About me

I'm just a believer that is recovering from my experience at Teen Mania's Honor Academy and I would like to share my journey of healing with you.

May 4, 2010

Robbie's Story

5/04/2010  Recovering Alumni  12 comments

Robbie, an active member over at our forums, recently shared his story on his own blog. While he was never an intern, his experiences at Acquire the Fire and on a Global Expeditions mission trip will ring true with a lot of us.

Click here to read his story.

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12 comments:

robbie,
reading your story was really really intense for me.

as i was reading it, a deep feeling of loss and grief came over me. i mourn the years i lost giving myself to teen mania in an attempt to be closer to god.

i am so sorry you were put to so much shame for such trivial matters.

i fully support you in your sexuality, your spirituality, and your journey of healing.

love,
moriah

Robbie, a lot of what you wrote I could relate to, even though I was an intern. You used a lot of the same phrases I have used when I talk about my TM experience. Thank you for taking the time to write it all out!

This story is insane. I'm so sorry this happened. Did your ankle fully heal? i hate mission trips with GE.

Robbie--

I am so sorry for what happened to you and I am so thankful you are doing to good job at processing it. Thank you for sharing your story.

i am so completely stunned by this. i'm sorry you had to endure this, robbie. i had a great experience on my GE trip, which is why i decided to do the internship. i'm glad you cut your ties early on with them you deserve much more than a general dismissive email about deep fears. i'm glad you are part of our cyber-community here. :)

Wow, Robbie, that was just brutal to read, and certainly sobering for those of us who were bred to like a side of emotionalism with our worship events.

More and more I'm seeing this lack of ability to empathize as the chief hallmark of an abusive leader.

Food for thought, to be sure.

Robbie,

I just want to say I'm glad that you had the guts to come forward and tell your story. I'm so sorry that happened to you. We as Christians really need to learn what it means to "bear one another's burdens". We are so quick to talk in Christianese and quote a few scriptures and move forward without considering the true weight of someone's issue.

We expect sometimes for God to do everything instantaneously. That is so unrealistic and is one of the reasons why so many hurting leave the church. When things don't happen right away, people are deemed to have a "lack of faith" when that may not be the case.

But the Bible does say: "Those of you who are spiritual, restore your brother in a spirit of gentleness" (paraphrase)

A couple of things are sticking in my mind from this:

1) The consequences of defining worship as an emotional "mountaintop" experience (which sadly is hardly exclusive to TM!)--when the experience was missing or deficient, one might really think that their relationship with God is missing or deficient. (This one hits closest to me personally since I'm a worship leader.)

2) The insidious use of word programming (a common cult technique) by TM leaders. "Don't be a complainer, be grateful" = "Don't point out that the facilities we've overcharged you for are lacking in basic hygiene."

3) The appalling lack of anything remotely resembling competent counseling for young people dealing with sexual struggles. (Yeah, I'll pray and cast out the demons of your face!)

This just keeps looking worse and worse.

I'm not defending Teen Mania or the deplorable hotel conditions, but I would like to point out that the majority of money for a mission trip goes to the airline ticket. Robbie's airfare was probably in the neighborhood of $1200. This does not defend anything about the conditions, but I just wanted to point out the reality of the expense of overseas travel.

@ anon:

i booked large groups of missionaries on international flights for several years. airlines cut large groups of people fantastic deals on international flights. right now, you can buy a a single RT non-stop ticket from Dallas to Venezuela for about $1,000. ten years ago, i'm sure it was significantly less expensive. :)

My heart breaks. It is soo hard to see even just a "missionairy"'s statement about the way TM turned his salvation into something continiously to be strived for. Sacrifice and beating your body is not just ingrained into the interns, but ALL the young teens that have wanted to "be on fire" for GOD. I just cant see that He would rejoice in this??? Why dont we all become Hindu and sit in a pile of dung without water all day so that we can show our dedication to God??? This has to stop......

Anon,

While that maybe true, I went on an Adventure trip with Lori Slaughter and a few other interns to Brazil in Nov of 2001 and the conditions were awesome.

TM definitely screwed up the trip. We stayed with a host family and had an amazing time. That was probably the best part of the HA for me. Granted, there were less than 11 people on our trip. I wanted to stay in Juiz de Fora and not come back.

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