After 35 years at MCF, after so much promise of good, the place we gave ourselves to turned out to be a church of waste. A waste of humanity.
We literally watched our lives wasting away. I remember at age 35 looking out from the decking thinking, if they are doing this to me in another 10 years, I’ll be 45 and never have done anything I’m actually good at or want to do. Whether in church, business, work, hobbies or travel.
And I let it happen to me. In the end we waited until I was 49 in 2016 to leave that hell on earth.
It didn’t matter whether we wanted to start a business, or a Bible study or a craft group or change jobs. No matter what we wanted to do, it was too much of an expression of us and we were banned or delayed by 3, 5, 7 years. Or decades. Until it couldn’t work. Or . . never.
When I did hit age 49, almost 15 years later, I realized I had indeed lost almost my entire life to this place of fantastic promise and initially well-meaning leaders . . but leaders who had ALLOWED THEMSELVES to become utter bastards. No common decency. No true love or care. Absolutely zero duty of care. Living in complete unreality, yet thinking they were the masters of reality.
We fully understand where Melbourne CHristian Fellowship was coming from. God values humility. But this was ridiculous! No one was allowed to do ANYTHING! For decades! This was psychological abuse. And we weren’t allowed to talk to each other about it.
I now call it the ‘Satanic Church of the Vegetative State‘.
Because it is.
Everyone is waiting for an elder to ask them to do something. Anything. Maybe for decades.
It is a Satanic level of inactivity going on there.
Open Letter to Melbourne Christian Fellowship (MCF) 
You should not to confuse your initial youthful idealistic view of the church with what the church actually was. In the same way you shouldn’t let your current feelings of anger blind you to what the place really is. 40 years ago, when you felt idealistic about the church, there were people who feel the way you do now about MCF. If it is around in another 20 years there will be people hurting in it then that are currently now feeling inspired by it.
MCF is not alone as an institution with leaders voicing high ideals but their normal vices and weaknesses, being unmoored from tradition and orthodoxy, allow them to be puffed up and hurt others. These places also seem to attract people that feel the need to be doing something to enhance their salvation, as if God’s grace was not enough. These relationships are always very likely to puff up the one side and hurt the other. The math is straight forward. The more people get used and hurt on one side, the more puffed up the other gets.
I think the saddest thing is when people leave a place like MCF but look for the same thing somewhere else, just with a better position in the pecking order. We all have weaknesses and we can’t guarantee that we wouldn’t get puffed up and hurt people if we were on the other side of the equation. If you were used and hurt by some of the people that you mentioned then I feel sorry for you. I also feel sorry for them as I knew some of them many years ago and I don’t think back then they would have envisaged themselves that way.
You have a lot of regrets. You need to make sure you don’t waste what you have regretting the past. Wishing for something that can’t be. If B/MCF were to close tomorrow a new one would start, attracting the same people with the same needs. More important than trying to expose M/BCF is the need to teach our kids that they are each created in God’s image, that they do not need to earn God’s love, especially through the approval of men. This way they are less likely to be victims or perpetrators in the future.
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Hmmm. I think we have different views on absolutism.
I’m trying to show you how horrific it was to live there. It was really horrible, We only stayed because we thought it was the truth.
I still believe in truth.
Now, yes, you are correct, I know early on the earlier leaders were actually very fallen. But many of the rest of the couples around them were true believers and some have gone on (eg Jeff Hammond) to keep moving with it in truth. Multiple eldership,the Body of Christ edifying one another etc.
I and Jeff have not given up on that.
But what Vic Hall has brought is Satanic and self-serving and is born of a religious spirit it appears.
It is irrelevant that some people there think it is still wonderful. It’s fruit as listed in this blog demonstrates otherwise.
There is a Satanic element of locking up and inactivity going on there.
Or do you not trust my father’s vision? Or believe in visions? Or truth?
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I certainly agree with what you say about teaching our kids about their origin and not requiring approval of man.
And of course, I am working towards putting all this aside, but I also want to document what actually happened because it was real and specific what happened. It wasn’t a run of the mill occurrence that can be swept under the carpet. Those men did this to me and owe me restitution whether they realize it or not.
They banned me from important business and creative opportunities that I absolutely loved and it was for up to decades. They disallowed me from changing jobs from a job I hated and then they forgot and pretended I should have known! They knew what they were doing.
I’m not waiting expectantly for restitution but I’ll take it when they come to their senses for both of our benefits.
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I am not an absolutist, just an observer of human nature. Since leaving this group I have seen the same thing happening in other groups. They are not unique. Unfortunately what happened to you is not either.
Please don’t think that I am having a go at you but I can’t help thinking that you are expending a lot of energy on negative things. Be careful that those close to you who came out with you don’t feel they are part of your regrets.
