Subject: Our Journey on the Guidelines Team
Dear WANIDAK Staff,
We hope this email finds you all keeping well. As we reflect on our journey with the guidelines team, we recognize the shared experiences we’ve had together. This journey as we worked to create a safer environment for our fellowship has been filled with both joy and heartache.
When we were approached to join the guidelines team, we felt a profound sense of joy and responsibility. The mission to protect our children and vulnerable members resonated deeply with us, and we saw the great privilege in using our God-given talents to create professional guidelines to serve this purpose. Our aim was to reflect the same loving compassion that Jesus showed during his time on earth. While Jesus’ name was never explicitly mentioned in the guidelines, we strongly feel the guidelines we developed mirrored His heart for the children and the vulnerable among us.
The advantages of the guidelines we developed were clear: they aimed to foster a secure environment where all could feel safe, respected, and cared for by each and every one of us. We worked hard to create guidelines that truly embodied the spirit of our fellowship, making trust and safety paramount, while also ensuring fair and consistent treatment that provided hope for all victim survivors and offenders alike. Ultimately, we felt we upheld professional and best practice standards and simultaneously offered the pathway to restoration and peace. We were able to acknowledge the past and current hurt, recognize the responsibility we all have towards victim survivors, and show that we understood the need for accountability by those who have offended so gravely.
However, as we made progress in our journey, we encountered significant resistance from some in the ministry for a variety of reasons. We heard concerns that our Guidelines did not allow for discretion in decision-making, discounting what some perceived as repentance on the part of offenders, being too harsh towards perpetrators, and even that the scope of the problem seemed exaggerated and would be sufficiently addressed through the education already received. Overall, the ministry expressed concerns that the guidelines felt restrictive and corporate, that they were brittle, that needy sinners called perpetrators will be cut off from the help that they need, that they were too tight and demanding. and that they hindered the preaching of the gospel. There was resistance to our incorporation of various resources for victim survivors due to the groups involved in these resources. There were complaints that the guidelines were too lengthy, too detailed, or included strong language.
After our meeting in Walla Walla, we on the team felt like we had taken a step forward and were opening the door to allow for collaboration to address the concerns that did not interfere with the professional best practices conclusions we were asked to create. We did incorporate the changes that were applicable, clarifying, and appropriate. But as weeks progressed, there was a sense of discouragement as we continued to receive the same comments and questions that we had already addressed, and there seemed very little flexibility or openness to consider our perspective from the ministry. It’s likely that some of you felt the same from us. We received both public and private feedback that expressed offense on the part of some of the staff due to perceptions that we were attempting to restrict or control your role by providing expectations for conduct, as well as offense that the ministry seemed to be ‘targeted’ and was being unfairly spoken of with regard to the rate of offenders.
We also received resistance related to our minimum requirement of a yearly, one-hour training by the ministry and elders, which was disheartening. To us, this communicated a belief that the education you had received thus far was sufficient, and that the hurt of victim survivors and a need to increase safety was less important than having to give one hour a year to refresh your memory on awareness of grooming and patterns of abuse. Relatedly, it felt as though all we were hearing were cries again and again on behalf of the offenders, about the impact on their lives, and about possible false allegations; and yet, we received very little communication about the care and love for the victim survivors. Given our empathy, understanding and experience with the deep trauma of abuse, as well as some of our own identities as survivors, this felt like another blow and a disheartening step away from the love of Jesus.
Some in the ministry did not endorse the work of the professionals partly because those of us writing them had not been selected by the ministry itself. One of the most hurtful aspects of this process was receiving criticism from the staff on our professional qualifications, our motives, and most importantly, our spirits. Some of this criticism and negativity was voiced directly to us, but even more hurtful, was learning these views about us were being voiced to others. There were those among you spreading misinformation about our character, our spirit, our scriptural knowledge and understanding, our intentions, and the contents of the guidelines. It is undeniable that many of us in the fellowship experienced a loss of trust in the ministry 15 months ago, but the recent perceptions and statements we learned of that were made about us or made about our current crisis at large felt like another devastating blow and a further fracturing of trust.
