bishop michael reid and Peniel church
The Peniel church in Brentwood, Essex in the UK has been a good example of a controlling and abusive Christian church even though the presentation of the church to the outside world was professional and excellent.
Peniel had an excellent choir. They had programs on Christian TV. The choir performed at other churches and Christian events. They had their own school for the children of the members of the church.
But the first sign of problems was with the attitude of most of the members. Peniel was 'the place to be'. Most of the members would say that they were focused on Jesus Christ however their actions and behaviour indicated that the church itself was their focus!
The preaching confirmed this focus. All the the local churches had ministers who were 'taking their congegations to hell!'. Many churches were mocked publicly. When ministers from outside Peniel were invited to speak, the leadership always 'corrected' what had been said by the guest speakers. Reid would often mock these ministers on what they said from the pulpit.
But peniel was a church which the majority of members believed to be right and were happy to be in.
the abuse within peniel
The leadership enforced this view that peniel was special. Reid and the other leaders continually talked down other Christian leaders and ministers, in particular the local Brentwood ministers. The local schools were pictured as being rubbish and places which would corrupt the children, expressions such as "pink-haired left-wingers teaching your childen" were continually used.
Members had to attend church on Sundays, those without young children were expected to attend the two evening meetings during the week. There were always jobs to do maintaining the church and grounds. People were kept busy!
The result was that most of the members of peniel simply did not want anything to do with other churches and local schools. Worse, they had very limited contact with anyone else outside of Peniel. This included family members and friends who were not in Peniel. If family members and friends did not want to go to Peniel then contacts with them were limited or non-existant.
People were expected to tell the leadership if they saw anyone breaking the rules. Saying or doing the wrong thing would invariably get back to the leadership and often end in public humiliation by reid or the other leaders!
Those who stayed in peniel were right and those who were left had 'gone from us because they were not of us'! Of course no one was allowed to communicate with people once they had left peniel!
The roots of the abuse by the ministry were in place. People thought that they were special and that peniel was a special place. Would anyone dare cross the leadership? If they did they risked losing family and friends. People risked public humiliation from reid if they upset him!
In worldly terms peniel looked like a good Christian church, on the inside it was rotten to the core with a congregation consisting of people who either believed it was an excellent church or were too scared to leave because they would be ostracised!
The influence of the church school
The church school, Peniel academy, achieved excellent results in terms of GCSE and A Level grades. The classes were small, mostly less than ten children. The main sporting activity was table tennis and again peniel excelled winning national tournaments and even sending a team to represent the UK in the school world championships.
So which families would want to remove their children from the school and send them to the local state schools?
The church school provided a means to control people and this control was reinforced everytime the leadership mocked the local schools, their teachers and their results.