Subject: Overseer Meeting 2024
Dear Overseers,
I am willing to meet with any of you, or all of you.
Perhaps I should attend the next overseer meeting.
Or maybe you would like to try to make an example out of me in front of the congregation at convention.
You may choose the venue.
I am certainly not a Bible scholar. I have only recently begun to study the Bible beyond what a worker said or what we “heard from the platform.”
My only advantage is a willingness to ask questions and to Speak Truth to Power.
It’s been 18 months since the Dean Brewer debacle blew up and became public knowledge. It’s been over two years since he died.
When the news first broke, thousands of professing people all over the world were looking to you to do the right thing.
We were expecting a gallant effort to be put forth to right the wrongs and bring the fellowship together in a way that would be honorable to God and His people.
Thousands of people immediately went to work reading, praying, writing letters, texting, emailing and making phone calls to bring together a base of knowledge that could implement real change and follow scripture.
And the overseers pandered for a moment – With a pretense of love and care and concern – and then quickly reverted to what they have known and done for decades – Squelch anyone who questions them.
PERIOD.
It has been a heartbreaking year for us.
As time went by and it became more and more apparent that there was no real desire to improve the way or to correct the wrongs and prevent future problems, it became increasingly difficult to attend any function that included workers.
And there are many good workers. There are also many good people following the workers in the prescribed way that the workers dictate them to follow.
They are well-intentioned, good-hearted, God-fearing, Jesus-loving people.
The problem is that the workers this convention season in 2024 have made it abundantly clear what the priority is.
“You will worship the workers.”
They don’t say it exactly like that. It’s a little more nuanced, but to claim that the ministry is the foundation of salvation is not scripturally sound.
To expound on how a worker enjoys being the middleman between the people and God – is very Old Testament high priest-ish.
Apparently, after Jesus rent the veil in Twain (that means tore the veil apart) the workers came along and sewed the veil back together so that they could get back into the position of interceding between us and God.
What was the point of Jesus to go through all that He did, when the workers want us to undo it and go through them?
We’re going to have some interesting conversations fellas.
We didn’t learn about Dean’s criminal activity because the leadership was trying to do the right thing. No.
We only learned of the horrific lifestyle and crimes that Dean perpetrated because, while the leadership was trying to do what they’ve done for decades and keep it a secret and cover it up, someone else was willing to do the right thing.
And that’s the ONLY reason that it became public knowledge.
Which brings us to the first point.
- The leadership, including every overseer and all the older workers, have failed to show the love, care, concern, compassion and kindness that Jesus showed.
That is a major failing.
I look forward to our time together. You’ll have the opportunity to expound on how the actions that we have witnessed over the course of the last year and a half are acceptable in any way.
I am willing to give you the floor.
Obviously, each of you has already received my letter with the 40 questions.
And your attorneys discouraged you from engaging, because your answers would be highly incriminating.
It seems awfully worldly of you to take the advice of Attorneys rather than sit down with people who are trying to figure out how to love and serve the God of heaven, in spirit and in truth.
And it’s OK if you don’t want to talk about any of those topics, because I have a lot more that I left out, so we have plenty of territory to cover.
It’s not your thoughts or my thoughts that matter – it’s God’s thoughts.
So, we’re going to focus on God.
We’re going to focus on what God wants.
And we’re going to focus on what God’s word says.
And if you get off on a tangent of what you think, God’s word says we will return to the scripture and what it ACTUALLY says.
And I encourage everyone who is interested in eternity and heaven, Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit and how to get to heaven… What is the way? what is the truth? what is the life? Encourage us all to read the scripture as it is and not as we’ve been told it is.
We have learned some new terminology this year.
Living witness doctrine: where a person must hear the gospel through the workers, profess and continue to go to the prescribed meetings as the only way to heaven.
Do you believe this is true?
Exclusivity: only this way that the workers have told us how to meet and how to live is acceptable.
I didn’t understand for a long time how dangerous this concept was. I have shared some of those dangers in my note titled “Abuse of Young Workers.”
The thing that’s the hardest for me to comprehend about exclusivity is that if you truly believe that every time you’re somewhere surrounded by thousands of people, and there’s only a handful – maybe a meeting or two of people in any metropolitan area who are NOT going directly to hell – HOW can you NOT be doing everything within your power, every waking moment, to SAVE people?!?
Not just because you’re a good Christian, but just because you’re a decent human being!
How can you look upon the masses of humanity and casually acknowledge that they are going straight to hell, and you don’t lift a finger to do anything about it?
It’s horrifying to me that you could be so casual and callous, with the eternity of the entire population of the planet, save for a few lucky souls who met a worker.
To justify our nonchalance, we have had it explained this way: If we live a good life as a good example to the world, and if they have an honest heart – then they will ask us about our beliefs, and we can introduce them to the workers, and then they too will have the opportunity to join the most exclusive club that we can imagine.
And if they don’t ask us then it’s because they don’t have a true and honest heart, so the responsibility is not on us – because we can’t change their heart.
