Open reproof and rebuke. Members are subjected to private and public disparagement, reproof, and rebuke by leadership for what they deem to be insubordination and/or disobedience to their counsel, teaching, instruction, or desires.
Klaus Pesch and his family have turned public humiliation into an art form and with it formed the cornerstone of their control of their followers. There is no limit to how far they will spread their scope of criticism and it can be inflicted at any time, whether that is in a Sunday meeting, someone’s birthday party or whilst working.
They will use every opportunity to bring anyone down who even seems to be opposing their point of view on scripture, business or the ways of life, and then they will use the opportunity as a segway into a diatribe of personal testimony (most of which was over 10 years old) which highlights how wonderful they were and how much God had blessed them. Every time, on and on and on ad nausea, yet most of the time it just does'nt ring true with the way that they are treating everyone.
There is no room for errors; no one can make the slightest mistake for fear of being used as an example to the rest of the fellowship. If one of the men makes a mistake in a ‘Team’ activity or in their personal life it is certain that it will be spread all round the other men in the fellowship within a day or two via the Pesch family. They are ruthless in their assessment and impose the most ridiculously high standards of conduct, all in the name of pushing for a closer walk with the Lord in his perfect will for their lives. There is truly no mercy in perfectionism!
Klaus Pesch and his family are responsible for more damage to the fellowship than anyone or anything and are centrally responsible for nearly all the frustration, anguish, and lack of self confidence, insecurity, disappointment and ineffectiveness in the fellowship.
You can’t put too finer point on it, this is probably the most powerfully destructive tool that the enemy can use against a believer - the constant and open criticism from someone that the believer thinks has authority over them in the body of Christ, someone they are looking towards for spiritual guidance.
Open disapproval. Members are subjected to disapprobation, disapproval, shunning, and rejection by leadership and/or the collective group-society for some aspect of conduct they deem improper or unacceptable.
If open reproof and rebuke is the right hand of abusive leadership, then the left hand is open disapproval, and when used together a leader can effectively strangle his weakened victim with the help of the rest of the fellowship.
Rejection by the leadership is part of everyday life in ‘The Team’. Members of the Pesch family very often play the ‘Favourites’ game where group members are subjected to violent swings from ‘in favour’ (showered with approval and bought into the confidence of the family) to the other end of the scale, ‘out of favour’ (publicly shunned with open disapproval). Very often it is impossible to understand what had caused the sudden fall from grace, and this can be terribly painful for people to handle in a group which is essentially small and does not benefit from the stability of a wider circle of friends. What is really nasty is when other people who have been out in the wilderness for a while seize the opportunity to fill a vacuum and group members end up with people competing for favour.
Often group members will find themselves competing for attention, and if they are faithful and loyal often find themselves being dragged into orbit around Pesch family members by their immense gravitational pull, only to be thrown out again by who knows what or even the fact that one of their own family members had supposedly made a mistake somewhere. This unpredictable and savage cycle of events places a great deal of stress on group members as they struggle to maintain their walk in favour.
This technique is commonly employed and encouraged within families to reprove and guide wayward members, even between adult brothers and sister of separate families.
1 comment:
I as a child of an ex team member am really glad this finally has come to light and i hope more ex team members write posts as i believe we should all speak out and begin the journey to heal and maybe in the future forgive other team members and come together as one again.
I have lost very close relatives to his grip and to this day have very little and strained conversations with them as they still somehow follow his way even after they have been shunned from him. It is very upsetting to see our strong bonds that we used to have were broken like that by some individual promising the way to god is though him and brainwashing them into believing it so strongly.
Our family was made out to be very bad people and also were blamed for fires and all sorts of bad things we never did, by Pesch; he turned my fathers brother against him and to this day after 18 years! they still do not talk to each other, even though the brother was shunned by Pesch recently.
All my dad wants is to talk and maybe being another relationship with him as they both are getting older. I know my dad hurts from all this as does all my family to this day!!
Post a Comment