My name is Jason and I was a congregant at Antioch Orlando from Fall 2016 – Fall 2022
I write this testimony for those I love that still attend Antioch. To let them know in full why we left and to warn others by sharing the truth. There have been numerous attempts to expose issues from within but no actions have been taken by leadership. This is why others and I are sharing our stories publicly.
Message to my old friends:
I am so sorry if I didn’t say bye to you personally. I wish I was able to say goodbye to everyone in person, but because of the nature the circumstance, Emily and I decided to leave as quietly as possible.
Let me start by saying this:
Through Christ, repentance is always available. Forgiveness is always available.
Repentance requires the awareness of your wrongdoing, acknowledgment and confession that it is wrong, and the active decision to turn away from it. Not continuing in the works of darkness.
It’s active because as Christians we believe we are made alive through Christ’s death and resurrection. The debt we owe for our wrongdoing is no longer held against us. Our wrongdoing self is dead and our new life of Christ-likeness has begun.
Jesus hasn’t come back yet his second time. Our physical flesh has not died yet, so doing wrong still feels enticing. Even feels like we should do wrong for our best interest. But what happens if we are enticed by own desires and choose to sin?
We repent!
God forgives our sins if we know Christ as our Lord and Savior!
We ask God to help us live according to his word and enjoy life with others who desire to do the same thing.
It’s a humbling process, because we are not God! We need his help and his people to live Christ-like.
If you profess Christ, I pray that you choose to remain in the process.
My Antioch Story
I was raised in the Baptist church and when I came to UCF for school in the fall of 2016, one of the first objectives I had was to find a local church. It didn’t take long. My first week there, UCF was hosting an event called “Man Hunt” and Antioch was the group running it.
That’s when I met a guy named Carlin who invited me to check out the church.
For the next few weeks I attended Antioch on Sundays for church. It wasn’t very long before I got fully plugged into everything. Joined a life group, joined a discipleship group, volunteered throughout the week, etc.
I was initially drawn to Antioch because of the people.
the love for God
the joy
the intentionality
the discipleship
the desire for growth
the openness to worship
the active faith – vision to live it out
90% of the congregation went on short term mission trips every summer. (The majority of the congregation was college students)
Felt like everyone was involved. Everyone was in. Everyone doing their part. Everyone was excited about it.
I was like, what the heck is this. I haven’t seen anyone rallied up at a church like this before.
Beliefs
To me, Antioch’s beliefs were a little strange. They were a part of a non-denominational church planting movement that started in Waco Texas called Antioch Community Church.
They were continuationist, I grew up cessationist. Continuationists believe that all the spiritual gifts and the ability to perform miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit is still bestowed to believers today. Cessationists believe some gifts have ceased and are no longer possible today, or are extremely rare. (The subject of gifts can be found in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, Romans 12:6-8, and 1 Peter 4:10-11.)
I was skeptical because some of the beliefs and practices were foreign to me.
Tongues, physical healing, words of knowledge, prophecy, dream interpretation, etc. But to be honest, I didn’t know where I stood on these things, so while I was at Antioch, I studied them to find out if they were true / beneficial.
We were also taught that we could hear God, that we should seek to hear His voice.
The practice of prayer through journaling. Write a question and write down the first thing you hear. See if it’s a thing God would say based on Scripture. Ask a friend or brother if it’s something God would say.
Through Antioch Discipleship School (ADS) all these things were taught. Not like “You have to do these things,” no, it was, “We believe these things are biblical / beneficial for the edification of our church, so try it out. If nothing in particular is happening then, don’t feel the need to practice.”
Antioch Orlando no longer subscribes to these more charismatic beliefs and practices as of 2020.
They are now harshly against them, speaking ill of other church communities that practice them. They are also no longer a part of the original Antioch Waco church-planting movement as of 2021.
As a Christian, whatever you believe about these practices is not the point as to why I bring it up. It’s the fact that Antioch Orlando did a 180º overnight, with their understanding of the works of the Spirit. I didn’t have a huge attachment to Antioch’s old way of leading a congregation because of the background I grew up in, but this was super confusing to me and all the people I spoke with who attended Antioch at the time.
From Charismatic to Reformed
Problems occurred when people asked about these dramatic changes.
They were dismissed, gaslit, and others were too afraid or upset to ask.
People who had been a part of the community for years left in waves.