In the past weeks, new conversations arose. We heard concerns about investigations because GRACE captured some of the other underlying problems in our fellowship apart from CSA and SA. There were also conversations about the guidelines being re-traumatizing to those who had moved on through the grace of God; though again, there was no mention of those victims who are still hurting and still crying out. We began to see the ministry turn back to the way these terrible problems and hurts were mishandled in the past: with so-called Spirit-led discretion by the ministry. While many of you may have found a palpable sense of peace in the recent workers’ meeting, many of the rest of us felt the opposite. We felt despair that all of our efforts, our conversations, and our pleadings of the last year had all amounted to the ministry choosing to preserve their own power and authority above all else.
As time passed, it became evident that the ministry’s path was diverging from ours. We learned of the creation of ‘modified’ versions of our own work, and then of conversations of scriptural guidelines, and then a turn towards a minimalist set of guidelines. While our task and purpose was to create comprehensive protections, the continued passage of time revealed the ministry valued an approach much different than we had envisioned.
In the end, we realized that for the benefit of our community, particularly the families with children to protect, we needed to move forward and publish the guidelines. Maybe some of you have felt that we were being prideful, vindictive, or seeking conflict when you learned we were publishing our guidelines. This was not the case. In fact, our decision to do so was a prayerful and thoughtful leading in which we were all settled in peace. While this journey has been fraught with challenges, we remain hopeful that these guidelines will serve as a foundation for safety and trust within our fellowship.
Thank you for taking the time to read about this journey. We are sure that some of our feelings and experiences may mirror some of your own, as is often the case when two paths diverge. We are hopeful that we can find a way to align our efforts for the greater good of our community, and that, above all else, we feel and show an unending love for God. There is a deep sense of gratitude on our team that we were a part of this process. The fellowship we have experienced with each other and the friendships we have found along the way are encouraging and invaluable.
Warm regards,
The Guidelines Team
WINGS Note: For background, see
WANIDAK ‘Unapproved’ Guidelines
WA NID AK Staff Discussion re Guidelines
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Thanks for your immense care and work you’ve done. I
Thank you for such a complete follow-up, and for your efforts.
This may indeed be the only way for “east and west” to come together in fellowship – shared experiences such as the guidelines teams have had. The teams over here on the east side of the Great Divide encountered the same type of resistance. There is more mercy shown a predator than a divorced and remarried brother or sister. This is upside-down. A new paradigm is necessary for our fellowship that recognizes the fallibility of individuals and embraces the inherent safety of “the multitude of counselors.” Some of us thought that might be the net/net of this disaster in our fellowship, but the wagons have circled, the heavy lifting is for nought, and the messengers (and I don’t mean the ministers) have been shamefully handled. Now reasonable minds on either side of the Rockies can agree on at least how we [should] handle CSA and SA among us, but so apparently can unreasonable minds.
This site is for CSA, but the same is true for other issues that divide us, that will affect more and more in our fellowship as time goes on. We have become so good at straining on gnats and swallowing camels. We are expected to attend conventions, etc. where people are invited to preach to us who would not allow the shadow of some who bear the unfortunate burden of divorce to darken the door of fellowship, but these same leaders have trusted their own human instincts to allow others in, with horrible consequences. Guidelines protect people from arbitrary and capricious decisions of the type that have hindered or precluded altogether some from entering into fellowship, yet have embraced others with no thought of those who they have so deeply wronged, or will wrong in the future.
The ministry will end up with a flock that does not trust it for guidance, that listens patiently but does not have the confidence necessary to be led. By all appearances, it is happening rapidly already. I have never seen such wrong-headed thinking, and never believed it could be so cloaked in supposed righteousness.
Thank you for all your care, time and work that went into making these guidelines, I have read them and found them fair.To say the least it is disheartening that workers and friends don’t want to embrace these guidelines to protect the vulnerable and innocent amongst them, and to help the survivors to heal.One can’t continue to support such a group, they have shown time and time again that their priorities does not lie with the survivors who have been the innocent one’s in all this mess!
