During that time I took a full-time job in the evening on the janitorial crew for the General Council of the Assemblies of God. I had already been working for the General Council on a freelance basis, writing and editing for their various publications while attending Central Bible College and had experienced a good working relationship with them up to that point, so I was not prepared for what was to follow. My experience working as a full-time regular employee of General Council just proved the rest of my experiences working for "Christian" organizations to be true: I have had some of my worst on the job experiences working for large companies and non-profit organizations that proudly wave the banner of "Christian" for all to see.
In most states non-profit organizations get special exemptions and protections under and from the law that other businesses don't enjoy. And, even though the right, moral, just, or even biblical thing to do would be to do the opposite, these companies and organizations choose to let the the law of the land be their dictate of what is right and wrong rather than the principles laid forth in the Word of God they supposedly represent as the infallible guide for faith and practice. General Council was no less guilty of choosing the law first than many others.
I got chewed up and spit out because a supervisor was too proud to admit that he could have missed something in training me. It should have been obvious when I meticulously performed every one of the duties given to me every day, above and beyond as they were prescribed to me, but I never once did the duty that was in dispute as to never having been given to me orally or in writing to perform. But, he falsified notes that he had told me to do it on a certain date, reprimanded me for not doing it on another and then fired me for still not doing it on a third meeting. He was a good ole boy around the place so, even though he had a track record of doing this, he was to be believed because he documented it. I was actually told I might have been more believable had I kept similar notes. To which I responded, "Notes of what? I didn't even know there was something to be concerned about to begin with. How could I have taken notes?"
Because of their non-profit status they were even protected from federal fair labor practices and they knew it. Basically, they knew they were free to treat people in any way that they chose and they would get away with it. Yes, they were concerned about the possibility that an employee could be treated poorly by a supervisor, but since they were in no danger of repercussions from within or without of their organization they didn't see any reason to give the matter any consideration at all and just take my supervisor at his word and, no this considerable pattern of habit did not concern them, these were unreliable college students we were talking about and he had worked for them for several decades.
For me this really was the final straw with the Assemblies of God. I had many chances to have exposure to top leadership during my tenure at CBC and working on various writing projects. That combined with being at their flagship preacher's indoctrination institute I had a pretty good finger on the pulse of where they were headed and what they were hanging their hopes for the future on and I really felt that God was leading me in a completely different direction.
As a denomination, the Assemblies of God is so fascinated with the era of the Azusa Street Pentecostal revival that swept the United States in the early 1900s. It is where they, as a denomination were born from. And they have spent their entire existence looking back to those "glory days", grasping after anything they think might resurrect them. They have tried desperately to force revival in reverse to reignite Azusa all over again to no avail. They have lunged after every movement that had the appearance of being like Azusa with a "bear hug" like grip.
Being a student of history I know that God has never continued to work in the same way that he did before. He definitely doesn't work in reverse. In the collective movements of God that we have recorded in scripture and history there is a continual progression forward. My experience working within the Assemblies of God was that it had become a dinosaur primarily perpetuating its own existence. This left a bad taste in my mouth. I wanted to be where God was moving, I wanted to be headed in the direction he was going and it just felt like they were moving in the opposite direction. So, when I got burned by them as an official employee, especially the way I did, I knew I really wanted to break ties with them and go another direction.
Shortly after that I took a retail management job where I was able to hold onto my integrity as a Christian, an employer, and a businessman, even though I was now working for a man who made the wickedness of the "Christian" organizations I had worked look like child's play.
God showed me that there were worse people to work for and that even in those environments one person could make a difference. Boy was I ever miserable though. I had to exist as a very large buffer between my employees and the owner of the company.
I took a Christmas job working for a holiday kiosk in the mall in Springfield after leaving General Council. The owner of that kiosk also owned one of my favorite at ores in the mall and was about to open one in Oklahoma City but his manager had just quit, unexpectedly, a week before the store was to open.
My wife was in her last year of school and would soon be finishing her last on-campus semester. The only thing she had left was student teaching. Taking this job meant moving immediately and being apart for two months. My wife had family in Oklahoma City and a cousin on one of the school boards who was fairly certain they could secure her a student teaching position. So, off I went to OKC alone.
It was one of the most awful, miserable things I have ever done in my whole life. I loved the store I managed and the people who worked for me, but I just could not take working for the man I worked for or the unethical, immoral, and illegal things he did as a regular practice of doing business. Eventually, I just couldn't handle being in the middle of all the stuff he was trying to get me to help him get away with and he went too far in screwing over my staff one day in a way that I could make up for or recover the damage and I had no choice but to quit or sacrifice my public integrity. That job lasted just about long enough for my wife to finish her student teaching, return to Evangel for Graduation and then we moved back to California.
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Location:Carver Dr,Roswell,United States
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