God is still speaking
Our family was involved in the 2×2 church for 5 generations. We had Wednesday night and union meetings in our house for many years until March 2024. For many years, the 2×2 church seemed similar to the book of Acts to us, with a few updates. Sadly, the results (fruits) of the 2×2 church tell a much darker story. My exit letter is available online explaining the reasons our family had for leaving: Sumner, Will.
My wife and I have been preparing to share our testimony in the local church we’ve been attending. This church is the 4th we checked out since leaving and we’ve found the teaching to be scriptural. As I had disagreement initially with at least 1 concept taught, my wife and I searched scripture and found all the teaching so far to be true – we’ve had a lot to (un)learn. We feel there are people there with spiritual gifts, including the gifts of teaching and evangelism. The church is only six years old and already has several thousand people attending each week. We were surprised to see there is a real hunger for sound scriptural teaching and spiritual depth in our local community.
We’ve invited multiple current and former 2x2s to the church and it has been interesting to hear their thoughts. This church had 12 mid-week bible studies in people’s homes last year ( for ~10 weeks each year) and it seems likely more will be added this year. We have avoided attending them so far as we were healing and didn’t want to get stuck in familiar patterns. There are changes in format throughout the year, so it feels refreshing to learn and find fellowship in new ways. I can’t say it feels totally comfortable yet, especially the music, as I do miss the old school 4-part hymn style (not the words of many 2×2 hymns). I would also prefer to see more men and women preach to help avoid an idolatry problem developing.
I’ve been surprised many times with some of the profound things some people share, many of them likely being learned from their most challenging life experiences. People are open and vulnerable there, we don’t hide our life struggles and aren’t trying to impress anyone. We’ve been rebaptized at our local beach recently as we were born again right around the time we left the 2x2s and our understanding has grown since then. The last couple baptisms we attended had nearly 70 baptized, there are multiple baptisms per year. I don’t think perfect churches exist (Rev 2), this feels like an honest church so far. Over the Summer, we spent 5 weeks studying the Holy Spirit in depth throughout the Bible for 5 weeks. I had been praying privately to be baptized by the Holy Spirit when I was surprised to see them call people forward 2 weeks later for that purpose for the first time in my life. We went forward because it seemed like an answer to my prayers. Since I began praying for the Spirit, I have been able to put away a sin I had been praying about for years with no prior success. It’s the Lord’s work and it’s in the past now.
I’ve removed the preceding 2×2 church background paragraphs I plan to share with the new church (including several good things about it), since the audience here is already familiar with that. Below is the rest of it we plan to share with the new church:
Until 3 years ago, my wife and I had not started to see it yet; but legalism, many false doctrines, and idolatry of the church and their preachers have been the norm in the 2x2s for a few generations now. An idol is anything that for us, takes the place God should have. Jesus IS THE WAY to salvation, NOTHING else can take His place. Even good and necessary things can become idols to us. Worship the Creator, not His creation. Trust God, not man.
Over the years we heard a few incredible stories of personal transformation and God reaching people in unusual ways in our former church. That God was undeniably working in some people in our group despite its many issues is partly because God saves souls, not organizations. From personal experience, I know God can reach people in difficult circumstances, wherever we are, whatever we’re struggling with. Despite being college educated people, it took my wife and I 43 years and a huge crisis to figure out that our family had been born into a cult. That label has been confirmed recently by two of the world’s leading cult researchers. Before we began advocating for changes during the crisis, we had almost no questions – they had been our people. That was our culture. We still have people we love who are spiritually asleep, like we were. You likely already know, trying to lead upright lives in our own way and strength doesn’t work – instead it produces pride like Colossian 2 starting with verse 16. Revelation and transformation is the Lord’s work. God’s way is Jesus and He has the power to transform our lives.
Over the years I had a few times when I thought about wanting to leave that group, and this thought would come to me: something like Ruben Mata will happen again; THEN, it will be time to leave. Ruben was a preacher who died in prison having received justice for his crimes against children. As far as I knew, something like Ruben happened very rarely. I kept it to myself until after we left – my wife would have worried about me even more than she already was. I was not as devout. Looking back, I don’t know if that was just my thought, or something bigger; but, in 2023 what happened in our former church was tragic. Over the span of 3 years, roughly 1,200 people were accused of sexual abuse in approximately 23 countries. The FBI and their counterparts in several other countries opened investigations that are still ongoing today. Multiple media outlets picked up on the aftermath. The news reports and Hulu documentary I saw could not fully describe the depravity and horrific stories we heard from many survivors. Thousands of us woke up around that same time. While that was all unfolding, we craved talking almost daily to people who were processing grief, gaining new understanding and wanting significant changes just like we were. That time period reminds me of beautiful verses in Malachai 3 when there was wickedness and injustice all around and the 16th verse begins “THEN they that feared the Lord, spoke often one to another, and the Lord harkened and heard it….”.
