ASSEMBLY HISTORY

[Margaret]

Part 1 of 3

In response to Brad’s question in his post on Jan. 28, “Is it possible, even probable that God did start a work through George?’ it might be helpful to give an account of the beginnings, from Steve’s and my experience.  This narrative is going to seem unnecessarily long, detailed and convoluted.  But in order to understand how a man like George could have gained credibility and a following, in spite of contrary indications, all the pieces of the puzzle need to be laid out.  There are many others, like the Maddux’s, the Hartman’s, the Patrick’s, the senior Matthias’s and McCumber’s, and others who would have much to contribute to the completeness and accuracy of this account.

For both Steve and me, our histories prior to ever meeting George and Betty were critical to our decision to join ourselves with them.  Steve’s parents were Baptist missionaries to Honduras in the 1940’s and 50’s.  They were very poor, and continually had to go on deputation to raise funds.  This, among other things, caused Steve to have a low opinion of churches and of Christianity.  He was led to Christ during a "Religion in Life" week at the University of Arizona by a visiting speaker for Inter Varsity, C. J. B. Harrison.

 I was disillusioned with the Baptist church in which I grew up.  A personal walk with the Lord was not something that was ever taught.  While I was away at college, the minister left his wife and ran off with the church secretary.  (By the way, his name was Dr. Chester Padgett, and George told us that he had been his professor and mentor at Biola!)  I did not go back to the Baptist church when I came home.  I had been introduced to Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship, and it’s hymnal of great hymns of the faith, and I longed for a church where there was real worship.  I had read the biographies of Hudson Taylor (Plymouth Brethren), Jim and Elizabeth Elliot (Plymouth Brethren and Presbyterian), and lots of Watchman Nee.

I reconnected with an old high school friend, who invited me to her church where her father, C. J. B. Harrison, was the pastor.  This was Westmoreland Chapel.  The Sunday morning service was very similar to the assembly.  Here I felt there was real personal worship.  After I had been attending for awhile, my mother, Sister Mayo, left the Baptist church and came to Westmoreland also.  Steve and I were married at Westmoreland in 1966, about a year before C. J. B. died of a heart attack.

C. J. B. Harrison was a Cambridge graduate and had been an Anglican minister until he came under the influence of T. Austin-Sparks at the conferences at Honor Oak.  Several families were sent out as missionaries from Honor Oak, the Harrison’s to the U. S. A. and the Goldsworthy’s to Australia, among others.  The role of the Harrison’s and Sparks’ ministry in the development of George’s “work” was crucial.  Without it, his sphere of influence would probably have remained limited to the Plymouth Brethren and young people in Orange County.

Sparks’ ministry had a very wide impact; perhaps his most famous disciple was Watchman Nee.  What follows are quotations from an article in Sparks’ magazine, “A Witness and A Testimony” (!) written in 1971 after his death, by Harry Foster, another of the leaders at the Honor Oak church:
 “Brother Sparks always set great store on "revelation", by which he meant not the original disclosure of truth by inspired writers of the Scriptures, but Spirit-given illumination and insight into what the Word really teaches…. Especially in his earlier years, brother Sparks used to lay great emphasis on the need for the inward application of the Cross to the life of the believer. He preached a Gospel of full salvation by simple faith in Christ's sacrifice, but he further stressed that the man who knows cleansing by the blood of Jesus should also allow the same Cross to work in the depths of his soul in order to release him from himself, and lead him into a less carnal and more spiritual walk with God…. The Cross is not only painful, it is unifying. Brother Sparks believed and preached that by it the individual believer is not only led into an enlarging personal enjoyment of resurrection life, but also into a true integration into the fellowship of the Church which is Christ's body…. It has sometimes happened that Christians most anxious to express this oneness have yet contradicted its spirit by being betrayed into an attitude of superiority towards other Christians, so allowing themselves to be wrongly divided from their fellows in Christ. We here have had to confess our own failures in this respect, realizing that our very eagerness to be faithful to the Scriptural revelation of what the Church ought to be may have unintentionally produced something of a separateness among the people of God. If brother Sparks at times tended in this direction, he certainly moved farther and farther away from it as he came nearer to eternity, being growingly careful to show a proper appreciation of all true believers, whatever their connection.”

