"Grace"

To Whom It May Concern:

I was introduced to Austin Gardner and his ministry in Peru in 2001. I returned to work in Peru in 2003. I loved feeling like I was a part of something bigger than myself, and I will say much of what was being done was good. I was involved in work with interns there and taught English at the Seminary in Arequipa.

However, there were some things I was uncomfortable with. The main thing was the constant talk about other people and private problems being discussed in a group behind their backs (even disdain for other pastors who visited). I knew about fights between spouses. I saw how the wives were demeaned and expected to be subservient. I remember being glad I was single even though I was constantly made fun of for that.

I do remember being sat down as girls while Austin would describe modesty, women’s bodies, how we dressed (which was already pretty modest in IFB terms), and how we “wore our cross body purses between our breasts.” I remember leaving the meeting feeling like I was a horrible person because I was female. I felt gross and just guilty. I’m confident if some man did that in a school or work setting the world would title that “sexual harassment.” I was uncomfortable around him being extremely careful about how I dressed, because he seemed to notice.

Later, I was told that Austin talked about my body in a meeting with a teammate, in front of others. I was incredibly hurt by this.

We worked with Austin and others in helping to start Vision Baptist Church. We loved the church and the people there (and still do). We were not inner circle type of people on the team, but we loved and felt at home in the church.

The culture I really struggled with on the missionary team was that of self-promotion. Competition was fostered, pride in VBM was the only right way to do missions and no one outside ever seemed good enough for Austin. Missionaries were portrayed as superior because that was promoted as God’s ultimate will for every Christian. This bothered me as I watched several church members who were hurt by this, and they even told me.

Another issue was more and more control over outside influences. It became clear John Piper and Tim Keller were not okay for us to read after (or any other books they deemed dangerous). This was concerning as they were preparing people to go into very dark places who were not capable of reading and thinking for themselves.

I personally had some major struggles with several missionary women at OG. I was involved in a Gossip ring that I was at fault for as well. I tried to make it right, to no avail. I realized then and there, this was not a safe place to be honest and I would need to keep my distance with most. This included the OG ladies group on Facebook. Since our ministry was so small and different, we didn’t believe we had anything to contribute. Their definition of success was so narrow I lived in discouragement and would just take breaks from the OG ladies group so I wouldn’t struggle with feelings of jealousy or competition. I felt it was my own spiritual problem and probably to some extent it was. But it wasn’t a healthy thing for me.

We were wanting to leave Macedonia and joined VBM, but shortly after we did, we realized that was a mistake. We really loved the people we worked with at Vision but the overarching culture was unbearable. Instead of caring about world evangelism we were expected to hate Calvinists. Evidently, I missed that memo working in a Muslim country. I was told it was because they don’t care about missions, but all of the other missionaries in _ were Calvinist. There weren’t any IFB representatives in _ at that time, so that was definitely a lie. Why weren’t we talking about the fact that we weren’t sending people to the Muslim world?

We quickly realized we were not in a country that was going to produce what Vision wanted, but no one wanted to hear the truth. Austin made it clear, “That’s how losers talk,” ”You go from victory to victory!” So through the years we distanced ourselves more and more feeling more and more alone but being made to feel it was our own fault for not pushing to the front (like pigs) or promoting ourselves. The only time we got attention was if we had an exciting story, like "Tim" getting arrested, which got old fast. But it was apparent we didn’t have enough self promotion material to help the VBM agenda (like being asked for numbers of churches and disciples). That was another change in their culture. Suddenly, numbers were what they wanted.

We realized this was not the group we really fit with. There didn’t seem to be any concept of the theology of suffering or stories like Jeremiah were things that encouraged us, but they were not popular in getting people to surrender to missions. We decided to just lay low and do what God had for us in _. Nothing about our ministry reflected the ministry in Peru, and that was the only example we were told was the “right way.” When "Tim" asked for advice (as we had some heavy challenges) Austin just told him, “I don’t know, I wouldn’t go there”. We felt extremely alone.

The longer we were in __ and experienced friendship and fellowship from nonVBM missionaries, the more we realized what a healthy Christian looked like. Humility is actually a good thing and pride and arrogance are clearly sinful heart issues. The more we read our Bible the more we saw a glaring difference in what we were being taught and what we were seeing in Jesus.

