Spiritual Abuse Survey
Here is a questionnaire from http://www.churchabuse.com to determine just how healthy your local church is. To find out how well your church ranks, answer “yes” or “no” to the following 12 questions:
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Does your church tightly control the flow of information within its ranks?
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Does your spiritual leader use public shaming as a method to gain the compliance of followers?
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Is your spiritual leader intolerant of questions or critical inquiry?
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Is your spiritual leader the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or receiving validation?
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Does your spiritual leader have unreasonable fears about the outside world such as evil conspiracies or persecutions?
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Are you discouraged to associate with former members, being warned that they are “evil” or “defiling”?
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Is leaving your group to join another church equal to leaving God?
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Does the surrounding community view your church as a cult?
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Does your spiritual leader consider it evil persecution when criticized or questioned?
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Do the goals of your spiritual leader seem to supersede any personal goals or individual interests?
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Do you fear being rebuked, shunned, or ignored for expressing a different opinion?
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Do former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances?
If you answered “no” to all of the above 12 questions, your church is very healthy. If you answered “yes” to three or more, your church is showing signs of being unhealthy. If you answered “yes” to six or more, your church is very unhealthy. If you answered “yes” to eight or more, your church is more than likely a full-blown authoritarian cult. Credit http://www.churchabuse.com
Former Members of Faith Christian Church Tucson and its offshoots 
This is an excellent third party survey.
I thought so as well! A survey like this really helped me
My son is involved in Grace Community Church in Ft. Collins. PLEASE, PLEASE PRAY that he comes out. It took me almost two years to visit his church with him and I regret I did not go sooner. I had been told to tell him to run fast away from this church and that it was legalistic. They told him he wasn’t saved which was confusing (G-d is not a God of confusion). They were also going to start to mentor his younger sister before I discouraged her and PTL a member from CRU called to mentor her the next day. They were also telling her she was not saved. I have been in turmoil over this and I trust G-d he will remove my son from this church and use it for good. Please keep informing others.
Thank you
You people seriously need to move on. If you had a bad experience with something or someone, forgive them and move on. Don’t lump everything into one and just assume everyone is going to have a bad experience. All you are is bitter. The leaders of these churches aren’t perfect and in 5 years I’ve never heard a single one of them ever claim to be. Quit telling other people your assumptions and opinions about them like it’s gospel truth! So you didn’t get along with some of them, big deal, get over it. And you also need to quit slandering the other churches just because you had a bad experience or didn’t agree with something at the one you attended. Every church, I don’t care where it is, what denomination it is, who their leader is, EVERY SINGLE ONE has people that don’t agree with absolutely everything they do, does that make that church a cult? Absolutely not! Anyone and everyone is welcome to leave at any time if they don’t feel comfortable for whatever reason. It’s the same with these churches, you can leave anytime you want to if you don’t like it. You need to learn the definition of a cult. Are any of the members making out any of the church leaders out to be a god? No they’re not! The truth is, these churches and their leaders put God first in EVERYTHING and teach others to do the same. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING! That includes church, life, finances, home life, etc. God is a part and is involved in EVERY aspect of your life so what is wrong with getting advice or help on any of these things? Absolutely nothing! Am I saying that none of these leaders have ever made any mistakes in the positions they’re in? No I’m not! They are HUMAN! They make mistakes, they’re not infallible. I encourage anyone who is looking at this site not to believe everything that is said on here because most are gross exaggerations of the truth anyway! Go speak with one of these leaders yourself, go check out the church yourself. If you don’t like it, then go to another one that suits you better, but don’t go bashing and slandering them just because you didn’t like it there. These churches and their leaders are doing great things for students on college campuses across the country! For every 1 person on this site that is slandering all of these churches, there are probably 10 others that are so thankful for what these churches have done and are doing in their lives!
If it were a slew of human mistakes, I wouldn’t speak up, but it’s the systematic coercion that really saddens me. Take a serious look at these churches and you’ll see that they rely on misinformation, dependency on the organization, a narrow view of scripture, and a whole arsenal of sneaky techniques.
Care to invite me to to into detail? Go on. Just try and tell me that Rez (my old church) and its satellite organizations are okay in any regard. I can force it past debate, I assure you.
Yeah, how dare any of us speak the truth about what the true motives of these “churches” are. How dare anyone share their experiences of the horrible abuses these “churches” commit. Exactly how is that slander? Slander is when you speak lies or made-up information about someone. And considering that there have been hundreds of people that have been to this site and shared their experiences, AND they all indicate a very similar pattern of abusive behavior, I don’t think that anything being shared on this site is being made up. And by the way, these “churches” are in fact cults in every sense of the word. You don’t get to change the definition of a cult simply because you don’t like the term being applied to your “church.” An organization becomes a cult when it exhibits the behaviors of one, and it has nothing to do with what they believe or whether or not people agree or disagree with everything they stand for (on the other hand, cults don’t tolerate any disagreement whatsoever, a characteristic clearly evident in FCC and its offshoots). Furthermore, these leaders are more than just simply “imperfect” to use your word. These abuses committed by these leaders are not merely mistakes or isolated incidents, but rather, they are pattern that has spanned back for decades going all the way back to the beginning of Maranatha in the early 1970s. I’ve been to churches where leaders acknowledge that they are not perfect and they walk in humility about it. Not the case with FCC or any of its offshoot organizations. And as far as getting help with finances and what not, what’s wrong with buying some Dave Ramsey DVDs or something like that? Why is the place of cult leaders to know everything about your finances? You act as if these leaders are the only means possible for anyone to learn anything about life. And that’s exactly what they want you to believe. As far as your ‘1 in 10’ statistic, I would challenge you to name any churches besides Faith Christian Cult where web sites similar to this one exist for its ex-members to go to for healing from abusive practices and experiences. I myself have yet to find one. Not even the big mega-churches have web sites such as this attached to them.
Anonymous come off of your pedestal. Lose the pride. If this site bothers you that much don’t worry about it. God is in control, he will take care of the issues. If you are correct in your actions He will be with you, if you are not correct you will answer for your actions just as the rest of us. God loves you regardless but don’t hurt people in His name.
Anonymous come off of your pedestal. Lose the pride. If this Church bothers you that much don’t worry about it. God is in control, he will take care of the issues. If you are correct in your actions He will be with you, if you are not correct you will answer for your actions just as the rest of us. God loves you regardless but don’t hurt people in His name
Anonymous 2015 – Ah yes, the old “God is in control” strategem, ergo, do nothing. I guess we should just apply that to all injustcie, eh? Who cares about slavery, child prostitution, wife beating, child abuse? God is in control, people, come down from your pride and don’t worry about it. You are either the most foolish, ungodly person I’ve run across in some time or you’re the most clever troll.