It is good to not wait for restitution, you are very unlikely to get it. I have not even heard of people who have left who have apologised to others. People seem to go from enjoying the privileges of favour to broken victim very quickly.
As for believing your Father’s vision. I must admit I am very sceptical when anyone says God told them something. Not that I don’t think God can, just that experience has taught me that when this happens it is surprising how many people seem to hear what the want to be told. So I would not make a call either way in this situation. Did your father believe it at the time? By that I mean did he act as if he thought it was really true?
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He saw it in a vision while awake and immediately knew its meaning. It wasn’t his first such vision. He reported it and believed it and gave them five years. But he, to my dismay, did not tell us, because he probably wanted confirmation before speaking publicly. Well that came from me, and others, independently 4 years later when I came to the conclusion that their leadership and teachings were essentially bogus.
I have seen enough supernatural that I know the Lord was in that place despite the Ray Jackson Snr shenanigans. God does want to unfold understanding of his word and to have a glorious church ‘according to His pattern’.
But MCF/BCF have completely lost the plot. It’s a religious spirit thing. Seeking ‘new words’ rather than doing the work and edifying one another.
You want more supernatural? The day Jeff Hammond left in 1995 was my wedding day. While I and Justine were on our honeymoon in Coffs Harbour the Lord showed both I and Justine AND my father back in Melbourne that something crooked was going on at MCF.
After the flight back home, when I hunted for my car-keys at the airport in a side-pocket of a soft bag, and pulled them out, my car key had a 90 degree bend in it. How? Nothing to push against if it was shoved up against another bag. It was full of clothes!
Anyway Mum and Dad picked us up and drove us home where my car was.
So, at Mum and Dad’s place for dinner that night I casually tell Dad and Mum ‘I’ve got something interesting to tell you about my car key’.
Because I sensed it was spiritual.
But guess what? Dad said ‘Interesting. I’ve got a key story too’.
After dinner, he went to his bedroom and came back and put a bunch of keys on the coffee table in front of us, HIs car key had a 90 degree bend too! I was less surprised than I expected and pulled my keys out of my pocket. And plonked them down next to his.
I hadn’t told them it was bent.
Identical bends.
We felt the Lord ws telling us that Jeff had been a key and was now bent. But 21 years later we feel that we misinterpreted it. I feel today that the message was about MCF being bent which had actually crossed my mind back then.
Think the story is over? Nope.
We kissed Mum & Dad goodbye.
I slowly bent my car key back straight.
It was now completely stiff and useable again.
But I decided not to risk it breaking off in the lock. I pulled a spare out of my glove box and used it to drive home. And put my keys in my pocket.
When I got back home it was stiff bent at 90 degrees again. Absolutely impossible in the natural.
I prayed and prayed about it. And did wonder whether it meant MCF was bent.
Then MCF started abusing us for 21 solid years worse than ever before.
Why did the Lord warn us and we miss it? Were we supposed to misinterpret and live through it?
I don’t know. I really don’t know.
All I know is that God was in that place and something is important about that ORIGINAL word and Jeff Hammond who has gone from strength to strength in that word.
And why I and Dad? All I know with I and Dad is that there’s no hidden agendas. We were in it for the Lord.
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intriguing story. I just don’t think God plays games with us like that. I see no scriptural examples of such cryptic revelations. It is often possible to impose our own meaning on events after the fact. Not that I am suggesting every phenomena has a physical explanation.
I feel a bit awkward asking this on a public forum so delete the comment it you don’t want to engage but I am really interested in the answer. Given you believe you had early revelations that something was not right and given that you were facing such persecution, why did you not seek out those who had already walked away? And what do you feel about the people that are still going along and see it as a positive part of their lives?
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I don’t mind talking about it publicly because (1) I am using a pseudonym for the sake of my career and family since my name is globally unique and (2) I feel it’s a significant event I’ve been through and I think the story should be told. I lost the best 25 years of my life there. Yes, I got married to a woman I love, have four great kids . . but they lived and grew up with a guy who was less than a tenth of himself in everyway that is me and was silently suffering psychological abuse all those years. It wasn’t good.
Well, firstly, the key bending story is 100% true and undoubtedly supernatural. A stiff 90 degree bend is not at all easily created (without a G-clamp) and it happened 3 times in two people’s pockets or bags, independently, on the same day! Because, later, my father’s vision (and he is a godly man of integrity) clarifies who is ‘bent’ I can only assume we got it wrong the first time. Yes, why so cryptic? Maybe it was meant to show us later that God knew what was going on then despite us not knowing and we were meant to suffer those additional 21 years for some grand purpose.
We did seek out ones who had left but they would not reveal the reasons why they left because, I believe, they were wanting us to make our own decision. But a little confirmation of my suspicions would have been helpful as, eg CB, . . knows!