Thank you for sharing this. I hope you keep up the good work no matter what those in the ministry say or try to do. What you wrote in the guidelines was absolutely right and no person in their right mind would reject it by any means! Here’s prayers for you that you keep strong against the opposition and do all you can to bring more light to the corruption that is through out this fellowship.
Mr Doland couldn’t sleep one night so he decided that the spirit was telling him not to accept the guidelines. What spirit? Not the Spirit of God because there would be love and care showing up as fruit. Instead it’s more of the same… giving the perps more care than victims. Nothing new here, just more of the same corrupt overseer thinking. For anyone that is still part of this cult – RUN. Your spiritual, physical and emotional wellbeing will be far better. I speak from experience having escaped last year after 40 years of being deceived by a man-made system.
I would also like to thank the WA team for the effort they made helping us all see what the problem is. Mavis you addressed Doland as Mr. It’s more like gutless Doland. With the help of Doyle and Doyle’s cowboy friend Tommy in Montana nothing will ever get done. Please FBI, get going on your investigation a little faster and bring in the IRS also. (Show me the money) Convention owners be careful.
The magnitude of misguidance of the ministry worldwide is the most unifying characteristic to date this fellowship has seen in it’s short existence. Mission accomplished! It would have been very uncharacteristic for one region to get it right and would have greatly hindered cross-border interactions between administrations.
The work of the Safety Team was not a fools errand, but a confirmation for many. Thank you.
To Guidelines Team: Thank You all! Thank You for your very last paragraph! As frustrating as the actions OR LACK OF ACTION is; we are grateful you appreciate your journey! The impossibility of the ‘ministry’ being led by the very Holy Spirit of our triune God; becomes such a hard fact: the longer and deeper they expose themselves. Thank you all for giving them a chance to completely ‘expose’ themselves once again!
Thank you to all the friends that worked diligently on this with care and concern in their heart for the children, looking for a path forward so this problem we have come to know that goes back a long way does not continue to ride on into the sunset.
I perceive this is the super biggy-sized roadblock when in the letter it is written “Overall, the ministry expressed concerns that the guidelines felt restrictive and corporate,”.
The restrictive part is the deal breaker I would say. They will not be going there, I am confident of that. Ever heard of something that is like ‘taking candy from a child’?
Nevertheless, the friends that have tried to do something for care and concern of the children will be remembered by what they have tried to do in faith, believing in their hearts that keeping the children safe was key to a brighter tomorrow. And I am confident they will succeed in finding a better way to keep the children safe. Then on the other side of the ledger, we see a seemingly majority of the people in the church having faith in, and believing another point of view and having another opinion. We as earthlings are a most interesting study I find. And how humans have evolved since Willy walked the earth. We will be remembered by what our faith was in and what we have done to prove that faith.
And speaking of ledgers, I find it interesting the leaders have no interest in the corporate thingy. We will come to know how that all pans out with some other interested parties. I am sensing a quiet work being done, not only by the Holy Spirit.
Anywho, they have stated their case: a) no safeguarding policy for the children, and b) they want to stay away from any corporate language in the church manifest. Very interesting territory to plant their feet in…or wander in. A most telling brief that will be hard to wordsmith later. I know how it feels in life when I just wished I had a ‘back-up’ button I could press. But alas! We are not designed that way. Computers are, but we aren’t. Maybe it all comes down to whether at the end of the day I backed up my chariot on fire to see if the wounded soldier is okay. In that day, one greater than I will use the back-up button. He is the one that designed the back-up button but He reserved it for His good pleasure.
I can’t say any more. ………….. ……………………….. Hah! You all knew I was bluffing on this last point, eh?
