I write this open letter as a real life
example of how you and crossing leadership have hurt and negatively impacted
our family. There is a bloody trail of
untreated wounds, that trail has left not only my family, but dozens of
families hurting because you are a self-gratifying
& predatory pastor who doesn’t care to be bothered by those who are
hurting. I won’t say anything in
this letter that I wouldn’t say to you in person. I don't have any confidence you will read this as you openly admit you are
filtered from any criticism. I do
continue to pray for you and it is my prayer that one day you will hear the
cries of the many hurting hearts created under your stewardship. I encourage
anyone reading this to challenge me if anything written is untrue in any
fashion.
I’m not addressing you in this letter as a “pastor” because
you do not deserve that level of my respect - your qualifications and actions
do not line up with biblical qualification of what a pastor is called to be. Instead I will address you as a preacher; a
preacher does NOT make you a pastor. See
I Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-6 which list the qualification for pastors: A true pastor would have compassion and would
treat & care for the people who are hurting under his trust. My close observation of how you’ve handled my
family (and other families) are not in accordance with the fruits of the Holy
Spirit as stated in scripture. When my
wife and I brought hurts, questions and concerns to you, you did not deal with
us in love, patience, kindness or peacefulness. I witnessed how you tersely treated my wife
when we came to you. Instead of
acknowledging her hurts, you sharply denied her an opportunity to speak, and
you told her that she had a problem with submission to authority! You demanded that she apologize for something
she did not do; further, you threatened that if she failed to apologize, we
would both be removed from our leadership roles! When we continued to raise questions and
bring concerns, we were immediately removed as leaders. My wife is so hurt by your actions that she
cannot trust church leaders. We are
hurting and struggling to recover from the unresolved hurts that we experienced at
the crossing and I know that Kim and I are not alone in our hurts as we have
been sought out as Godly people to help others who have been victimized by your
cultish actions!
In addition to the hurts you’ve caused us, we’ve also
experienced hurt from Johnny (who you call a pastor & leader) and also from
Diane who you employ as a counselor.
While Kim and I were leaders at the crossing, we received information
from several sources that Bridgette (another of your volunteer leaders) was
spreading rumors and gossiping about Kim. Our apprentice leaders twice brought
this issue to Johnny (our team lead at the time), as did we. Twice Johnny pomised to
investigate and resolve it. Johnny
interviewed several people and informed us that he was able to confirm the
issue, and that Bridgett herself had admitted her
own behavior. At that time Johnny
told Kim how proud he was of her & how she was
growing, and that she had become “an awesome woman of God”, and
was proud of how she had handled the situation. Johnny assured Kim that a personal apology
would be forth-coming from Bridgette, yet to this day, Kim has not received an
apology from anyone related to the issue and Bridgette continues to serve in a
leadership role at the crossing.. On another occasion
Johnny directly lied to you about communication he had with Kim; a situation
for which you made Kim apologize for something she did not do. While teaching a leadership class (attended
by about 60 people), Johnny showed a complete lack of judgment when he pointed
to and said of another “pastor’s” wife …“yeah, she has mouth herpes” Many in the room gasped in
shock for her and exchanged disgusted glances!
I can’t imagine how embarrassed and humiliated she must have felt! It is a well-documented rule at the crossing
that a man and a woman are never to be in the same room alone with the door
closed. Yet Johnny felt the need to
confront Kim on a communication issue while she was alone in the crossing
kitchen, he entered the room and closed the door behind him making my wife feel
uncomfortable and very vulnerable, even trapped! Johnny’s behavior is immature and
intolerable.
You also employ a counselor Diane. For blog readers, Diane is not licensed with
the state of Minnesota as a “therapist”; she only answers to Eric Dykstra as her
employer as “spiritual counsel” with it being stated “she has the hand of God
upon her”. Diane has hurt many people by lying, manipulation & control and threats. Diane has called my wife (and others)
“mentally
unstable” and “toxic” and has “counseled” people not to talk to
Kim. How can you justify these actions
when she is supposed to be employed to be a person of wisdom, understanding and
healing? Diane is self-righteous and
judgmental and she cannot be trusted! -
as documented in and e-mail written by the
counselor regarding anyone who speaks up "you will be dealt with accordingly!” Do her words and actions line up with the
fruits of the Holy Spirit, or do they line up with Eric Dykstra’s fruit of
intimidation and control? I am aware of
dozens of people who have been hurt by Diane’s inability to maintain
professional confidentiality. It is
interesting that you employ a vocal woman as church counselor, and that’s cool as long as she conforms to your “vision” and
never questions you. You enjoyed having
Kim around as one of your creative leaders, but when you were faced with
concerns, issues and questions, you quickly found a convenient excuse to get
rid of her.