I do want to note, right before this there where some unhelpful things said from the front concerning BLM in the spring, along with the head pastor yelling at people during a “prophetic team” meeting. The doctrinal changes happened that summer. I don’t know enough about these events to speak on them.
People I know, love, and trust would tell me the issues they saw, and how they were spoken to.
At that time, a life group had a meeting with leadership to address the issues and presented them with accounts of troubling behaviors and events.
No fruitful change followed.
Many of those who left were (and still are today) considered offended, bitter, divisive, and wolves trying to lead people astray.
I knew the character of these people and the accusations did not line up.
I didn’t understand because I spoke to a handful of leaders at the time, I asked what was going on, but I didn’t experience the same thing my friends did. I was confused. I felt I was met with open arms.
My largest grapple when issues first started appearing was how could the leadership be corrupt when so much “fruit” abounded.
Fruit being evangelism, discipleship, mission trips, people’s desire to know God, testimonies of life change. Seemed like it was more normal for everyone to be reading their Bible and spending time with God than not. I’ll reiterate this: I had never experienced a group of people like this before.
My experience and understanding of this body of believers up until 2020 was there was freedom in pursuit of God.
Freedom to learn about God, freedom to enjoy God. Everybody in. Everybody involved. Every individual had something unique and special to offer. The church body had parts, people were uniquely made by God to be those parts. (1 Corinthians 12:12-27)
I experienced a great deal of growth and liberation when I attended Antioch my first few years, namely 2016-2019 (I stayed until November of 2022). I gained a new and unwavering understanding of my identity in Christ, liberation from mental strongholds, absolute liberation from specific habitual sin. Of course this was all God’s doing. No man can take credit for this.
Even though tides were changing, even though a lot of my close friends and roommates left the church, I decided to see it through.
Stick around to see where this goes. This was also around the peak of Covid, I just graduated college, and Emily (my now wife) had just broken up with me. At the time, I felt I didn’t have enough reasons to leave 200+ people I knew and loved.
I didn’t understand what was going on or how heavy-handed this community was becoming. The leadership proceeded to get the community’s eyes off what just happened and “onto Jesus” by taking a quick mission trip to Detroit during the fall.
Fast Forward Two Years
The congregation has fully accepted the changes that took place. There’s a new doctrinal tome written by the head pastor on the church’s website, and the new instated church membership was in full swing.
Emily and I got back together after she went through the refurbished ADS 1.0 (taught from the new doctrinal perspective) and I went through 2.0.
I’d also like to note, those who did the class didn’t have to go through the formal membership process even though the class did not cover what membership entailed. I remember a celebration in the middle of class as they handed out the membership forms. The new doctrinal statements had just been released around the same time. The agreement says you have read, fully affirm, and agree to uphold all of the statements in the church doctrine. I decided to not sign on until reading the doctrine and I’m glad I did.
When Em and I got back together we had some processing to do about Antioch.
We had growing concerns about the leadership and things weren’t getting better.
A sweet friend of ours had just gotten the boot from leadership, and my house was asked not to fellowship with him. Then in Emily’s discipleship, her discipler asked if she was planning on going to Rome for the short term mission in the summer. She said her and I might be getting married around that time (which we actually did). The discipler responded with “Are you prioritizing yourself over God’s mission?”
We felt that was wildly inappropriate as marriage is very much according to God’s mission in Scripture. Surely a lifelong commitment in holy matrimony takes priority over a 10 day trip to Rome. Em talked to her discipler about it and the discipler recommended we talk to the elder and his wife over our small group. So we prayed about it and did just that.
Emily and I had hesitations about meeting the Antioch leadership in the first place because of how many of our friends were treated in the past for asking questions / bringing up concerns.
In our first meeting with them we told them that we are afraid of being dismissed, shunned, and wrongly accused just for being honest. We prefaced with this and our intentions, then we asked about our friend who was being shunned.
They pointed us to 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 “If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.” They did not tell us what his sin was or if it was any sin that was being described in the book of 2 Thessalonians. They basically said trust us he’s in sin and needs to repent to leadership.
At the time we went with what they said. In hindsight, we realized it was very wrong.
Later on after we left Antioch, we talked to this friend to hear what happened. Turns out they accused him of bitterness and offense, but if there was any reason he was bitter and offended, it was because of how the head pastor sinned against him and refused to admit it.
This friend was asked to break up with his girlfriend at the time (who went to a different church) or give up leading the prayer ministry. The pastor used his authority to try to manipulate him to make an unreasonable decision. Our friend brought it up and said it was wrong, but the pastor denied it even happening. Another elder witnessed the event and confirmed it happened.