This is the kind of ministry we heard at Westmoreland Chapel from Brother Harrison.  Do the themes sound familiar?  Spirit-given illumination into the Word (the kitchen of heaven), the way of the cross, a special unity of believers in this ministry.  It is not difficult to see why Sister Harrison thought that in George she had found someone to take up the banner of Sparks’ ministry.

End of Part 1 of 3

[Margaret]

Part 2 of 3

After Brother Harrison died, Westmoreland Chapel found itself struggling for existence.  Without Brother Harrison’s strong ministry, people began to leave.  There was disagreement about and among the leadership.   In the fall of 1969 Bahkt Singh from India was invited to hold special meetings at Westmoreland.   George and Betty came to these meetings, as did Tom and Caryl Maddux. Tom invited us to the weekly home meetings at his house in the Valley, where we met the Hartman’s and the Yousling’s.  

Our first invitation to George and Betty’s home in Fullerton set off alarms in us.  It was very dimly lit by a small lamp with red bulbs.  There was a statue of a laughing Buddha set on a table by itself in a prominent place in the living room, along with several smaller statues of Tibetan holy men on a side table.  There was a huge plank on the wall in the entryway carved with Chinese characters.  Within a few months, a missionary from China took George to task about the Buddha, and he removed it.  She also told him that the plank advertised a brothel, and made him turn it over to the side that said grocery store.

When George learned that my degree was in English, the one and only book of poetry he wanted to share with me, out of all the world’s great poetry, was Flowers of Evil, Baudelaire’s 1857 collection of poetry which was condemned for immorality in the courts of France.  George had a Satanic Bible, and claimed to have gone to Hollywood to confront Anton LeVey, the satanic high priest.  He also had the Tibetan Book of the Dead,  a scripture from Tibetan Buddhism which was “traditionally read aloud to the dying to help them attain liberation.…It teaches that awareness, once freed from the body, creates its own reality like that of a dream….It needs guidance and forewarning so that key decisions that lead to enlightenment are made. The Tibetan Book of the Dead teaches how one can attain heavenly realms.”  (The last report of a journey that I heard in the fall of 1989 was all about how he had been to Tibet and visited famous monasteries.)  

George and Betty made regular visits to Westmoreland Chapel after Bahkt Singh left.  They would sit right up front so that he could get a good shot at speaking. (It was the practice at Westmoreland to allow any brother to get up and speak without prior consultation with the elders.)  When George spoke, he generally took up the whole time, preventing anyone else from speaking.  The message that convinced me to listen to George was one he preached from Ephesians on unity, in which he applied T. Austin-Sparks concept of unity to the situation at the chapel.  Looking back now, I know that it was a misinterpretation of Scripture.  But at the time, it looked like George was right and the brothers were wrong.

In time George was insisting that the elders let him bring ministry all the time and basically take over. Of course, the elders refused to give him that unique position, since this was contrary to their practice of allowing any brother who was so led of the Spirit of God to get up and speak.  George was incensed.  One of the last messages George gave was from Ezekiel 8.  This passage speaks of God’s judgment upon the elders of Israel for their idolatrous worship.  Although he didn’t come out and say it, everyone knew who George was talking about.  As the elders of Israel worshipped their heathen idols, so the elders of Westmoreland must have some idolatrous practice in their lives, otherwise the blessing of God would be on Westmoreland.  And as the elders of Israel refused to listen to God's servant, Ezekiel, so the elders of Westmoreland were refusing to listen to God's servant, George. When the elders questioned George on his message, George simply said, "If the shoe fits, wear it."  Because the elders refused to listen to George, Steve and I left Westmoreland to follow God's true servant.  We believed George, that "God's glory and presence had departed" from Westmoreland Chapel.

End of Part 2 0f 3

[Margaret]

Part 3 of 3

At that time George was giving itinerant ministry in various Plymouth Brethren gatherings in the Southern California area--San Fernando Valley, Glendale, and Vista.  He never visited his home assemblies, Grace Bible Chapel in Fullerton and the Pomona gathering, and we never questioned why.  We now know that George had a falling out with them when he tried to convince them that they should let him take charge.  George always talked about his brethren as having "lost the heavenly vision" and so we never bothered to investigate, thinking that all these people were "carnal" for not receiving George's ministry.  After all, "You can't put new wine in old wine sacks" and the P.B.'s (Plymouth Brethren) were now the "old wine sacks".

