The following narrative was submitted to me from Jon Smith. He originally intended for this to be a comment to the post “Who Joins, Who Leaves?” I asked permission to present it as a separate post and he agreed. He tells his story and exit drama in a straightforward manner while including a respectful tone for those who were not instigators of the intense emotional drama. Your comments are welcome.
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I appreciate this article, for it highlights that not everyone came to Word of Faith Fellowship for the same reason. I know people have very different backgrounds, events in their lives and just plain circumstances that have drawn them to WOFF. Although my association with Word of Faith was not nearly as lengthy as most of the current and former members of this group; I still feel like I was there long enough to get a good view of their practices and of the questionable things which became evident during my time there. So, I’d like to share what drew me to Word of Faith and what led me to leave this group of people.

My first introduction to Word of Faith was while serving in the Armed Forces and stationed at a base in Southeastern Georgia. I had been married a little over two years to my now ex-wife. Before the events that took place in Southeastern Georgia, I was stationed in Southeastern Connecticut and lived in the town of Norwich, CT. There my wife visited a church that was unlike any church she had ever encountered due to their strange method of praying which she described as “powerful.” I attended this church a time or two, but felt like the church was just a little too strange for my liking. My wife, however, continued to attend regularly until I was transferred to Southeast Georgia. Once settled in Georgia, my wife and I attended several churches until we found a non-denominational church that we both agreed on and attended fairly regular. My wife met a couple from that church who had recently attended a church seminar at a church in Western North Carolina. The husband of the family we met was from the town that this church was in and his mother attended the church and had convinced him to attend. From their description of this church and the “powerful” prayer they were doing there, it sounded familiar to the church my wife had attended in Norwich, CT. We found out later that it was. The church was Heart to Heart Ministries and led by Bobby Valentine, husband of Leigh Valentine who was/is closely associated with Word of Faith Fellowship. After the great things this family had to say about this church, they convinced my wife to travel with them to NC and attend the next seminar at the church. This church usually holds 4 or 5 seminars a year. My wife agreed and attended the seminar.

After coming back from the seminar I could see some dramatic changes in my wife’s personality. Not necessarily for the worse, just different. She seemed obsessed with tapes of the sermons that she had heard from the seminar. She played them over and over listening for anything she had missed in the previous reviews of the tape. She also insisted that we must read the Word of God from “The Amplified Bible.” This was the Bible used at this church. She was convinced that this was the place God had chosen for her and that no other church would do. The only problem was that I was still in the military and still had six years on my enlistment. She continued to attend these seminars every time she could with this family until we were transferred to Southeastern VA for duty.

Not long after we moved to Southeast VA, the family we had met in Georgia, who had introduced my wife to Word of Faith Fellowship moved to be members of the church in NC. This move allowed the husband to attend Bible School at the church. He was in the military while in Southeast GA, but was also a minister. He had actually served as Pastor in a church there for a short period of time until he was up for retirement from the military.

By the time we had been in VA for a few years, we had two children. They attended the seminars with my wife. She talked about all the great things they were doing with the children, so I finally agreed to attend one of these “Seminars” with her. The seminar basically consisted of morning and evening church services. Usually after the evening services there were “prayer circles.” In these circles, people would pray this unique loud shouting prayer over you to deliver you from the demonic forces that controlled your life. While attending these services, I noticed the church was always immaculately clean, the people extremely kind, polite and genuinely seemed concerned about your spiritual well-being. After my seminar visits, I still felt the church was a little strange, but I was none the worse it seemed for having attended the seminars. I didn’t always go to the seminars, but usually out of guilt for my wife and kids going and leaving me behind, I felt obligated to attend with them. As the years passed and we lived in Southeast VA; our lifestyle changed rather dramatically. We no longer watched TV, listened to the radio, or read newspapers. My wife insisted on homeschooling our children. This was a task she was not qualified to do. Agreeing to the homeschooling was one of the biggest decisions I will regret for the rest of my life.

After six years of attending seminars and being associated with this church, I was at a crossroads in my military career. I could either get out of the military with 14 years of service (six years shy of a lifetime pension) or just get out. The command I was on was an extremely stressful assignment. I spent most of my time away from my wife and kids. I thought about staying in for another six years so I could gain a pension. This seemed like the wise decision, but my wife wouldn’t hear of it. She said it was the will of God for us to move to NC where this Church located so we could attend regularly. She declared that she and the children would move there with or without me. So, the decision I made was under much emotional pressure. I elected to just get out of the military without any further benefits. We moved to Spindale, NC on Christmas Day. That wasn’t a big day because this church didn’t celebrate Christmas. They considered it a pagan feast. We had nowhere to go and no money when we got there so we moved in with the family who had introduced us to the church years earlier.

Once in NC, it took several weeks, but I convinced a business owner in the church that I could be a successful employee for his company. He hired me and I worked with him until the day two years later when I left.