Please – someone else do some writing to fill in the gaps – please people, say what is on your heart and mind – Bucky, Max …come back! The children I believe have been given the platform in this moment of time. This is an artesian well that just started flowing in me about 12 months ago. I am finding it hard to stem the flow. Someone that was close to me and loved me but didn’t understand me gave me a blank page scribbler about 30 years ago. That person felt I needed to unburden my soul…whatever was in there needed to come out they believed. It remained blank and unused for the next 25 years. Zero expression. Except for one time I felt I needed to write and I used my wrong hand and went at it. I couldn’t even read what I wrote – numerous pages of scribble – so don’t feel bad if you can’t read what I write. Anyway, 25 years on, I see someone had a vision that proved true. Some times in life we comprehend not the vision of another. And sometimes the vision may have ended up in ‘Egypt’. Sometimes the vision doesn’t come clear for 20 years. Sometimes 400 years. Just saying. Maybe we even sneer at the vision until someday we see clearly – and it finally humbles us. But you know the time frame of a vision that interests me some of the most? 42 months in prophecy lingo. If any one gives a rat’s derriere, maybe ask and seek and knock about that. Just a suggestion – not telling anybody to do anything. But some visions can seem crazy. And at the end of day, calling it crazy does not do it justice. Awesome is more like it.
But the vision of these friends that wrote this letter and tried to make a difference in the church? Sneer if one wants. Aunt Jesse! You listening? You have born the fury of the gale. You have spent your life helping the impoverished. You were called by God to bring light to men and women, and to feed those lambs and feed those sheep of His. You have given your whole life to bring the gospel to the needy. You wanted nothing for yourself, only that others would be provided for. It makes the tears well up in my eyes to think of your service to the less fortunate in another land. And yet, you may be forsaking the long vision for sake of the enterprise of religious business. But the Holy Spirit has shown me; you have sneered. And you have been, or will be shaken. And yes, you know who you are although Aunt Jesse has been dead for likely 40 years or more.
Please – those that have been forsaken for sake of the salvation of the enterprise and have been abused, and those that feel cheated by this interloping seducing spirit revealed recently by the Angel of Light, get a scribbler and start writing. And plead with the Spirit of Understanding and the Spirit of Wisdom and the Spirit of Knowledge and the lowly man of sorrows and the Comforter to be kind to you. You will be comforted. Religious enterprise sneers at these spirits that Isaiah said the Christ would posses …and they sneered for a reason. He will give you a vision if you just ask. You might just need to meditate for a while with Him to understand the vision.
And Dee? You will be comforted. It took me long hours in mediation to understand the vision because my human mind kept wanting me to understand something my human mind could relate to from a different time and different place. If I can bring the comfort to one soul with my spirit of care and my words, then it is all worthwhile. I am done with the majority vote thingy. And the ones in Washington and area that had a vision of making a difference? Hold fast to that vision…and keep pulling on that thread you have started to pull on. For God’s sake and for His Son’s sake, don’t let go. The thread will thicken as you begin to pull, then turn into a cord, then turn into three cords. And don’t take my words for all this! Ask Him if I am a bull having a bowel movement or not. Or am I one just doing what I am asked to do, though painful it is. The children of His Kingdom are what matters. What will my testimony be just before the lid goes down on my little day? I am confident, it will not be “I wish I screwed more people!” Maybe I just process information in a strange way to most. Just call me a stranger then…in a hostile land. Call me peculiar – it suits me fine.
Sorry. I did not want this story to be about me. But maybe when the books are opened, all we will see and hear is the story about ourselves. I think and believe, when the lid goes down on my day, all my pointy fingers will be cut off. The story told will only be about me at that time….and was I willing and had the love and care to listen to someone else’s sad story in lifetime and provide them hope? Now everyone please. Check to see who is lying at your gate. And please don’t sneer at the beggar lying there, with his eyes asking for a morsel. Even a crumb that would fall from your table of plenty. He or she may be providing you with great opportunity and privilege – a whole different gambit than religious enterprise sold to you of what your opportunity and privilege was. The work of the Holy Spirit I have come to know and understand is an amazing work. If only we are willing to let go of and sever, the three fold cord ….of religious enterprise. A scary snip for the faint of heart and the fearful. The faint of heart I will encourage. The fearful? I will have to let you have it your way. I am sorry there is no hope or help I can provide you. He told me it would be so, though His heart pain Him of such.
Please people, help the people and write something, and spare them from this pen of a ready writer! Oh! That must be the dinner bell. You all are saved by the dinner bell anyway. Now we can all go have what we have all been looking so forward to! Convention stew! Certainly no need to fast here!
