Where Are We Going? A Spiritwatch Podcast

From the heart, our final episode of a memorable season about where we all are going.

“𝗕𝗮𝗯𝘆𝗹𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻, 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝗱𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗹 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘁, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗶𝗿𝗱! " 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭𝟴:𝟮 The legacy of Remnant Fellowship, as Michael S. Black has been sharing, is that it has become a demonic haunt of unclean birds as vividly depicted by he and Steve Lomas for his FallenChurch.com site in this graphic. It is...

“Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! " Revelation 18:2 The legacy of Remnant Fellowship, as Michael S. Black has been sharing, is that it has become a demonic haunt of unclean birds as vividly depicted by he and Steve Lomas for his FallenChurch.com site. It is a congregation...

Our ongoing conversation with Michael S. Black now proceeds into sharing about the darkest days yet in his life and those of the cultic Remnant Fellowship church created by Gwen Shamblin Lara, Aware of an upcoming HBO Max documentary on their sect and pursuing a new political passion leading them to more gullible souls, Gwen, Joe and their retinue instead met their Maker beneath six feet of water...

During 2018 and beyond, the years that changed everything in the Remnant Fellowship cult, Michael did his best to weather the firestorms of transformation which Gwen Shamblin Lara had been stoking for years. Her marital missteps became her cues for stoking a Remnant congregational conflagration as she socially reengineered the Remnant culture to an unimaginable degree. Our conversation is a grippi...

Michael's painful narrative continues as life in the Remnant Fellowship cult continued to pile a lot on his plate. Then in 2017, everything changed: when Gwen Met Joe. Her carnal deviance into her libidinous self-delusion and how it escalated the already heightened megalomania and religious abuse of the movement is unsparingly recounted here.

We continue our discussion with Michael S. Black as he continues a painful reverie of how his time in Remnant Fellowship became completely orchestrated by his mother Gwen Shamblin Lara. He recounts how Gwen's connection with reality began to be lost as she became what she preached against, and how the encroaching socialization within the cult further poisoned the lives of his sister Elizabeth and...

Michael S Black's conversations with Reverend Rafael Martinez continue about how life in the hothouse of the Remnant Fellowship inner circle of cultic leadership became a gilded cage he fought in vain to escape. A 90 minute episode, it traces one of the darkest fields of brokenness Michael was compelled to cross.

Michael S. Black continues his unflinching retrospective look back at his time as a leader of the Remnant Fellowship cult founded by his late mother, Gwen Shamblin Lara. As the movement's social boundaries hardened by self-deceptive excess and inner immorality, Michael's struggles to know the difference between right and wrong intensified.

Our conversation with Michael S. Black continues, as he shared how, from a place of privilege respected by thousands as a leader of the Remnant Fellowship cult, the cracks in the walls of the New Jerusalem became impossible to ignore. His disillusionment with the hypocrisy, abuse and exploitation of those within his movement became a cognitive dissonance he could not ignore any longer.

Michael S. Black, son of the infamously late Gwen Shamblin Lara, continues our discussions about his past involvement in the Remnant Fellowship,

He was the Psalmist of Zion, a gifted young man whose musical and vocal abilities were wholeheartedly devoted to the leadership of worship at the Remnant Fellowship Church as it launched in 1999. As the son of the late Gwen Shamblin Lara, he was appointed by his now sadly infamous mother as a leader of the movement whose spiritual direction included the creation of music that advanced the Remnant...

While Xenos/Dwell, as any cult, may have good points and even laudable points, they are more than negated by it's disconnection from the plain reality that it is underpinned with an authoritarian and abusive culture. Our brief summary about this movement's ongoing spin cycle in regard to its questionable history and present state of corrupted affairs includes a review of Xenos/Dwell leadership eva...

This is our podcast edition of a previously streamed Spiritwatch livestream episode series called "Through The Xenosverse". It is the sixth livestream that was done and four previous ex-Xenos/Dwell members provided thought provoking consideration of a unique line of query: what positive and even beneficial influences did the Xenos/Dwell culture provide for them and others? And how did such constru...

We are restarting our podcast and are grateful you've returned: tell others! For this first episode of our fourth season, our focus today on our podcast is upon the Pure Life Ministries parachurch bandwagon - a residential program where addicts to pornography supposedly receive intimate personal spiritual direction to be freed from it. This coerced formation is a travesty of compassionate spiritua...

Stephen Ketter's desire for truth in his life led him to the Xenos/Dwell movement back in the days when it was still calling itself the "Fish House." He joined it as an old warehouse on Sinclair Road in Columbus, Ohio was pressed into service the "non traditional" church's growth. Like so many, it all provided a place of profound spiritual impact until he began to understand what the nature was of...

The Remnant Fellowship (RF) cult of Franklin, Tennessee was likened to being the exclusive "Kingdom of Love" by its deceased founder, Gwen Shamblin Lara. And she and her coterie of leaders there were the most charming, the most engaging of recruiters for what they also called "Zion", beckoning people searching for God, community and meaning. Our guest, Ge'Cobi Pittman and her family found this dra...

Sadly, it’s when the light shines brightest that the bugs fly in. Right alongside the genuine revitalizing of the 196o's Jesus movement came the deception of false teachers who organized massive movements all of their own design aimed at drawing away and exploiting hapless "Jesus people" to their sectarian cause. The Way International movement founded by Victor Paul Wierwille was one such group an...

On today's podcast, we're sharing Dr. James Bjornstad's talk entitled "A Look At the Misuse of Scripture In Aberrant Christianity" He offers keen insight on how abusive religion found in cultic churches stems from their twisted misinterpretation of Biblical principles. If you want to understand how cults twist the Scripture and distort its truth to support their lie, Dr. Bjornstad pulls no punches...

Every testimonial we've shared on our podcast is hauntingly compelling listening and A.J.'s sharing from the heart, lively and cautionary, is certainly no exception. She shares freely about her journey into and out of the Xenos/Dwell cult and her story is so incredibly familiar. It's how a young woman of faith, finding herself drawn to an exciting community she thought embodied her hopes and dream...

Suzanne, while a member of the Xenos/Dwell movement, visits with us to provide a perspective on a profoundly warped side of its existence they deny exists. The most excruciating abuse a cult member can experience is when those whom they trust there are so caught up in it's disciplinary spirit that they associate grace and mercy with whatever its leaders decide to dish out to those they think shoul...

Alex Craig was among the first of many who we met who'd survived a traumatic life that she had completely given to Xenos/Dwell with all of the hope for purpose, fellowship and destiny it supposedly offers. Her voice to her passing through X/D's cultic crucible which she found there which almost destroyed her is a poignantly all too familiar one. We're glad we reconnected and finally have been able...

A Spiritwatch Conversation. The Gladstone/Madison community, an abusive church movement based in Cincinnati, Ohio is being rocked by changes challenging the power of its secretive leader Zac Kijinski and a shrinking pool of sycophantic elders. Their increasing instability and deceptive example have led many members and other elders to leave their religiously cultic ghetto there. It's important to...

A few emails this week about our work in exposing deceptive spirituality are in mind as we share upon the privilege to shed the light of truth upon the dark of deception that Spiritwatch MInistries strives to provide. We do what we do for a reason -- and speaking truth loud and clear is behind that commitment.

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Matthew 7:13 NKJV We are still going somewhere. We briefly revisit that chief concern about our dangerous times and give an update and what we will be soon doing in our ongoing discerning of them.