Competition was always encouraged, so it was hard to navigate. Not wanting to compete we just distanced ourselves. I never could find actual scripture on “healthy competition.” We prayed and prayed about the issues we were seeing: marrying people off to overcome pornography, sending out missionaries who were arrogant and ill-prepared and promoted too fast. Adultery was handled by memorizing verses, meanwhile telling everyone on the team every detail about the affair, then 6 months later declaring them ready to be sent to a different country.

The last straw was finding out about a conference in our region on social media. We were invited in a general group email, but we missed it because we were with my father on his death bed. No one even asked out of concern why we weren’t going. We happened to miss one or two mentions of it. If they thought we were distancing ourselves, wouldn’t our own pastor care enough about our family and children to want fellowship for them and ask us if there was a problem? What if it was a financial issue? Wouldn’t they want to know why? Jesus left the 99 to go after the 1. This situation hurt deeply. Jeff and Mindy apologized, and I think they sincerely felt bad. I knew they weren’t perfect, which we understood, but we came to the conclusion, Vision wasn’t the right place for us. We were not like VBM and didn’t want to be.

We wrestled with knowing all of the good Vision has done and the people we loved and cared about there. Leaving literally meant losing all of our friends and church family there because to go into “Member Care” was not a concept that Vision had. In practice, only Austin was “capable” of counseling and helping. With our theology of suffering it did not seem to be a possible fit. To work with anyone else meant to be “disloyal” and to cut ourselves off, as though we were leaving a cult.

Ultimately, we decided it was much better for us to be alone and find our own fellowship and support system instead of being constantly left out of the “inner circle” we just couldn’t ever be a part of. It wasn’t an easy decision because we knew we would experience a lot of loss. But while we were in __ all of our relationships at Vision seemed to run through the filter of VBM anyway, so in order for us to keep our family healthy and stay true to what we believed from God’s Word, we had no other choice.

"Tim" told Austin that we were seeing some things that concerned us, and he went through a list, explaining what he saw. I was present for this conversation off screen. Austin was completely indifferent. He said and asked nothing to look further into our concerns. It felt like the man who was our pastor could care less that we were leaving and had no concern for any of us. His response was “Okay, Doc. Just tell us when you want to resign and we’ll do what we can on our end.”

A week or two after this we started receiving messages about people praying for us. Only the inner circle of people knew we were leaving (even though, at that time they were told it was a KJV issue - which was a lie). The messages we received were of concern for us and the [nationality] we work with. Later on, we found out that in Friday Class AG was “very concerned” for us and asking for prayer for us because there was a “church raid.” This wasn’t even true. Brendon knew about the police questioning one of the pastors and specifically asked if they came into the church. "Tim" told him clearly, they did not. Somewhere in communicating that story a lie or an exaggeration formed either from Brendon or Austin. But in all of Austin’s “concern” for us, we never heard from him personally. I’m confident no one in that Friday class knew that. We had just resigned and he had not spoken a word to us since then (and he still hasn’t).

When "Tim" sent his letter to Robert Canfield, Jeff Bush, Trent Cornwell and Austin, only Trent and Jeff responded, defending AG and the system. Saying things like “I know we’re not perfect” and “not to say there isn’t room for us to grow…” Trent was willing to have a conversation with "Tim" later on, which helped ease some of the pain in our family. But we felt we could never show our faces at Vision Baptist Church or it would cause problems for others.

We left not wanting to hurt Vision Baptist Church as it has quite a different culture than that of VBM. We chose to leave quietly since the leadership seemed happy with the way things were. When we changed our ministry we lost 90 percent of our support. Vision was included in the number of churches who gave zero explanation or notice. They just dropped us with complete silence, like we never existed. All the time and life we spent at Vision suddenly erased.

Learning more and more about spiritual abuse, reading books like The Narcissist goes to Church and The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, hearing podcasts and talks on how it is biblically defined, and then finally hearing other stories of those who’ve left vision, we realized this was not something we wanted Vision Baptist Church to continue to allow, without warning those involved. It has hurt many families far more than ourselves, and we felt it was unloving not to speak the truth. To prevent future families from being hurt in the same way.

We hope and pray these stories will shed light on the situation, and that God will use this in the life of the church to purify it, and redeem this entire situation through true repentance and restoration.

Sincerely, [signed]