Back to our first conversation. Emily and I brought up the discipler’s question, “Are you prioritizing yourself over God’s mission?” We asked if they as leaders of Antioch believe this kind of questioning is appropriate given the context. They said they weren’t going to tell us not to get married nor were they going to tell us we had to go on the mission trip. They said we could do both. Other people have done both.
We pressed again, but was this appropriate questioning from a discipling peer?
They said this is the culture of our church sometimes these questions make us feel we’re rubbed the wrong way, but that’s how we grow. If no one challenges people, then nobody will go.
Side note: I’m paraphrasing this conversation. This was the gist of the conversation. They answered us by not answering us, and yes, they believe it was an appropriate question.
Emily and I disagree with them. We believe this was also a manipulative tactic.
In the question, “Are you prioritizing yourself over God’s mission?” infers that marriage is not a God-honoring mission, that it is actually selfish endeavor or less than the “real mission,” and the discipler asking it presumes she knows what’s God’s mission is. In this context, that is to go on the 10-day trip to Rome, no matter the cost.
This is the general posture from “core” people at Antioch regarding “missions.” If you don’t go, you are perceived as less than Christian, un-submissive, or not all in. This is how people are talked about behind their backs who go to Antioch and don’t do all they’re advise to do.
I unfortunately heard countless times about people not being fit for leadership or serving roles because they were deemed un-submissive.
The reason this question is a part of a manipulative tactic is because the discipler knows the “right” choice, so the goal here is to make the disciplee feel like anything that isn’t that choice is less then or an ungodly choice.
(This tactic, among others, is covered in the book Twisted Scriptures)
During this conversation, Emily briefly mentioned that she struggled to trust leadership based on how she saw people treated in 2020 when they brought up concerns.
We didn’t go into this in depth, but it set the stage for the conversations that would follow.
After this first conversation with the leaders, Emily and I weren’t really satisfied with how it went. However, we did feel we could reach out to them and keep an open line of communication.
A week went by.
After service they approached us and accused Emily of being in sin.
They wouldn’t say what the sin was at first. They told us they were having Emily step down from her roles of service like the discipleship she was facilitating (different group from the one who asked her the question), and later, kids ministry.
They said it wasn’t punishment, that they just want us to be fully trusting of leadership. Not serving with uncertainty. We pressed for what the sin was. They said pride and divisiveness. They didn’t point to any actions that Emily had done, they just said her heart was in sin.
In the conversation, Emily briefly mentioned we disagreed with advice the head pastor gave us years ago. After the conversation ended, there was an understanding that we would continue talking with them.
We walked away from that conversation shellshocked.
We were totally confused. It didn’t make sense. We just expressed our thoughts and feelings in the first conversation. We hadn’t talked to anyone else in the congregation about these matters.
Emily and I agreed to only continue the conversation with them when we were all together to avoid any “he said she said” scenarios. We recall the string of weeks in between our second and third conversations being emotionally, mentally, and spiritually exhausting.
When Emily and I stopped to think, we wanted to understand them more. I thought, “We didn’t know what they were thinking and feeling about us. All we can go off is what they tell us and they can only go off what we tell them. So let’s tell them how their actions made us feel and ask what their goal was in their actions.”
I wrote down a bunch of questions to ask them in another conversation.
“Did you mean this when you said this?”
“When you did this, I thought it was because of this.”
“How do you feel about me since I expressed my concerns to you?”
I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt. Not assume. I did not get to ask my questions in the 3rd conversation.
We told the elder and his wife we wanted another conversation with them but we wanted to continue the conversation collectively, not individually.
We attempted to get a date pinned down in a group chat, but schedules weren’t lining up.
On a Monday, we got a text to meet them that night at their house.
They also informed us they were bringing in another elder and the wife wouldn’t be there. We asked but they did not fully explain to us why they felt they need to do that, besides them saying it was “the most Biblical thing to do.” We requested the wife to be there for Emily and she was.
I also requested to have another member of the church present, but they ignored that request.
Emily and I prayed, then decided to go even though it was short notice and we were anxious.
If I recall correctly, we started the conversation telling them about how fearful of them we had been the last few weeks. They told us don’t be afraid and continued the conversation by clarifying Emily’s sin issue.
They said Emily was bitter against the head pastor and they used Hebrews 12:15 out of context to define it, even though that passage is describing a bitter root of sin generally, not the sin of “bitterness.” They said her bitterness clouds everything she sees, essentially.
