Note: I began publishing my “Leaving the NAR Church” series in 2017, and even to this day I receive new entries to publish. There are nearly 80 stories so far. These stories are precious to me, and serve as a painful reminder that there is hope for the dear deceived ones caught up in this insidious movement. If you don’t know what NAR is, I hope you’ll take a moment and read What is the New Apostolic Reformation Movement.
The following is a letter from a woman I will call Chloe, about her personal experience an NAR organization partnering with some of the biggest false teachers of the day. What she experienced will make readers angry. But please pray for those still trapped in this movement. Also, read our research into “Deliverance Ministries” here.
Thankfully, God opened Chloe’s eyes to the truth. Here is her story:
“When Amy had asked me if we wanted to share our story, it took me a whole year to get enough courage to say yes. We still live in the community where we had to leave what was my home church and we see these people often in our school, events, activities, and around the community. Reading through these amazing stories of how God has opened the eyes of many has been so reassuring to us to know that we are not alone. But it is also very painful and disheartening to see those who have been hurt by NAR. We are sharing to help encourage in any way. It can be very lonely! We had no idea any of this existed!
I was raised in a Christian home and was born again at the age of seven. My husband was raised in an ELCA church, but had a youth pastor that was LCMS who discipled him for six years. He was born again at the age of 17 at summer camp. We married young at the age of 20 and have four children now ages 15-22.
We moved away for 12 years, but then came back to the community where we grew up. We decided to go back to my home church where my parents attended. All was going well, until we were in a small group with a couple. The husband was also the youth pastor. His teaching was based on experience and emotions. He said to Tom multiple times, “You’re not where I’m at spiritually” (spiritual abuse, manipulation, arrogance, pride).
The youth pastor preached a sermon on a Sunday morning and said Jesus became God at His baptism. Tom asked him about it, but his explanation got worse. This youth pastor brought the youth on a missions trip to South Dakota. He told a teen that she would not get healed unless she had enough faith. Her and her friends came back from the trip crying because they thought they didn’t have enough faith.
They were going to teach Bible school on this trip, but instead just “let the Spirit move” so never ended up even doing the Bible school which was frustrating to the teens and the kids.
There was a lot of NAR influence coming from his friend in South Dakota. His name is Wade McHargue. He wrote the book called “The Elijah Generation.”. Wade just spoke at a camp that a couple of the churches in our area go to and is still very much NAR.
There was an instance that a friend of ours was in the basement at the church and a guy involved in NAR tried to heal her. He finished praying and then asked her if she was healed. She told him no, so he tried again. She wasn’t healed, so he kept trying. She was very freaked out by this. Tom had something similar happen to him. A guy caught him after the service and wanted to prophesy over him. Before Tom could get away, he had his hand on his shoulder and he was praying over him. This guy closed his prayer with “Thus saith the Lord.” He hadn’t quoted Scripture at all. Just trying to prophesy over him.
Tom went to the men’s prayer night longer than he probably should have. They (not Tom) would regularly pray for healing, speak in tongues and prophesy. He felt very uncomfortable especially when they would yell, “fire!” when they were “in the spirit.”
I went to one of the women’s prayer nights. There were women on the floor and some walking around without shoes on, people crying and speaking unknown words. I had never seen anything like it before and never want to again! We noticed a lot of it had to do with emotions and experiences like we had seen with the youth pastor we were in the community group with. We knew things were off, but couldn’t put our finger on what it was until we found out what the New Apostolic Reformation was.
There was a group of women and teens from the church that went down to IHOP in Kansas City. Obviously IHOP turned out bad, because it isn’t even open anymore and had to shut down because of sexual abuse! We had a lady that was trying to receive the “gift” of prophecy.
Recently, we heard that her husband just taught a class (at this same church) on how to be “grounded” (wearing no shoes). Many of these people also taught that you can’t experience the fullness of God in worship unless you raise your hands. Much of this came from the author and friend of the youth pastor, as well as another influential couple that got their training at Fire School of Ministry in North Carolina and brought it back to our community. A gal had recommended one of Bill Johnson’s books in a church newsletter. So, obviously much of it came from him as well.
The leadership at our church had passed the statement on the spiritual harm of the NAR, but never actually followed through with it. The music didn’t change, studies they led didn’t change, the people didn’t change. It all stayed the same. They just put the statement out there just to appease us. The group that had the NAR influence was large enough and had young families, so they didn’t want to lose them. The leadership was swayed by them because their own children were involved in this movement.