I have never seen the workers out, seeking lost souls beyond a visit or gospel meeting.
If all of humanity is going straight to hell and you have what they need to prevent that – no wonder so many workers have nervous breakdowns and must leave the work. Because to not do all that you can to save humanity when you are the only ones with the key to salvation is outlandish!
Providing a few copies of an invitation or putting a little ad in the paper to invite people to gospel meeting hardly seems sufficient when the eternal salvation of the entire planet is at risk.
Jesus and his apostles and his disciples did NOT do so little.
Are you following him or not? They went to the synagogue, they went to the temple, they went to the river, they went to the town square, they went to wherever the people were, and they risked their lives every single day to share the message of salvation.
The unwritten rules that don’t exist (but are definitely known and enforced) are another interesting topic.
Rules that don’t exist can keep someone from being allowed in a meeting, participating in a meeting, taking the emblems in a meeting, being baptized, being an elder or having a convention grounds – or having any or all of those privileges revoked at any time for violation of the unwritten rules that don’t exist.
Fascinating stuff.
I’ve only recently begun listening to Christian music.
I’ve had extended family who are professing people for generations, including workers.
I did not profess until I was 20 years old, even though I was only six weeks old when I attended my first convention.
But my immediate family was part of the unprofessing family.
I grew up knowing that this is the one true way, and the only way to get to heaven.
Because of that, I never listened to Christian music.
We could be traveling late at night and I’m trying to find a radio station to stay awake for the drive. I might listen to heavy metal, drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll baby.
Or rap, music, vulgar, and violent as it may be.
Or the drinking, carousing, and fighting of a country song.
Smooth, jazz, classical music, orchestra, and symphony, any and all genres were OK – except Christian music.
Scroll past the Christian music as quickly as you could determine it’s that stuff. Don’t listen to that!
The last few months it’s been fascinating to me why we would be prevented from listening to Christian music.
It is uplifting. It is positive and full of worship and praise for God and Jesus. It expounds upon the love and grace and mercy that God and Jesus have shown to us.
It is quite a bit different than the hymns old and new that we sing in meeting, which are focused on our failure and the fact that we are never good enough – no matter how big of a bun we put on our head, how many meetings we get to, if we’re not pleasing the workers and worshiping the workers and worshiping the way strongly enough, God’s plan and Jesus’s sacrifice are not sufficient for us.
Sad, isn’t it?
We often hear the phrase someone lost out when they quit coming to meeting.
Does it matter why they quit coming?
What if they are a victim of a predator attacker in a CSA?
What if they are stepping aside until guidelines to make things safer are put into place?
What if they like the location of a different church or some attraction to a different church?
What if they were kicked out for advocating for a victim? We know people who were told they couldn’t come to meeting because they had advocated for a victim of sexual assault. Does that make a difference – if they didn’t quit but were kicked out by the workers?
So, my question is, “Does it matter why someone’s not coming, or is it simply, if you’re not coming to meeting, then you’ve lost out?”
What can you tell us about the falling away?
Is that simply the ones who have lost out because they no longer come to meeting?
There are a lot of places that talk about the falling away in the Bible, you can Google it or search on your Bible app.
You aren’t really against the Internet – because you also use the Internet – so you can search these things out. None of those verses indicate that it’s turning away from meeting. They all indicate that it is turning away from God.
So, unless meeting is your God, then simply not going to meeting is not falling away as defined in the scripture because that’s not turning away from God.
Except I suppose it is for those for whom meeting is a god.
We recently heard the sermon from Daniel. Marci mentioned that even though we’ve heard this many times through the years, there were things that she had never heard before.
I mentioned that a lot of contexts was given about that time in history. A lot of background that the workers don’t typically go into, that showed a bigger picture of those events.
It’s interesting that in a Bible study we often focused down even on a particular word or phrase or sentence in a verse – and missed the larger context of what is really being talked about.
I said a word association could be “tree” and she replied, “Zacheus.” I said the study is about the tree of life. She says, “For Zacheus, that WAS the tree of life.” Bingo. That’s how word association works, and it can be helpful – we can be fed from the thoughts that come from just taking a word out of context, but it does NOT give you any clue as to what that portion of scripture is actually talking about.
With Great Concern,
Jim Sweat
Stuart, Florida USA
October 2024
NOTE: This is the third letter I have sent to the global overseers and regional workers, and the first time that an active worker has responded. An overseer and a street-level active worker both responded.
The overseer with an email to “Cease and Desist” and the other with a “Please remove me from your email list.”
My response to the Cease and Desist request:
Dear Larry,
I commend you for making the most noble choice.
Getting together in someone’s living room, a meeting shed, or a courtroom were all possibilities.
Choosing to meet in court, under oath, and with the consequences of perjury, is an impressive move that I did not expect any overseer or older worker to make. Makes me wish we had met previously because I obviously should not lump all of the overseers together. There is at least one willing to stand on the strength of their testimony.
The attorney who suggested you use a legal term did explain that it is only enforceable in court, right?
I’m looking forward to meeting in person.
All the Best,
Jim