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| Derek Prince, one of the Ft. Lauderdale Five |
... The message, which came straight from Christian Growth Ministries in Ft.
Lauderdale, was this: the “Jesus movement” most of us belonged to was a
good thing that had run its course. It was now time to start building
the Kingdom of God. The Body of Christ, meaning the church, was more
important than the individual Christian. ...
In 1975, the New York Times published an article entitled “Growing Charismatic Movement is Facing Internal Discord Over a Teaching Known as ‘Discipling.’” That was us, and I had by that year moved into the house on Brookfield Drive with three other “brothers.” Discipling and shepherding were the same thing. According to this teaching, the true church was not the usual setup of pastor and congregation but rather a vast network of relationships between sheep, who could be men, women, or children, and shepherds, who could only be men. You weren’t a real Christian unless you were personally “accountable” or “submitted” to a local shepherd who watched over all parts of your life. You also paid tithes directly to this person, who in turn tithed to the shepherd above him in a pyramid whose summit was in—you guessed it—Ft. Lauderdale. ...
I soon had my own shepherd, a Jewish convert named Kim Levinson who
answered directly to Erik, who answered to Derek Prince, one of the
Five. In Charismatic circles, Derek was a genuine celebrity whose books
and cassette tapes circulated widely. His calling card was exorcism, a
subject that, like shepherding, divided the Charismatic movement. ...
We were growing as a group, and almost everyone
worked and tithed. I worked night shifts full-time at a twenty-four-hour
restaurant. A sizable portion of our money went straight to Ft.
Lauderdale, but we still had enough to buy the church building from our
Lutheran landlords, who moved elsewhere. There was also enough to buy
Erik and his wife a house near the church. A key tenet of the movement
was “service” to those in authority, and I eagerly volunteered to help
Erik with chores around his new house. ...
The group soon had seven or eight full-time shepherds who followed Erik’s lead by using money from tithes to buy houses near the church. Though mostly in their early twenties, they became known as “the elders” and assumed increasing importance at meetings and elsewhere as Erik began traveling, often for weeks at a time, with his mentor Derek [Prince]. The two men (Erik and Derek, as we called them) frequently went overseas to spread the movement’s teachings to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Jerusalem, and elsewhere. It was on our dime, of course, and some of us found it troubling while others attributed all doubts about it to you-know-who. ...
I went up to Erik and told him I had decided to leave the group. “I
respect what you’re saying,” he said. “Let’s talk about it.” I was still
working the night shift at the restaurant and met him there for
breakfast a few days later. After admitting the Fellowship had lately
experienced a few problems, he said we were back on track and tried to
persuade me to stay. If I did, I would be “discipled” by him personally
and would learn exorcism, have access to the group’s money, and maybe
meet one of the sisters as a prelude to getting married. ...