A few years ago, I found out this group had tried to get these teachings into a church down the road, but that church stood their ground and wouldn’t allow it in. Here, they had just snuck in and took over. There were enough issues that it was time to sit down with the pastor and an elder that we (thought) were really close with. I had babysat his children and he had helped us through marriage difficulties just years before.
We could not have prepared ourselves for what was about to happen. He yelled at us for almost three hours! Yelled! We look back and ask ourselves why we continued to take it. Why didn’t we just leave the meeting? The children’s director was in the office next door with her daughter and she said she had to get her daughter out of there because his yelling was scaring her daughter. He was so mad we were questioning what was coming into the church.
We decided we needed to leave the church. Our four children were at that time ranging between the ages of 6-13, which was a pivotal time for them.
Along with us, my parents and about forty percent of the church left as well. This frustrated the leadership at the time because they were planning on doing a building project. My dad had been on the buildings and grounds committee for years and we were all so excited to have a new building. But not with leadership like this or with NAR infiltrating the church.
It broke our hearts to leave my home church where I had gone since I was a young child. I had made so many friendships with these people. They were family. I tend to be a people-pleaser so this absolutely crushed me. It still does. I mourn the relationships I had to stop so abruptly when we left.
God’s Word is reassuring when it says in James 1:2-3 that it is good to endure trials and persecution. As well as Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” It feels very, very narrow some days. Doctrine is so important!
It can be frustrating seeing these NAR churches thriving and growing, but we continue to remind ourselves to follow that narrow road and not stray from it. There have even been times when we question it all since so few are following the Truth. And then we open up God’s Word. Every single book of the New Testament, except Philemon warns of false teachers. There are so many false teachers out there. I thank Michelle Lesley for all her work organizing the list of false teachers and safe teachers. What a gift she has! (links below)
Since all this, my husband is now a pastor. He’s been a pastor now for almost eight years. We’ve had some amazing times in ministry, but we’ve also had many other hurts and trials that come with being a pastor’s family. There was one church with verbally abusive people. The things that were said to him, me, and even our kids were outrageous! We found out later that this church has a track record of not treating their pastors and families well. But God is good and we continue to grow closer to Him each and every day. He is preparing us to be with Him, hopefully very soon.
I want to share some resources that have helped us tremendously to learn and grow more in our discernment. “Counterfeit Kingdom” by Holly Pivec and Doug Geivett and “Happy Lies” by Melissa Dougherty are two books we definitely recommend! “Counterfeit Kingdom” explains about NAR and “Happy Lies” teaches about New Thought. We were able to go to one of Justin Peters’ conferences which was so eye-opening! He has such knowledge on the New Apostolic Reformation and false teachers! He’s been such a great help to us! Other great pastors to learn from are John MacAruthur, RC Sproul, Charles Spurgeon, Paul Washer, Jim Osman, & Costi Hinn. I love all of Susan Heck’s studies, but especially her video study on 2 Peter which is about false teachers.
After learning that most “Christian” music is NAR, I asked myself, what can I listen to that isn’t NAR? There’s a great podcast about CityAlight and their songwriting process compared to Bethel, Hillsong, and Elevation. The link is below. (Use discernment with some of the Gospel Coalition articles & podcasts.) Safe music our family listens to is: CityAlight, Sovereign Grace, The Getty’s, Matt Papa, Matt Boswell, Fernando Ortega, & Norton Hall Band. Our family doesn’t listen to “Christian” music on the radio. We listen to CDs and playlists on Spotify.
Our family has grown so much through our trials of leaving an NAR church. It amazes me how discerning our kids are because of what we went through. I thank God often. I pray they will be able to find Christian spouses who are discerning, Calvinists, cessationists, complementarians, and have an understanding of the dangers of NAR. We praise God that He has opened our eyes to the deception of NAR. Some days discernment doesn’t always feel like a gift from the Lord, because of the persecution we get along with it. But it definitely is a gift that we cherish and are grateful for. We praise God because He has kept our eyes open and ask often that He will continue to do so until He returns.
Popular False Teachers – Michelle Lesley
Recommended Bible Teachers – Michelle Lesley
How an Australian Church Is Changing Christian Songwriting– The Gospel Coalition*
*NOTE: TGC is not a recommended site
You can read the entire series of NAR testimonies here.
Have a testimony you’d like to share? Contact me privately here:
