These are just some of the things I’ve been called for bringing the serious problems of Teen Mania and the Honor Academy into the light. In fact, I’m not bitter. I generally give very little thought to Teen Mania in my regular, daily life. But after talking with so many other people who have gone through similar experiences with TM, I felt it was time to speak up and prevent others from being spiritually abused.
The leadership at TM forbid interns from ever speaking negatively about them. Instead of wanting to fix the problems, they prefer to hide under the saying, “No ministry is perfect.”
Of course, no person or ministry is perfect. Which is exactly why we should be allowed to say when they are hurting us, when they are destructive in their behavior and patterns and when they are over stepping their bounds.
It reminds me of a quote from Ron Enroth’s book about Spiritual Abuse:
Members desiring to discuss or work through problems are publicly labeled as the
source of all problems.
One of the ways Teen Mania has so effectively silenced its critics is by labelling them as bitter, backslidden and rebellious. The truth is that we aren’t backslidden or rebellious against the Lord (although we definitely have to work through some bitterness). We love the Lord and don’t understand why a ministry we trusted would want to hurt us so much.
It takes a lot of courage to share your Teen Mania story. Please consider sharing it here by emailing me your story to post. The more of us that speak up, the less they can ignore the truth and the more people we can save from their abuses.
