At this church,, the theology is sound, it's bible- centric, and the preaching is good…read more
However, you really don't want to go to this church for marital counseling. Unless you want to destroy your marriage.
I've been at this church for 22 years.
The cult like behavior didn't rear it's ugly head until 2012.
My wife and I had marriage difficulties. The pastor at the time of our "Five Cities Campus", Ben Collins, instructed my wife to submit to a 'marriage counselor" named Mark McKinney. Mark identified (after taking $175 an hour) as a "sex addiction therapist". Not in any way a marriage counselor. He hangs in his office a "Stanford" in degree which I was told is deceipt. At best, he took one online class at Stanford. That is not near nor enough to qualify as graduating from Stanford.
But he saw it was fit for me to submit to a lie detector test of everything I considered shameful from the time I was 4 years old. $175 an hour, $400 an hour for his friend that submitted us to then lie detector test.
So, to the point. He told my wife that she was a victim of sex addiction. Even though we hadn't had sex in 6 years. At $175 an hour. He convinced her that the only way our marriage could survive would be for her to submit to a lie detector test to all of the shameful acts since 4 years old.
At no time did he tell us that it would be equal and fair for her to submit to the same process.
Only me.
A wise person at the time counseled me at the time... that anything between me and God since four years old, as a child, was between me and God. They were right.
Several doctors along the way:My psychiatrist. My psychologist.. my therapist...my family, my friends, my mother, my father... warned me that this would not be constructive to my marriage....but Mark McKinney, the person that SLO Grace referred us to...
Was Mark McKinney. He made arguments to my wife that this is the only way to save my marriage.. and .the only hope of saving my marriage was to submit to the lie detector test.
So what happened next?
They forced me into a lie detector test. How? By threatening our marriage. He convinced my wife to not submit to the the lie detector, only me! Due to his influence, and directions my wife told me she would divorce me if I didn't go through the (eventually destructive) lie detector test.
To reiterate, As a result of this "church" programming, she informed me that under the advice (that Ben Collins and Mark McKinney) that she should divorce me if I didn't submit to the lie detector test. I sought the advice of professionals, and they were overwhelmingly unanimous that this wouldn't be constructive to my marriage, but rather, destructive.
Mark McKinney also convinced my wife that I was not to touch my penis except to urinate. I'd gone to Bible school from Kindergarten through High school, so I knew the scriptures. I knew all of the verses he was quoting in our session, he inserted curse words into then Bible.
Becoming a "sexual addiction therapist", I would later learn, takes only a few weeks of online education. Anyone can become one, No real education required.
So....I submitted to the lie detector test. The result? I became so stressed out during the lie detector test that my heart rate elevated to 200 beats per minute ( the norm is 65). I had to go the French Hospital ER and incurred a $9,000 bill.
And what of Mark McKinney? He admitted that he had no training/experience to save a marriage (only to blow it up) to help us. He couldn't counsel us anymore after his buddy got a $400 kickback on the lie detector test. And after he'd taken us for over $1,000.
He also refused to see me as a client anymore because and I quote 'My wife wrote a successful book" and I don't need to see clients anymore".
So before you seek marital counseling from this church, be very, very careful.
I've been seeing an actual professional psychologist since this ridiculous "Mickey Mouse" episode at Grace SLO. He had an obvious question: In the interest of equality, why didn't your wife also submit to the same lie detector test about all shameful things since she was 4 years old?
The answer: The charlatan Mark McKinney makes far more money convincing wives they are innocent of all in a relationship, and instead indulge in a husband taking a ($400) lie detector, and $175 per hour to comment on the whole thing.