For those who
may not be familiar with my wife's story, crossing leadership dismissed Kim
and me as crossing leaders because Kim “did not show honor to her employer” in a
facebook post! Kim had posted on facebook the following: “I'm looking for
guidance, working with a difficult situation and (I) want to do the right thing
with all due honor and respect. I'm an encourager and teacher, I'm being told
to just fire people and not give any chances for growth”. Kim had also
called the church office and received advice that she should “be the
light”. Kim received 13 very positive
respectful & encouraging responses on facebook along with many messages
sent privately. Saturday April 2nd 2011, Kim and I had a
meeting scheduled to meet with Johnny regarding a person at the Crossing &
her issues with gossiping about Kim and her treating volunteers poorly.
The meeting was attended by “pastor” Kasey, “pastor” Johnny, Kim and
myself......hoping this meeting would bring resolution, reconciliation and
healing; instead we were told that because we were such prominent leaders at
the crossing they felt Kim’s facebook post was not showing honor to my employer
and effective immediately, we were “released” of all our leadership roles! We were told to “go, heal and come back
in the fall.....the new improved Quick’s”. Eric, I learned that you stated at the next
Crossing Community of Leaders (COL) meeting, the same meeting you references us
as being “the nicest people ever” yet you used the toilet demonstration for the back
door to be working properly, (hence the name of the support group “Back Door
Ministries”), that before anyone is “released” they are given three
warnings.......really? We were never “warned”, period!
Your actions were swift and harsh!!! Instead
of giving us the respect of talking to us personally (after all we worked our
guts out and lent finance for your vision for 2 years under your leadership),
you instead got Kasey and Johnny to do your bidding.
In the eight months since being told we
were no longer welcome at the crossing, neither you , nor Kelly or any leader
under your employ, have attempted to contact us to offer any form of
healing. Many
of the people who have communicated with us have told us of the communication
from “pastor’s” at the church.....one pastor told a family friend that Kim and I had been called several times and that we weren’t returning her phone
calls...... Kim has printed our cell
phone bill listing all calls incoming and outgoing......the only calls made to
the church were when Kim called in hopes of finalizing issues with the
un-reimbursed expenses. There are no incoming calls from any of the
numbers we know to be Crossing numbers, cell and other. I challenge said
pastor to do the same. No one at
the crossing has ever called to ask us how we are doing or to offer
reconciliation or even prayer - no phone calls have been made to us!
Eric, let’s
step back and take a look at the big picture:
Kim and I were removed from leadership at the crossing church because of
a facebook post which you felt was dishonoring to Kim’s employer. Isn’t it
ironic that two of your “pastor’s” who were photographed (at a wedding
reception at the crossing) distastefully posing and disgracefully grabbing their wife’s breasts as part of a public photo
montage ON FACEBOOK, but were never disciplined nor removed from THEIR
leadership roles?!?! What am I
missing? Grabbing your wife’s breasts in a public photo is acceptable to
you? If you don’t know which pictures I’m referring to, I still
have the screen captures taken from a public Facebook posting and I would be
glad to send copies to you.
Attendee’s at the crossing are
told that a group of us left the crossing because of what happened between
Katie Kennedy and her son Curtis and his marriage to Sharon Holland. This
“event” took place after we were removed from leadership. Let it be known Kim was asked to participate in the wedding and to provide
decorations and food, stated Kelly Dykstra told Sharon Kim is “genius” and
would be ALLOWED to provide services for the wedding! Without any additional communication between
Kim and Sharon, in communication with the couple and a request to hear our
story from Katie to the new Kennedy union Kim went from “genius” to to being
“mentally unstable”. How do you
reconcile that communication?