They charged us not to talk about these matters with other congregants.
Threatened us if we do and it spreads, actions will be taken.
I was removed from my serving roles, because Emily and I were unified.
At some point in the conversation we brought up a moment the head pastor acted out in rage. “It was a stressful time,” they said. You know when a friend is having a rough time and he says things you know he doesn’t mean? It was like that.”
Fits of rage or overly emotional events happened multiple times, and there was no specific, congregational, apologies for any of the events.
In this moment the elder and his wife were dismissing the actions of the head pastor. They did not admit the actions were wrong, or that he had repented for them.
While I was at Antioch I heard a total of three times from the head pastor during sermons in reference to 2020 “we probably didn’t do what was right.” But no specifics, no individual ownership of the events.
I subconsciously had been waiting to hear some form of statement or apology. Looking back I took what he said to justify staying at Antioch. “Oh, he apologized.”
They still falsely accuse many who left during 2020 as wolves, bitter, and offended, but “he apologized.”
All of these issues could be avoided if there was a practice of humility and repentance from leadership. Admit wrong and repent, but instead, there’s consistent cover up for the actions of the head pastor.
There have been numerous attempts to bring up these matters from within but no actions have been taken by leadership.
This is why others and I are talking about this publicly.
I think it was near the end of our conversation they asked us if we wanted to be at this church and if Emily was willing to meet with the pastor in another context like this conversation. We said we don’t feel like we can be at this church because we feel like there’s no room to truly discuss these matters. Emily said she wasn’t ready to agree to a conversation with the pastor.
They asked if we were members yet and we weren’t, so they handed us the membership agreement form and told us to think about it. If we did want to stay at Antioch they wanted us to have the conversation with the pastor, which would be fine in any other context.
Crazy enough, we felt relieved after the conversation, but shortly afterward we realized we were gaslit.
We are the problem to them.
According to the Antioch website, we were one step away from being brought to the front of the church if we continued the conversation, persisting in disagreement with them.
The next day, Emily and I took a half day off of work to process and pray about what just happened. I realized how Emily and I were treated is exactly how my other friends who left Antioch were treated. In some sense we knew this was coming, but not as quickly as it did.
We decided to leave Antioch.
We wrote the elder and his wife a message about our decision. They wanted an exit interview, we declined. We were advised from those outside Antioch to not do so based on all the other conversations.
A different elder from Antioch called me, appealing to my years in the community. “Jason, you know how this works,” he said. In the context of that comment, he was inferring that we’re offended and that I know not to hold a grudge. We have no grudge against anyone. We see a sin pattern within the leadership structure. Unfortunately, from others’ experiences and now my own, I do understand how it works.
We left 200+ people we deeply cared about, because of false accusations and a demand for submission.
I now believe the joy and freedom in Christ is slowly, but surely, being removed from Antioch because of the heavy-handed shepherding.
Since leaving, we have been shunned and ghosted by numerous friends, lied about, and un-friended directly by those closest to us.
Emily and I do not hold any of this against the discipler, the elder and his wife, or anyone a part of the community there. Many of them are perpetuating what they are taught and do not realize spiritual abuse is what is actually happening.
People at Antioch, please educate yourselves on these matters of spiritual abuse and manipulation. It is ungodly.
Don’t just believe my words, believe the words of Christ in Matthew 23.
Do your own research, be a Berean!
If you see any of these number of things among your leadership, or happening in your community, it is a problem and every believer has authority to call out the sins of a leader on the grounds of two or three witnesses.
“Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality.”
–1 Timothy 5:19-21
For how leaders are called to shepherd, read 1 Peter 5.
“not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.” –1 Peter 5:3
Leaders seek to be servants:
“Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles Lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’”
–Matthew 20:25-28
Jesus, the example for all leaders:
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” –Matthew 11:28-30
Emily and I have grown exponentially in this time of being away from Antioch. God’s creation and intention for the church is far greater than we could have ever imagined.
We’ve experienced so much healing by leaving the legalistic culture and demands of Antioch.
Her and I got married last May and that’s a whole testimony of sanctification in itself. We are well and continuing to learn about what being a part of the big “C” Church means.
To the people at Antioch, we love you dearly and will continue to contend for you in our prayers. We wish not to dismantle your community, but hope God will use us to be a small part in your restoration of joy and freedom in Christ.
I Left Antioch Orlando 