I attended this church for about 3 years, left last year, & overall had a very rough experience.
On the surface, & I emphasize the word surface, they were very understanding of my mental health needs (at the time I was suffering with severe PTSD & crippling social anxiety). I have come to discover that it's only because being aware of mental health issues is the current, hip, thing to do. I also had some physical stuff, requiring surgery. They were all for helping when it was convenient (i.e. helping me get to a chair on Sunday), but not once outside of Sunday. Not even one meal despite being promised that I would be signed up for them.
They had a woman on staff, who now does mission work in the UK, be incredibly abusive on multiple levels. She would say ludicrous & judgmental things against struggles me or my non-Christian friends were going through. As if that complete lack of compassion was the appropriate response for something that believers & non-believers alike go through (i.e. divorce) was the correct response. She also had a nasty habit of pushing her own agenda, no matter how much you would tell her you needed your boundaries respected. i.e. - She wanted to talk to me about issues we were having, I said not until I had time to pray about it & get through the rough holiday season as well as an upcoming surgery. She then instead caught me off guard in the copy room a week later & proceeded to ask me, verbatim, "Why don't you want to be reconciled to me?" Putting the divide between us entirely on me & completely disregarding the massive personal stuff I was already going through & needed to address first. When I did try to talk to her she had this massive history of invalidating inexcusable behavior in what can only be described as entirely narcissistic mannerisms. This woman went as far as to tell me, again, verbatim, "I'm not responsible for how you receive my word," thus, in her mind, completely absolving herself of any responsibility for her actions, including the words she chose to speak with.
The worst part of this is I told numerous people on staff about the psychological & emotional abuse this woman put me through, how she would even search me out & start it up even when I was trying to avoid her or not have any interaction if we so happened to be in the same room, & nothing was ever done. I told them about this for MONTHS & I was just given the good old, "There, there, perhaps you are just misunderstanding..." or, "Do you think your abusive history is tainting your view of this?" as if I couldn't possibly of had an abusive past & not have the ability to see past it & recognize new abuses for what they are today. Finally somebody did take me seriously...right when she was a week away from getting married & moving to Scotland. It came in the form of being told that they were incredibly disappointed that somebody on staff would do this & that the staff should be held to a higher standard (James 3:1) but OH WELL, she's moving away now so what's the point? Despite the fact that I had been reaching out for help for the better part of a year & they had plenty of time to step in before then...oh, & as far as I know, they still have decided to support her ministry overseas.
There is also issues with people who currently remain on staff at Park Church. There is an elder named Jason Jones who is the pastor of counseling & care. Just to note, he doesn't actually have a counseling degree, though I heard he was working on one. First off, he is one of the people who constantly blew me off & did nothing with the troubling issues I brought to him regarding the previously mentioned woman. Secondly, I had issues with him cancelling on me numerous times when trying to schedule something, even after I had gone out of my way to rearrange my schedule on days that I told him would be hard to meet, but he insisted we meet anyway. He also insisted one day that I -had- to sign a suicide agreement, despite not showing any suicidal tendencies, just talking about the struggle of drugs in one of our "counseling" sessions. This contract had no end date, forced me to do all the work, would hold me in an agreement with no way to terminate (not even for "improved" behavior), & was only for me to sign with no accountability on his part. When I voiced all of these complaints & refused to sign, he got angry with me, told me my email pissed him off, & went on to personally insult and attack me. The next week, when I saw him at church, he did apologize. He also fully admitted that he said those things intentionally because he wanted me to hurt. The pastor...of care & counseling...intentionally hurting people. Wow.
I did meet a few good people there that I became close friends with, it's just that they have all since left.
My best advice is stay away from this church at all costs. If I had more room I would tell you more horror stories, but yelp reviews only gives me 5K character spaces to speak my experience. read more