Although we are deeply troubled and saddened that crossing
leadership continues to manipulate Curtis into believing that he no longer must
honor his parents, (See One Mother’s Journey blog) the truth is that we are in
communication with parents who have been dealing with you (Eric) for over ten years when you first
began to display defiance and lack of respect toward their concern’s. You continue to thumb your nose at those who
bring concern’s about how you manipulate the scripture into what you want it to
say. It is my experience that you are
not concerned with teaching the uncompromised Gospel, but are more interested
in padding your own pocket book by teaching a feel-good speech so as to appear
relevant and attract seekers to ultimately grow your church & grow your
vision so you can compete with Steven Furtick, who in your own words, is “younger than me, and
has a larger church than I do”.
In that same speech from the crossing stage you said “I am competitive and
MY church will be larger than his church!” Do you deny saying these words?
Eric, you present the bible as if you are ashamed of the TRUE
Gospel! You are so stuck in your own
vision to grow your church; it has become an idol to you. You teach a Gospel lacking repentance,
essentially making the gospel appealing so as to attract people and get the
numbers in the door! "Nothing in
Scripture indicates the church should lure people to Christ by presenting
Christianity as an attractive option The
message of the cross is “foolishness to those who are perishing” (I Cor. 1:18).
There is no way to make it otherwise and still be faithful to the message! The gospel is unattractive to the world. It
exposes sin, it condemns pride, and it convicts the unbelieving heart (Isa.
64:6). God does not require relevance,
but God does require repentance!!
Numbers shouldn’t matter most to you; the integrity of God’s word is the
ONLY thing that should matter!
Eric, the
wounds we’ve experienced at the crossing have been devastating in our
lives. We gave our all to the
crossing. We would get home from a long
work day and then go to the crossing to volunteer our time as if working
another full time job. We were leaders
of three different teams under your vision.
My wife and I revolved all our time together around the crossing. We were so busy doing what we were told do
for your vision, and what do we have to show for it? The important lesson that I learned is that I
should not have been as focused on your vision.
The whole time, I should have focusing only upon the Bible and my own
relationship with Jesus, and also making sure that I was protecting and my wife
who was a baby Christian when we started attending the Crossing. No doubt I have been hurt by the crossing,
but Kim’s hurts have been devastating to her faith and trust in the church as a
whole. I take that upon myself because I
failed to protect her and shield her from the wounds. God did not do this to my family but did
allow us to go through it to develop and strengthen our resolve in Him. We will be stronger for having gone thru
it. The wounds we experienced at the
crossing are your responsibility and the wounds have been untreated for
months! The longer these wounds are left
untreated, the harder it will be to heal.
The time is now and we need closure to these hurts. I write this open letter to you to tell you
that I forgive you of all wounds you & the crossing inflicted upon my
family. My prayer and focus is for
healing to finally begin in our family.
This is not a game – dozens of other families are hurting. There is SO much dirty laundry and it all
needs to stop. People would be appalled if they knew.......really knew or
could see where their tithe is going! Big give = bigger house for the
preacher.......for safety reasons.......I wonder!
I will share the words I received in one of
the dozens of message I’ve received, written by someone else who has been hurt
by the crossing…. “we
thought being at church, being involved there (at the crossing) would be the
safest place, turns out it was a very dangerous place to be. We don’t blame Jesus, not one bit, We are
thanking Him for opening our eyes, for keeping us safe from things that could
have happened to us at the Crossing and for having hope, support, encouragement
and help waiting for us when we left. What an awesome God we serve.”
To blog
readers, if you’re part of The Crossing Church, (or recently left the crossing)
and you are hurting........wondering how
to heal from the hurts, I welcome you to e-mail the Back Door Ministries
Support Group. The e-mail address is
backdoorministires@live.com. You can
also find us on facebook. Back Door
Ministries is a growing group focused on healing from spiritual abuse, not only
from the crossing, but other area churches.
The BDM group meets weekly and we can help you heal the wounds that come
from the spiritual abuse you have encountered. This group is supported
and ministered to by a true pastor and this group will help lead you to a
personal relationship with the most loving Savior, His name is Jesus
Christ!
Prayerfully,
Randy Quick
