Sand dunes on Mars. JPL NASA 

“You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.”— Buddha.

As of 9:30 PM, the church website states “404  Not Found.”

Retroactive church discipline.

In 2013, I wrote a post about Todd Wilhelm’s ridiculous discipline by a 9Marks church in Dubai, where Todd was working at the time. He left that church after learning that, as a potential deacon, he would oversee the church bookstore. The store carried several CJ Mahaney books, and Todd realized that, as a potential deacon, he would have to sell them. Mark Dever was a good buddy of CJ Mahaney. So these church bookstores sold Mahaney’s books.

Todd realized his opinion differed from the church’s, so he quietly left. He did not immediately join another church, which was a requirement. They placed him under church discipline immediately after he resigned. They kept him on the “membership care” list for months. That list includes people under church discipline for all sorts of things. They read that list aloud before the church every month. Todd wasn’t feeling the love.

(PS: To those who know who they are: I have been friends with Todd since 2013. One day I will explain this comment.)

“Retroactive church discipline” is the term I invented then. In other words, people living under such cockeyed systems can expect to be sucked back into the system they left. David Zima experienced this under Burk Parsons’ St Andrew’s Chapel.

What’s going on with Crosspoint Church in Austin, TX?

This is another “Calvinista” acting church, as were the ones above. This particular brand is PCA, which St Andrew’s Chapel was until their pastor got disciplined and suddenly it wasn’t. Today, I got a call from Eric Bonetti, who helps run the Anglican Watch website. He told me to try to get into the CrossPointe Church Austin website. Here is what I got.


What caused this? I called the church, and after several rings, I was asked to leave a message. Anglican Watch posted Something weird’s going on at CrossPointe Austin, even as the church tries to discipline members who’ve complained unsuccessfully about governance issues within the church.

I then consulted OpenAI and Grok, which seemed to mirror the information on Anglican Watch (AW). AW. permitted me to use their information.

What happened to “Mark” (a pseudonym).
Church leaders ignored Mark’s concerns.

A CrossPointe member named Mark contacted AW and discussed what happened.

What I tried to complain to the church leadership for about 18 months was not about children–it was about the exclusivity, secrecy, all the secret laws & rules, not letting people serve who wanted to (namely me).   I was literally just trying to help.  That is what was ignored.   I specifically asked Matt Southerland and Steve Johnson how the church was going to enable its members to live for God, and explained that that was a key duty of any church.

Mark gives up and posts a negative Google review.

Mark posted a negative review of the church on Google. Warning: Pastors like this tend to get edgy when they’re criticized in the public eye, and their gloves usually come off. Julie Ann Smith of Spiritual Sounding Board was sued by her former pastor, but the case was dismissed under the anti-SLAPP law. Turn the other cheek rarely happens in these circumstances. The PCA has a solution. They will employ retroactive church discipline. Forget about turning the other cheek; they can have fun using the Matthew 18 “Gotcha “verse.

For all the lawyers out there, please know that everything I’m speaking about is alleged, and AW has an “alleged” but really good letter from CrossPointe Church, which is currently unavailable for comment.

Mark is allegedly told not to attend CrossPointe Church.

According to AW, Mark complied and stayed away. He will still be punished…

Mark is commanded to appear and undergo a court hearing, PCA style.

Matthew 18 is quoted, and Mark knows how this will go. Retroactive discipline is the order of the day.

Mark has no intention of playing this game. I predict he will be placed on a “really bad Christian” list known as a seemingly innocuous ” member care” list. The membership will pray regularly that he comes to his senses because his very soul is in jeopardy.

Suggestion to the thin-skinned pastors at CrossPointe.

If the above is true, the pastors and church leaders should act like big boys and let the criticism roll off. If they want to “do something” like the average, mundane company would, they can have a bunch of their members write nice Google reviews. If they won’t, Matthew 18 them to find out why. Heck, they may have a pile of citations to write, and some folks like nothing better than beating a person over the head with a “citation.”