We did not know at the time but found out after we left through a teacher who had taught with Betty at Lowell, and through the elders at Grace Bible Chapel, that a woman who had been a neighbor of theirs in Whittier had confessed to having an affair with George.  George was not working but was taking philosophy courses at USC.  The brothers at Grace Bible Chapel did not put him under discipline, probably because it was a case of her word against his, and he would not admit to it.  But they told him he had to get a job.  What Betty told me was that George had a disagreement with the brothers at Grace Bible Chapel, and left in a huff.  They did not attend church for 2 years.  Betty was very upset by this, but George would not listen to her.  Betty said that the only way she could communicate her disapproval was to drink coffee, something George did not want her to do.  As I look back on this, I think that George was very controlling toward Betty, and possibly abusive.  Eventually they did go back to Grace Bible Chapel, and then left again, as I have mentioned, because George was not allowed to be an elder.

Marguerite Harrison also left Westmoreland to throw in her lot with George.  Through her George gained an introduction to groups all across the country and in Europe which had been influenced by Brother Harrison and Sparks’ ministry.  To name a few, she took him to home gatherings at the Hoffman’s in Garden Grove, the Berkhoff’s in Chatsworth, the Boyer’s in Tuscola, and to Honor Oak church plants in France, Germany, Holland and Austria.  

It is noteworthy that, with the exception of Tuscola, none of these gatherings stuck with George very long.  I personally think the reason is that although George used ideas and language similar to Sparks, these mature people knew there was something amiss.  But they listened respectfully long enough to enhance his credibility in our eyes.  By the time they dropped off, one by one, George already had things rolling here in southern California.

George was invited to speak on a weekly basis at the home meetings at the Maddux’s, the Hoffman’s and the Berkhoff’s.  Through Tim’s contacts among high school students he began a Saturday morning Bible study in his home.  He was invited to speak weekly at the House of Christian Love and the House of the Lord’s Grace, communes begun by Calvary Chapel.  In 1970 he held three weekend seminars in his home.  In February of 1971 Sunday meetings began in the recreation building in Hillcrest Park with about 35 people.  My mother had by this time left Westmoreland to follow George.  At this point, there were no leading brothers, no brothers houses, no rules, really.  It was all very informal and free.  George was still selling insurance, and Betty was teaching at Lowell High School.

George took a trip in 1971.  While he was gone Steve and I went out to Betty.  I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but for some reason she was with us on a trip to Barnsdall Park in L. A.  She seemed depressed, and she said to us, “I just don’t see where I fit into what is happening.”  I think that Betty needed to believe that George was a Jacob whom God could use even though he was a worm.  From what developed later, it seems that using her Bob Jones background, Betty created a place for herself as the one who could make sure the group was holy, while George was the charismatic one who brought it together, flawed though he was.  In 1983 Scott Peck wrote a book called People of the Lie, about the distinction between evil people and the mentally ill.  Betty had this book, and admitted to me that she identified with one of the cases Peck describes, a woman whose husband was an alcoholic.  Her evil was her moral superiority over her husband, whom she hated.

It is very difficult for me to try to see these beginnings through the lens, “Did God raise up this ministry?”  I think that God spoke to us through the many Scriptures that were read, through the many doctrinal hymns we sang, and He fed us through the Lord’s Supper, because we were the sheep of His pasture, not because this was a special work of God.  In so doing, He preserved us and we were even able to grow in grace, to some extent.  

At this point Steve wants to add something.  [Steve writing]  I Tim 3:2 tells us that the first qualification of an elder is to “be above reproach”.  George had already disqualified himself from any kind of public office with his sad history among the P.Bs.   The elders at Grace Bible Chapel and Westmoreland stood against him and did not give him a public office.  The first and last God-ordained bulwark against sin in the church is the government of the local church, the elders.  And when that fails, there is no recourse to a higher authority, at least here on earth.  Now that we all know better, how sad it would be to allow George to continue to have a public ministry when so many elders in the past, and now more recently in Fullerton have made it crystal clear (with more than sufficient cause) that George has brought scandal to the church, is not above reproach, and that he is no longer welcome to preach in their assembly.  The other assemblies need to take heed.

End

[editor]

Dear Friends

I am going to lock this thread to all except Steve and Margaret.

Margaret and Steve, if you want to add anything else, you must let me know.  I don't want any other posts on this thread but yours.

Brent Tr0ckman