As the crisis continued to unfold, we learned that the unmarried, travelling preachers that had stayed as guests in our houses, accounted for nearly 40% of the alleged abusers. The works of the flesh (Gal 5) were evident. Years ago the 2×2 ministry unwittingly decided it would be best to replace God’s provision of marriage with a “doctrine of devils” as Paul called it, almost certainly not realizing the consequences. I naively assumed EVERYONE but the evil doers would want these problems fixed. Instead, the church mostly acted like nothing was happening and the FALSE preachers refused to repent or consider changes. These men and women the congregation had idolized, decided right and wrong for them – most of the people appeared to be disconnected from their own conscience. The Bible calls it a “seared conscience” and it happens when we get in the habit of NOT listening to it. A seared conscience is perhaps the worst of 7 conditions of conscience recorded in the New Testament.
Not all cults are religious. Ours didn’t seem dangerous to us personally growing up, but became obviously dangerous towards the end. After nearly a year of many people including us, trying to inform families, fund raise for survivors, engage professionals, set up a survivor advocate network, call for resignations and failing to change much, an older friend of mine shared something profound. “Jesus didn’t try to fix the religions or governments of his day. He simply called people to himself and is still doing that today.” My mindset shifted.
We eventually realized the only thing we could change was ourselves and that is already impossible sometimes, without help. If what happened next was common in the cult, people kept it to themselves…I only recall hearing 1 person I knew well share anything similar prior to 2024 and it happened to him before he joined. That man has been sober over 35 years now following his experience. One day, while being instant in prayer, my wife heard directly from the Lord. She came home excited saying it was as if Jesus had been right there with her! The first thing He said was: “Don’t be afraid. I am with you”. It was exactly what my wife needed – she had been afraid her family might shun us. She was now ready to leave, like I had been. It’s difficult to describe the significance of that change happening in such a brief conversation with the Lord, but her experience was THAT real.
Three days after firmly communicating our decision to family and people who had met at our house for many years – I was trying to work. I was ruminating and anxious about whether we had done the right thing or not. People that knew us well would say that we had lost our salvation and fallen away. An intense thought I couldn’t ignore kept repeating in my mind: “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you.” I called a friend. He didn’t hesitate to share that about 2 weeks prior he woke up around 2AM one morning with the same verse repeating. His family had just left. Afterward, I shared it among about 4,000 of us that had been wanting change and heard from nearly a dozen people who the Lord had personally spoken the exact same message to! I had always heard a caricature of assurance of salvation preached against, but the Lord spoke assurance of salvation to me and several others – you can imagine how I felt! We also heard other people share how the Lord spoke to them, a similar thought through different words and prayer in ways that were incredibly faith confirming.
I’ve heard there are others in this church who have experienced incredible things and I would love to meet you and hear what the Lord has done some time.
As my wife and I continued waking up, we realized we had been “numb to feeling” as a coping mechanism. Paul called it “past feeling” from his own experience. As we felt our freedom and shed our religious pride, we began to love God and people more than ever before. I can’t blame how we were on anyone else. We had participated in deceiving ourselves over many years. This is one of the 3 times I’m aware of, where the Lord helped me out of a dark time-period in my life. The Lord is my comfort and strength. We’re closer to Him now than ever before.
We came here looking for an honest church. How we got here is probably different than most, but that doesn’t matter now. We are followers of Jesus. Our family attends church to learn from the Bible, to guide our children and to find fellowship with others following Jesus. We search scripture to discern what is true. Sometimes it takes years before God provides revelation, but he has provided so much more than we have time to share today. These days I look around at the beauty, expanse and complexity of creation and I KNOW God not only exists – He is AWESOME! God is still speaking to humanity in many different ways, still drawing people to Himself. He speaks at depths our souls can feel.
By Will Sumner
California, USA
Revised September 9, 2026
Link to Will Sumner’s Exit Letter