properly use my tools!
God gave us many tools. Among them is logic, clear thinking, intuition, judgement. Jesus used these tools wisely along with spiritual gifts. Sadly, I didn’t always use my tools when I was a worker. I’ll give you an example. Dale Schultz upbraided us workers in a worker’s meeting in California for not using King James English in our prayers. I knew instinctively that to try to “put on” this affectation when it wasn’t our normal speech, was inherently dishonest. I promptly rejected it in my mind and moved on. I did not use my God given tools nor even the scripture to question, If he recommends dishonesty, what else might be wrong? Mt 7:15-20.
Indeed, not long later I heard him preach at convention from Jn 10:3 that the porter or gatekeeper is the Spirit. Jesus never said this, but it is a sneaky way to lift up the Spirit by cleverly taking our attention away from Jesus. I felt something was off about it but again, I didn’t use my tools to check it out. It’s a thought that seems so harmless, doesn’t it? And what if I had openly disagreed with him at the time? I feel that it would have been my “spirit” that was weighed instead of the truth of the scripture.
I stopped attending gospel meetings and conventions because I was weary of trying to find something true and honest about Jesus among the false and misleading. Oh, some truth is there! I don’t deny it. I know your fellowship meeting is helpful and encouraging. But ultimately, if you accept the oversight of an unrepentant ministry, then you are under the influence of a most powerful and wicked doctrine that will not lift up Jesus as the Master. They will say they do, but they haven’t followed through yet. Many of your workers, however loving and kind, are prisoners of this doctrine.
You workers—do you see what is wrong but have decided to just keep your head down lest you be the next to be accused of having a bad spirit? Are you willing to follow Mt 18? Or are you like I was and bail out at step 2, not willing for the fallout from insisting on true repentance instead of the appearance of the “spirit.”
In the final two weeks I was in China, I slept with a woman to whom I was teaching English. I was in the depths of depression and made this destructive choice. Then, when I was tempted to step in front of a bus, I knew I had to leave China. I had to leave the work. I had to freely admit what I’d done and lose my reputation and calling to truly repent. Before I left, I apologized to the woman who didn’t deserve to be treated like that. Since then, I’ve cut off my “hand” and gouged out my “eye”, as it were, I’ve been free. True repentance has been wonderful. Had I not truly repented, but waited for the Spirit to guide, I’m sure I would have eventually convinced myself of my repentance and kept this new secret appetite well hidden under the right “spirit”, while learning new ways to indulge myself.
So, what do you do? Lose your place? Be destitute? Lose your friends? Lose your family? Be alone? Do you stubbornly hang on to the church in the home and the ministry without a home? That’s a rickety two legged stool when we won’t follow Jesus in the weightier matters of repentance and judgment. These they ought to have done and not leave the other undone.
Where do you see yourself in Mt 13:10-17? How about Lu 11:33-36? Or Mt 10:34-39? Will you take the time to read the scripture I’ve referenced.
Well, that’s it. My final plea to follow Jesus, whatever it means, whatever it costs, whatever the price might be to pay. I’m just laying it out there. Do with it what you will. I sincerely hope this message takes away your peace that you’ve made with yourself if it has come at the expense of putting Jesus first.
By Gary Myers
October 5, 2025
Epilouge: I left the work in late August 2010 and left meetings permanently in 2023. After leaving the work, I settled in North Dakota where I met and married a local woman, have two children, ages 10 & 12. I was a diesel mechanic, carpenter and finally am finishing up as a civil engineering tech for the State of North Dakota DOT. My wife is a K-12 music teacher.
Permission to share granted
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More cncerning J.C.…
J.C. lived a double life for a good number of years. He wore one face to those of us who were his companions and fellow-workers. Another face to the women he attempted or succeeded in setting up relationships with. No one can accomplish this without making some foundation changes to belief and faith and character. On the surface, he continued to show his characteristic self-effacing manner.
Consider how one would have to warp your doctrinal beliefs to accomplish the following.
In 2009, while I was in language school, J.C. would meet up with one woman or another, either online or by phone or in person, to continue his relationships. Then He would return to our bach, converse with me, get on his knees to pray, and prepare for and participate in a gospel meeting—then repeat. I know this because one woman discovered him cheating on her with another. It was this blow-up in his secret relationships that spilled over into public view.
I don’t believe that he could have repented of this double life and stayed in the ministry. If he repented, I would have known of it because he would have made a great effort, one which would have included him admitting it by asking for forgiveness. See 2 Corinthians 7 to understand what this type of repentance looks like. Can anyone show me what he has done to clear himself? What about the ability to live a double life without conscience? How does a person repent from that?
Some have told me that he never had sexual relations with any of the women. I’m not sure how they would know— but anyhow, this is naive if not disingenuous. Even with a clean mind and heart, Jesus understood the reality of where a man’s thoughts lead, and he made it clear what to do about it.
In any case, after J.C. left China, I opened a laptop he’d left behind. He had attempted to erase it, but a photo remained of a Chinese woman (not one of our friends or contacts) sitting clothed, on his bed in our bach. I’d never seen her before. It was evidently a woman who felt comfortable in that place and who he felt comfortable taking the picture of her there. Let that sink in a while to understand the import of it. We had a small sitting room just outside his bedroom if it were an innocent photo.
The fact that I never caught him actually in bed with someone isn’t the point. His girlfriend that he was secretly grooming did catch him in at least one extra relationship other than her. That’s why she was angry. She had the evidence. His phone was registered in her name, giving her access to his phone records. She got suspicious and began calling numbers on his record. That’s how she found other women.
I was incredulous about what J.C. had done, but it took me some years to fully understand the effects on others and the depth of wickedness of it. I am identifying some of those now.