The ones there who find it positive. Well, great for them, but it’s disappointing the extent most of them wouldn’t dialogue or stand with me as a witness to the elders or be prepared to remember the past. And, more importantly, if the vision is true, which I have no doubt, its not good for them, and its damning for those leaders.
Inverted crowns like millstones and chains and carts hurtling into abysses.
Even Richie Kaa Jnr (a current leader at MCF) has admitted the stuff from the past (including what they did to me) must be millstones around some of those men’s necks and he is very disappointed in their lack of honesty or repentance. They all acted like idiots pretending they had no idea of what/how they had been doing when it was Richie’s job to, one-by-one, challenge those men about what they had done to me.
But, at MCF the leadership takes a vow of silence as if they are Christ on trial. They forget that Christ was innocent and they are at least potentially guilty so it is an apostasy for them to take such a preposterous stance.
Of course the the problem is that it was not only those men who hugely over did their mandate (as Vic Hall puits it), but Vic Halls’ word in the first place is non-Biblical anyway.
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Thanks for talking openly. I am really intrigued why people stay in these situations for so long, particularly when they feel things are not right.
Can you tell me what you thought when you caught up with those who had left while you were still in there? Did you not see them moving on with their lives while you were being subjected to more pain? What stopped you seeing a better life for yourself and your family outside? Did you think that God could not be found in any other place?
Do you think that the recollections of the great beginnings might have been the conditioning that there is no salvation outside the group.
Finally. You suggested that you thought that maybe God meant to show you that you would suffer for 21 years for a higher purpose. If you accepted this, should your attitude to the people that hurt you be more of forgiveness than anger (forgive them for they know not what they do). As the unknowing workers of a higher plan would you really demand apologies?
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We stayed because of the early solid word.
And because we got the impression there wasn’t much else going on in Christendom. MCF was preaching and living priesthood of all believers, body of Christ, gifts of the spirit and multiple eldership.
But, yes, the 1988-gate and partiality and one-trackedness of Vic Hall’s new word were worrying.
Seeing others outside ‘moving on with their lives’ didn’t really help because they didn’t tell us why they left nor told us much about what they were hearing at their new churches.
And at MCF, Vic’s new word was all about suffering so we were expecting to suffer. Scripture tells us we need to suffer for His sake so it sort of made sense. And we were even taught that headship is ‘marred’ (mimicking Christ’s marring) so don’t expect your leaders to be perfect. If they make mistakes in their shepherding of you, then God will honour you. ‘As unto the Lord’ was the Scripture.
We did feel that nowhere else we had heard of was preaching a revelatory word for today. I still feel that, now, only Jeff Hammond is preaching and living a Biblically-based restorationist church pattern. Not that I’m saying God isn’t in other churches including my new one. But that’s not the same as seeking God’s face carefully for His way in church leadership. But I can’t say that worked out well at MCF/BCF so it’s not the most important thing to my life right now. I just suspect that God will still move in a restorationist manner world-wide in the future.
Of course eventually, it all became clear that our lives at MCF were heading nowhere. At 49 you realize all your dreams and plans have fizzled out (due to MCF) and MCF had nothing positive to replace them with, and that the leaders were actually delinquent and disintegrous. All their promises came to nothing and we’d been sidelined for 20 years by David Bonham and his sidekicks. All we had wanted to do was be part of it and studiously work towards our personal plans.
The great beginnings were part of the draw to stay and the impression that maybe Vic was right about his angles, but in the end it was so destructive and one-tracked and judgemental and unaccountable we became sure we had fallen for a cult.
At times I feel God wanted us there to show MCF in our leaving that we were leaving for the right reasons. But, my anger was so high that they just see me as a hot tempered man now. But they need to understand why we were so angered. What they did was real and disgusting and pointless. So, I could have left more sensibly.
None of it forgives those men who did these things.
Because I knew that most of it was ‘marred headship’ as it was being done to me.
I couldn’t have done it to anyone. How do I know that? Because I had the opportunity to do it to my wife as a head of the home. And to young people and women in the church (yes, arbitrary men could counsell arbitrary women at one point at MCF). Whenever the opportunity arose, I never prescribed a path. I just guided them towards making their own decision and always reminded them it was their decision to be found pray-fully.
I was very scared about directing people in a prescribed manner. Those men who did it to me have a lot to answer for as Richie Kaa Jnr explained to them.
Have I forgiven them? It’s difficult and takes time. They still ‘have my car’. Scripture is more nuanced on it than one thinks. MOst times when you have a close look, the perp ASKS for forgiveness. The only cases without that are Christ and Stephen on their deathbeds.
At a certain level I forgive them. They did what they were taught. But to the extent that they did cared little how much or how long they hurt us. And the lying and unaccountability afterwards and story-telling.
I certainly do not release them from their need to return the ‘car’ that they stole from me.
I’m open to receive apologies and restitution anytime. $200K between the four of them. Anytime. Discounted down from $10M.
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