Where Are We Going? A Spiritwatch Podcast

Megan James was quite literally born into the Xenos movement, when it was morphing from it’s original early 1970’s Fish House Fellowship days into the form of an actual church complete with polity, budgets and a primal need to start replicating its vision through private church educational institution. Her parents were caught up into the social and intellectual draw of the group, and she was one o...

Megan James was quite literally born into the Xenos movement, when it was morphing from it’s original early 1970’s Fish House Fellowship days into the form of an actual church complete with polity, budgets and a primal need to start replicating its vision through private church educational institution. Her parents were caught up into the social and intellectual draw of the group, and she was one o...

The recent emergence of Michael Shamblin from the shadowy exile he took after quitting his involvement with the Remnant Fellowship cult circles which his late mother Gwen Shamblin Lara created has focused attention on the movement once again. Clearly identifying Remnant as a cult, Michael's confirming epiphany is rocking it to its core, even as it struggles to regain stability and even viability i...

Kim Curry just wanted to belong, to love and be loved among a community of supposedly true believers after a turbulent childhood and her coming out as gay with a longing to find a refuge. That didn't keep the place she thought was a haven from becoming a literal hell on earth like no other - the cultic movement called Xenos/Dwell. It fancies itself to be a cutting edge "non traditional" "church" b...

Cultic movements are among the masses of religious people who reject Christmas and of them all, none are more vocal about it than the Watchtower Society. Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout the year and especially in December, have for decades preach a hard line rejection of the Yuletime season and the specious reasoning they cling to demands to be closely regarded. Thanks to our Spiritwatch archives,...

The conversations about all things Xenos/Dwell continues. We are joined today by two former members of the Xenos/Dwell movement with decidedly different perspectives on their time there. Joe Nelson and Randy Bliss, who had known each other while active participants provide a unique set of perspectives upon the movement that are most enlightening.

On this Spiritwatch Ministries recorded livestream, four former members of cultic movements offer their perspectives on how they were recruited, what the lures of cult appeals are and how to discern and respond to them Warning: Explicit Discussions of religious abuses in this video may be triggering to cult survivors

An errant pastor in Delaware, Ohio made an unspecified legal threat against Spiritwatch Ministries for our discussion on his stubborn willingness to allow a Xenos cult member to mingle and even teach in his church even when warned of this member's agenda of subverting souls there. This is our response. If he chooses, our next response will be in court. Our First Amendment rights will not be trampl...

The human race indeed going somewhere .. and woe to the traveler who doesn't pay attention to the journey of change we're all on. Pastor Rafael brings a sharp perspective upon the direction of the times, in contrast with the never changing standard of Scripture.

Underlying the hidden curricula enthusiastically and invisibly programmed throughout the entirety of the Xenos/Dwell cult's existence is it's foundational principle of shaming used to coerce, dominate and manipulate lives. The testimony of former Xenos member Aislynn Long is a textbook case documenting how, from Dennis McCallum's warped presumption on downward to the intimacy of a friend's interac...

The definition according to Oxford Dictionaries of the word authoritarian (au·thor·i·tar·i·an) involves: favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom. For Annie, Xenos exhibited a high level of authoritarianism when she was involved from 1977 through 1985, having seen the cult's early Fish House days and has long realize...

Home is where one can be who they are and find refuge from a world devoted to misunderstanding them. So many hoped, like Amber, to find such a place in life after leaving her fundamentalist church background and meeting the love of her life whose own church seemed to be just that kind of sanctuary. She found out too quickly how it was instead the worst kind of prison .. without bars. The fiance of...

The truly diabolical manner in which the Xenos/Dwell cult of Columbus, Ohio creates a toxic religious system, compels its followers to shoulder it's crushing burdens of mind and soul and then lets them smother under it's mass isn't out of the inspiration of God but the deceptive power of exploitation. This episode brings ex-Xenos survivors and a professional therapist to explore how trauma is infl...

We're back after our needful shut down due to ministry projects. We'll give a quick update and offer another testimony of a survivor of the tender "mercies" of the abusive Gladstone Community/Madison Place Community Church, Mollie Murphy, whose journey in, through and out of the shadowlands of that cultic environment is shared with us here.

There are many reasons why the Xenos/Dwell movement should be considered a cultic movement but none so pathetic as how cruelly it abuses those who struggle with personal problems stemming from mental illness. This episode brings ex-Xenos survivors together to discuss how the cult brutalizes and traumatizes those with mental health who come to their toxic environments hoping for grace and acceptanc...

There can be no more levelling an experience than to be placed into situations of sheer terror by those who you trust with your spiritual destiny. And this is the grim and daily reality for thousands of men and women in the Xenos/Dwell cult. Listen to Milla's recounting of her years within this toxic movement and how she, as someone struggling with her own mental health challenges and a piteous de...

With former members Jeremiah and Christy, Reverend Martinez engages them in a discussion that provides an alternative perspective upon the deeply toxic spirituality of the Gladstone Community, a cultic movement now calling itself the Madison Place Community Church in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio. We discuss how the movement has been impacted by the new scrutiny that the internet and our podcasts are...

Timothy Williams is one of those "certain men" who have "crept in unawares" into the lives of many churchgoing people to draw them into his own clique of sincere yet sincerely deceived people. In short, Williams is a "creeper" and a feral cult leader. The sharing of Karla, a former member of "TW's" audaciously self-titled Sound Doctrine Church of Enumclaw, Washington, will give us a gripping accou...

Thanks to Don Francisco's 1991 release "Vision Of The Valley", hear his powerful musical rendition of God's judgment upon false shepherds who abuse His sheep and kill, who with harshness and severity try to bend them to their will. The time is not just coming but is at hand.

Our final part of our "Creepers" series features the discernment of Ernie and June Stickler. This older Christian couple found out after a few years of involvement with a sweet looking band of zealous young Christians in Cincinnati called the Gladstone Community that they were not the misunderstood church they came off as being but a truly malevolent cult that, if it could be worse, were being emp...

The second of our podcasts on the stealthy ways cults slip into churches to steal, kill and destroy just as Jesus said they would in John 10:10. The reflection of Christina, a member of our home church, who became an unwitting eyewitness to this is both alarming and instructional.

A lively discussion about all things Xenos/Dwell that ran almost two hours, we invite all with any stake or part of the legacy that this controversial movement to listen in. This is the audio of our streaming video by the same title. We have several guests on the recorded stream who have contributed to our "Where Are We Going" podcasts and as heartbreaking as the reality they discuss can be, they'...

The blatant advance of cult recruiters that literally marches in and draws away disciples out of churches to pursue their own pipe dreams can’t be overstated at all. How cults achieve this stealing of sheep from churches globally will be the subject of our next three podcasts, in which we will examine 3 case studies. It’s one thing to hear about abusive cultism’s traumatizing of victims, but quite...

When it comes to revealing how cults destroy people, sometimes the plain truth just comes across as too over the top to be believed. To hear how degrading, dehumanizing and devastating living in a hothouse like the Xenos/Dwell movement actually is sounds like a lurid and sensational hit piece by a tabloid. The story of Candy we bring today certainly has no such deficit. This is her story - our pod...

To be raised under the shadow of a totalistic spiritual movement is a formative influence so very few escape and yet our podcast guest Colin - a lifelong member of the Xenos/Dwell cult - was able to somehow do so. In what will be another of our longest podcasts, Colin's brutally frank discussion exposes how utterly unbiblical, even corrupt, this supposedly BIblically founded church really is. WARN...