Mark S: The dinner bell saved who? We “weep” as they eat! Yes, for them who can NOT see around, over or under the “anointed”!
Yes, those who Declare: “What problem? We are so glad the FBI is investigating! Now, it will be proved to all the doubters: THAT there are no crimes, money laundering, or secrets – ALL is good and perfect in the WAY!”
Now, as we weep for the cast aside, and the ones whose life is destroyed by a brain that cannot over come a crime so horrendous that their days cannot comprehend: and as the dinner bell rings – the masses rush the door to get the best salad and Stew!
As for us, we will simply bow our head – sorrowful for those who do NOT have the HOPE of a “Risen Jesus Christ” – whose love was so great that he did the will of His Father AND yet pleaded: “Father; forgive them for they Know Not what they do” (Luke 23:34)! Now, the enterprise, has robbed their masses of the very Gospel that results in Hope eternal: Romans 3:21 – :28 –BUT NOW — and :22 assures us “IT IS THE “righteousness of God” by faith of Christ unto ALL(not just those who eat stew ) and upon all WHO “believe”(YES, not following the anointed) just simply “believe”!
THEN, if you can handle more: verse :24 very clearly and simply declares ” being ‘justified Freely by His grace through the redemption that is in “”Christ Jesus”” ‘! continue to read to whom this promise will be fulfilled: :26 ….. the “justifier of him that Believeth in Jesus”!!! YES, :21 explains: BUT NOW: without all the rules and Holier than Thou: –it JUST simply IS– “BELIEVE” Jesus died for the sins of all men everywhere: — was buried – AND Rose again! 1 Corinthians 15: 1 – :4.
Is that too simple? You mean I don’t have ‘worship’ the anointed? Yes, Ephesians assures us in the 2nd chapter, :4 – :9 THAT by “grace you are saved through ‘faith’: and that not of yourselves(oops); it is the Gift of God!!! and then doubles down, case you can NOT understand :9 NOT of WORKS!!! because :4 But God!!!
I don’t know Astounded. You could be right.
One thing I know for certain …and getting better at nailing this certainty every day it seems – and that is that I really don’t know…or know diddly-squat in the big picture.
And at the end of the day we all make a decision on what we want to believe. I am just saying, for my part, I believe I can have a boat load of belief and faith in something, but if I haven’t tested it in some manner, that is all I might end up with – just a boat load of broken dreams. Somewhere along life’s highway, the rubber has to hit the road some time – to test the rubber. How does a man get to know?….he may have four flat tires – deflated over time by a myriad of reasons. And for my part, the center of the road seems to be where it makes sense to drive – it is the farthest from both ditches. I have yet to encounter oncoming traffic in this one-way highway of life. But my eyes are peeled.
And maybe you are confused because maybe I have misinterpreted what you said to me. I am sorry. I know the feeling.
So to the overseers of the church that have wagered their life’s savings on guaranteeing spiritual guidance to the people, I encourage you to dismount your spiritual chariot. You may be stuck. Just an observation. Just have a look please at the wheels. I believe they are stuck in a rut – but I could be wrong. The tires may only be flat on the bottom.
You all were called, I am confident of that. And you all started well, I am confident of that. But who has over the passage of time convinced you that His children matter less than keeping the wheels on the organization wagon? And time carries the stage coaches away. Father Time has His Way at recording history.
And I know you are reading brother overseers. You are not alone in that like you may wish to believe. Your faith and my faith are just on different wavelengths at the present time. And there is something with wavelengths and frequencies after all. You can’t see them- you can only measure them. But that which a signal can affect, is that which can be seen; and that which can be weighed. But if the signal gets interrupted or dies, or decays enough, the receiver makes no response. The send and receive messages are required to agree, otherwise the system shuts down.
agree with astouned 😥
THANK YOU to the WANIDAK Guidelines Team, the WINGS team, and everyone who is continuing to let the light in.
Your work is a great encouragement those of us in other areas where there is (thus far) not much open communication about these issues, but where we are still hoping and pressing for improvements.