Through the years, as J.C. was caught in his behavior, called to repent and then continuing his habits of persuading women to enter into secret relationships with him, then being caught again, ad nauseum, J.C. absorbed and accepted a doctrine from somewhere that allowed him to feel good about himself while keeping his secret life. Eventually he became a dedicated predator, able to groom women to his desires. According to Richard DenHerder, this young woman in China had not had sex with him yet, but she was considering it. This shows how far he’d gone in grooming her.
Some of the workers have known for years of his behavior. He’d been confronted by Paul Sharp as well as others. Then they promoted him to overseer AFTER they knew! One needs to seriously think about this. A question you could ask yourself is, “How would you go about convincing a woman to have a secret relationship with you?” You’d need years of practice to hone that skill.
Some of the fault lies with me. I should have insisted at the time, when I was still in China, that Jesus’ words in Mt 18 be followed. I was told by Richard then, that we couldn’t tell the friends in China because they were so young. I should have smelled the coverup but didn’t.
The fact that this occurred shocks me now. Why weren’t the scriptures consulted then and followed? Why hasn’t anyone tried to in the intervening years? Dale Schultz told me that J.C. was doing well in South Africa even though he conceded that J.C. lied to get to stay there. How could he possibly know how well he was doing? J.C. was good at concealing his behavior, assigning himself to this girl’s area, right under Richards and my nose. I could feel something was wrong but kept blaming myself for our shallow companionship. I noticed things but didn’t realize what I was seeing.
A very common theme of the false doctrine that J.C. embraced was this saying in one form or another, “We will wait for the Spirit to guide.” This sounds so good, so right, and yet it opens a door to wickedness because it makes the answer subjective. It most definitely does not lift up Jesus as All in All. A better version would be, “The Spirit will encourage and strengthen our efforts to lift up Jesus.” It seems like a small change—but it would make a huge difference.
J.C. used the former statement in verbatim to me after I confronted him in person. I agonized over this for several days until realizing that the Spirit has already guided us. He always turns our eyes to Jesus as our example, never to Himself. We don’t have to wait for the Spirit to tell us something we already have the answer for. I’ve heard this statement about the Spirit guiding from so many that I think it must be a widespread false doctrine among us now. I beg all readers to think long and hard about these last two paragraphs because I believe this doctrine is the foundation for the coverups and the stonewalling from the workers against serious changes.
So, I called in others as the scriptures teach, and boy was J.C. angry. He’s never apologized to me for the lying, deceit and outright lecherous behavior. I longed for a companion in those days who would feed my soul. He willfully damaged a sweet young woman in our field. One who I loved as a sister in Christ but who he was actively grooming to be a secret sexual partner.
When this blew up in China, Richard interviewed the woman and learned that he’d told her often how much he loved her. Why then didn’t he marry her? I believe it’s because marriage wasn’t what he had in mind when he was secretly grooming her to his purpose. Think of the gravity of that. Those are the actions of a dedicated predator. When I called in Richard, his reply to me was, “I’m not surprised because he’s done this three times before.
When I was in China after J.C. was gone, I had a companion from Ireland. He was a genuine man, I thought. Then I was put with a different companion. It didn’t take long to realize that he was about the same brand of cat that J.C. was. He was about spiritually dead as far as I was concerned. I surprised him once by returning a day early to our bach and found a pair of women’s small slippers by the door which he quickly scooped up into the cupboard. He rarely lifted a finger to pick up anything so it really surprised me. I noticed a home call massage business card nearby which in China would usually include some sort of sexual service beyond a massage. Especially to a man alone in his home.
I told Richard DenHerder, who didn’t agree with me, even after I told him what I’d observed. Richard told me that the man had a good spirit. Can you imagine? Richard being able to tell who had a good spirit and who didn’t? This is the same person who told me that J.C. had done his deeds three times before that he knew of! Incredible that he KNEW about J.C. and never warned me so that I could be on the lookout! This man, Richard DenHerder, who couldn’t tell whether J.C. had repented, was confident he could tell who had the Spirit!
Does this make him like the man mentioned in Mt 18:6? Because of his horrible decision to be complicit in covering up J.C.’s pattern, ANOTHER sweet person was damaged! Who then is the problem here? J.C., who did it over and over again throughout his life, getting more crafty with each time he was caught. Yes. Or is it also Richard, et al, who did nothing to stop it permanently? Is it Dale Schultz who told me that J.C. was now doing well in South Africa? Is it the number of other workers who knew and never raised the alarm?
For Richard’s part, I’ve often wondered why he was so lenient towards J.C. After J.C. left, I told Richard that he had absorbed some of J.C.’s doctrine of the “spirit leading” himself. This made him quite angry and he strongly defended himself. Hardly the attitude of a humble child, in my opinion. Anyway, I made poor choices myself right at the last few days of my time there. But at least I had the honesty to get out. Not saying the same for Richard or J.C. or many many others.
Today, J.C. is still in the work. He was invited to ND for conventions in 2022. I strongly protested and told Leroy Sandford. He consulted Barry Barkley and Ray Hoffman who both declined to discuss it with me or look into it further. I skipped conventions but listened to J.C. speak in one meeting. It was all about how grateful we are to be in the one true way. Just a dead sermon with a dead message, in my opinion.
When the news of Dean Bruer broke, I wrote to Leroy and asked him to apologize to all the friends in the Dakotas for having J.C. come after he knew about him through me. I described to LeRoy what must happen in the heart of a man who hides his sin and doesn’t honestly repent. Two days later, Leroy left the work. Now I’ve asked Perry Pearson and Paul Haakenson to follow through but they don’t respond. It seems like everyone judges repentance by whether they feel the person has the right “spirit”. Whatever that is.
Gary Myers
Permission to share granted