The first year at this church was good. I seemed to really belong, I loved the job I was doing and people seemed genuinely nice. Into the second year, I started noticing things. For instance, during the evening services when we would be told that a bill is due and that the offering didn’t cover it, we needed to take up another offering– then another and another until the money was finally collected. It was preached from the pulpit that we were being “busy-bodies” if we were interested in what the bill was for or even question what the financial status of the church was. Most churches I had attended submitted a budget to the congregation every year that gave line-by-line details of what the spending. In this church, you were “giving to demons” if you questioned what the leadership was doing with the money. You also “had a demon” to ask how much the employees of the church were paid. There’s not enough memory on this computer to write and save all the other incidents that happened that I questioned as well as the reasons for why they occurred. However, I will describe the event that opened my eyes and was the event that led me to finally break away from this group.

During an evening service, after about 19 months of attending this church, one of the church leaders, not the primary pastor, preached a sermon which to this day I believe was ordained by God. The message really spoke to my heart. His message was exposing hidden sins. I had sin in my life I had dealt with most of my life but never confessed to anyone. That night after the service I felt led to approach this leader and confess my sin to him, so I did. Now, in my thinking I had this vision that he would take my problem to the rest of the leadership in this church and that perhaps that night; they would gather some men of God, get me in a prayer circle and help me get deliverance from this sin. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. This leader went straight to the top- Jane Whaley and told her what I had done. She was furious! How dare he would give to sin while in this church! I was called to her office with the husband of the family that introduced me to the church and in whose home I was living, my boss that I worked for and a couple of others whom I can’t remember. It felt like I was going to the principal’s office back in grade school when you did something bad.

Anyway, Jane scolded, everyone in my life there for not being aware of sin in my life. Then in her unique manner, she turned to me and stated that she had told me not to give to sin when I moved there and since I had, I could not be in this church until I had found a place of repentance. I was being ostracized from the church. This meant I was not allowed to attend services or any functions or to even step on the church property. When my family went to church, I had to stay home. At work, I wouldn’t go anywhere unless someone was with me including going to and from work or anywhere else. Everywhere I went someone had to ride with me. Needless, to say these changes made things rather difficult for everyone involved. It just amazed me that there I was, at a place where I was willing to open my heart, expose sin and receive the help I knew I needed and all I got was Jane Whaley being ticked off because I dared sin. Then, to have her banish me from the church made no sense. My children and wife looked at me with shame as did everyone else in the church. That was very heartbreaking. These measures were the cultish psychology that Jane was always famous for. “Break” people so they’ll obey you.

Being put out of the church was probably the best thing that happened to me for it gave me a chance to think and hear that small voice deep down in my heart. The small voice was telling me just how wrong it was to be treated this way and how wrong the philosophy and beliefs of this church were. Now Jane called that small voice the voice of the devil, but I know in my heart of hearts it was God showing me how wrong the practices of this group of people were. After quite a few weeks of being in this shunned state, I can remember being at work one day and feeling the courage coming to make the biggest decision I had ever made in my life. I knew in my heart that I had two options. Stay at this church, buy their way of life hook, line and sinker and become exactly what they were which included turning my back on my Father, my siblings, my old friends forsaking them forever or leave my wife and children and break free from this bondage called Word of Faith. By the grace of God, I received the courage to break free and leave.

This past Labor Day weekend marked the 14th anniversary of my departure from this cult. I have never put down in words, as I have here the circumstance around what I deem the very lowest part of my life. The fear that gripped my heart the night I left included doubts of whether I had made the right decision or not– kept me in a panic. “A thunderstorm is coming, is God going to strike me down dead?” “Am I going to be in a car wreck and die?” Only after embracing my Father, my brother and my sisters upon leaving Word of Faith did I know in my heart I had made the right decision. I left my wife and my two sons behind which was the hardest thing I had ever done. Over time, I visited my two boys every chance that Jane, my wife and the courts would allow. I showed them that I loved them no matter whether I was at WOFF or not. Both of them on their own made the decision to leave WOFF and live with me a few years after I left. I didn’t beg them to leave, but always let them know when I visited with them that if they ever wanted to live with me, that I would fight with every ounce of my being to allow them to do so. The amazing thing, I didn’t have to fight. My ex-wife without hesitation agreed for them to live with me. Again, more psychology that “if you tell them they can’t live at WOFF, they will want to.” It didn’t work on my boys. They’ve never looked back.

I divorced my ex-wife about a year after I left and remarried in October 2004. My current wife has two sons and along with my two sons, we are a family of six. My boys and my wife’s boys living together have over time grown to love one another and are very close today. My sons are leading happy, productive lives and we now function as a loving, normal family. We also celebrate Christmas and other holidays, pagan feast or not! For those that still struggle and have loved ones at WOFF, my heart goes out to you for I know the pain of being separated from your loved ones. My prayers are with you that one day your loved ones like my boys and me, can be enlightened and gain the courage to leave the bondages of that misguided group of people.
Jon Smith
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Scripture references are Amplified Version unless otherwise noted. (Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation ) This is post number 491.