Today, I wanted to write about something that happened several years ago when I first began attending TCU that left some very disturbing memories for me and for several dozen other students, all of whom attended a student ministry affiliated with Chi Alpha (which is in turn affiliated with Assemblies of God).

I would like to say, before beginning my story, that what I'm about to share in no way reflects on Chi Alpha (either the TCU chapter or the national organization) or on Assemblies of God (with whom I've almost always had very positive experiences, and consider to be on the whole very top notch people and a healthy denomination as a whole).

My story begins, appropriately, with my church. I have mentioned before that my church carried a very "us vs. them" attitude toward people and institutions that weren't avowedly "Christian," and we considered TCU to be somewhat of a mission field at the time. (In some ways, this can be healthy--after all, any work place and any school or college in the world is full of hurting people needing a touch of love, tenderness, and friendliness in their lives--but in our case, it definitely carried a "conquer the ideologically uncooperative" aspect, which was unhealthy.) We talked about connecting with some Christian organization on campus and having an "evangelism night" with/through them, and I was elected as the point man for this endeavor.

I clicked through the TCU student ministries web pages and immediately felt I had hit paydirt when I saw "Chi Alpha (Assemblies of God)". I contacted their (then) leader by email and asked if he would be interested in coordinating something with my church. He said "sure," and I thought it would be important to attend one of their Thursday night services so I could "seal the deal" personally.

Well, the first Thursday night I was there, the worship service was quite powerful (and contained elements of the miraculous--one of the leaders there shared a word he felt was from God for me that was not only very specific but 100% accurate, and something I had never told anyone about before). I was hooked--and I found the (then) Chi Alpha pastor's sermon and leadership to be quite dead-on and effective--and so I continued attending their weekly Thursday night services.

I quickly became a heavy attender of Chi Alpha events, including their Empower Groups, and prayer meetings, and I saw things happen that I never expected to see in a semester at a university ministry. Students with major issues were coming in and receiving healing (emotional, psychological, and sometimes even physical), and the overall atmosphere was charged with electricity and with (I felt) positivity. There was an open-ness in this group, an honesty and willingness to confront things in themselves that allowed, I think, for great healing and growth to occur (they almost doubled in size while I attended over the course of that semester).

I attended over the summer (they even had summer services and events, geared toward incoming freshmen) . . . but by that point, I had this nagging sense inside of me that something was terribly wrong within the organization, or even perverted in some way. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time--it was just an overall intuitive sensation of "not-rightness" within the organization ("perversion" kept coming up inside of me for reasons I couldn't explain at the time).

That fall, I attended the first Thursday service, and James (the aforementioned Chi Alpha pastor) stood up (in an abrupt announcement, if I recall) and said that he and his wife were moving on, and that their seconds-in-command were taking over the ministry. I was stunned, and I remember my feelings after hearing from one of the Chi Alpha members that "I think a lot of people saw this coming" (I didn't know what that meant, but at the time, I had no reason to believe it didn't simply mean "he's moving on, and we expected him to do that").

Over the course of the next year, Chi Alpha dwindled in numbers, in resources, and in enthusiasm, and I realized in the wake of some things I learned in the aftermath of James' leaving that he'd hurt a lot of people in the process of taking Chi Alpha's TCU chapter to where it had been by the time he left. Things I had seen during that time started clicking and making sense, like the way I saw him bully students who weren't "in line" or the way emotionality in a Chi Alpha service was used against students, to make them believe, do, or say things they wouldn't do otherwise with proper thought and reflection. Remarks he had made about constant sexual temptations and issues, and about the ministry's finances, suddenly made new sense to me, and I began putting 2 and 2 together.

I'm still not exactly sure what happened (though I have a pretty good idea), but when I heard someone mention to other Chi Alpha members that a former leader had left because of a "moral failure," it didn't surprise. And because of this failure, Chi Alpha's TCU chapter was virtually eviscerated (although it did change into something more solid, more loving, and more (I hope) intimate, effective, and healing for students and ministers alike).

I wish I had listened to my intuition that spring and summer--it would have saved me a lot of grief and personal disappointment. However, I did manage to meet 2 men who became lifelong friends through that my experiences with that ministry, so perhaps it hasn't been all bad. :)