elyse

My Migration Away from Grace Community Church and The Master’s College

Quick History: I was saved in 1971. Then, in 1986 I became acquainted with biblical counseling and started taking classes at The Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation in San Diego. I completed my training under Dr. George Scipione and I received a Certificate in Biblical Counseling in 1990. At that time, I joined the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (now referred to as the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, ACBC). I then proceeded to get a MA in Biblical Counseling from Trinity Theological Seminary in Newburgh, Indiana in 1997. During this time, I was also associated with the Master’s College (now University) and Grace Community Church. I taught a course or two at Master’s and was a speaker at a number of conferences sponsored by both the church and the university.

But in 2008 I was turning a corner away from the way of thinking promoted by TMC, GCC, and ACBC, and published Because He Loves Me: How Christ Transforms Our Daily Life, a book that demonstrated the centrality of the gospel. In it, I was particularly responding to their overemphasis on the imperatives and quantifying most every problem of living in terms of sin. Then in 2011, I published Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus, a book that applied the gospel to parenting, and that was when Grace Community Church decided to blacklist me. I did try on a few occasions to explain my perspective and not burn the bridge with them as I was continuing to hope that I would be able to influence them toward a fuller understanding of the grace I found in the gospel. It was to no avail and my relationship with them ended.

This is now: On and off throughout the years since then, I’ve had one or two interactions with the people at TMC and GCC, and every interaction made me realize how far away from their perspectives I have journeyed. I admit that during the first 10-15 years of knowing them I was unable to see the problems that were endemic to that wing of the biblical counseling movement, and I now regret any association I may have had with them then. There is nothing more that I can do about mistakes of the past but to ask for understanding and forgiveness.

Some of you may be wondering why I’m writing this now—if I’m just trying to protect myself in light of the recent revelations about trouble at GCC and in the biblical counseling department at TMU. My answer to that is this: Of course, I don’t want to be associated with the despicable teaching/pastoring that has recently come to light. But this isn’t a new turn for me. I turned away from it more than a decade ago. In the past, I have been accused by leaders in the biblical counseling department at TMU of having a “decline in sound theology” and of being on a “slippery slope toward apostasy.” But those slanderous accusations were made some time ago and I have no association with the leaders there now. I count that as a good thing.

In the years since I became more convinced of the centrality of the gospel, I’ve changed my message. Most recently, I’ve looked at the way that the Lord honored and celebrated the value of women in Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women (2020) and in my recent release Jesus and Gender: Living as Sisters and Brothers in Christ. Both of these gospel-centered books were co-authored with Pastor Eric Schumacher. In them, we push hard against any misogynistic or patriarchal teaching that devalues the image of God in women and discounts women’s pleas for help in abusive marriages.

I hope that in this very brief history you’ve heard my heart. Like you, I hope to continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God. And like you, I look back at the things I believed 30 years ago and aside from bedrock creedal truths, I can see how I’ve changed and hopefully grown. I hope you can see this as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Please pray with me for the welfare and repentance of these individuals and institutions. I am,

Under the Mercy with You,
Elyse Fitzpatrick
April 8, 2022

Well . . . here it comes again: Mother’s Day—or, as I like to call it, the Great Day of Guilt and Discontent. Ugh.
Men don’t know what to do with it. It terrifies them.

They hope that the gifts they’ve chosen will please their wives and mothers. They don’t want to be known as an ungrateful person who failed to properly honor the woman who gave him life or birthed his children.

Women don’t know what to do with it either.

Mother’s Day angst sounds like this: I wish I were a mother. I wish I were a better mother. I wish I loved my mother. I wish my mother loved me. I wish my mom were still alive. I wish I hadn’t aborted that child. I wish I could have children. I wish I knew who my mother was. I wish I hadn’t given my baby away. I wish I would have had a chance to be a mom. I wish my children loved me. I wish they would write. I wish they were still alive.

Mother’s Day is the Law—it breeds discontent and guilt.

We live in a sin-cursed world and no matter how much we try to honor someone we love, it always seems to come out wrong. We can give the sweetest presents with the best intentions but still . . . it just never turns out like we hoped it would.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not the sort of woman who would seek to ban a day when I have the power to make my husband and sons cook for me. (I’m not that stupid!) But I would like to bring some gospel-sanity into it.

SELF-DISSATISFACTION

Here’s what’s wrong with Mother’s Day (and every other celebration of our own goodness): Any time you seek satisfaction, honor, and glory in yourself you’re going to be dissatisfied—that applies to both women and men. Any time you look for someone to give you something that will make you feel like you’ve done a good job, or are finally a person of worth, you’re going to be disappointed. Men will be disappointed because their wives or moms don’t appreciate how much they tried to appreciate them. Women will be disappointed because no matter how hard our husband and children seek to lavish us with praise, flowers, and gifts, there is always someone you know who was given much more than you.

Paltry baubles can’t compare to his precious blood.

We’re living under the law of Mother’s Day: If you’re good, you’ll get goodies. In the words of my daughter, “It’s the one day when I’m forced to look at either my own shortcomings (resulting in guilt) or the shortcomings of others who fail to appreciate me (resulting in discontent).” It’s the one day we’re told over and over that our identity as women is not rooted in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, but in our own ability to be the source of life and goodness for all, when we judge whether we’re finally OK based on the response of others rather than by the gospel of grace. Mother’s Day is the Law and that’s why it breeds such discontent and guilt.

NO HALLMARK CARDS FOR THE CRUCIFIXION

The source of true happiness is not found in being praised or anything we have ever done. True happiness is found in dying to ourselves and celebrating what Christ has already done for us.

True happiness is here: It is found in Jesus’ work. The best gift any woman (or man) has ever received was given on another Mother’s Day: this one was 2,000 years ago in a borrowed feeding trough when God was born and nursed at a young mother’s breast. It continued to be given some 30 years later when that perfect Son of Man was nailed to a tree and his Father turned away from him while his mother wept. No Hallmark cards or saccharine sentimentality for Jesus. Nothing. Just blood and despair and an anguished “It is finished” for us.

A BELOVED DAUGHTER, ABOVE ALL

Whatever happens this Sunday remember this: You are loved. You are forgiven. You are righteous. Not because of anything you can do, but only because of what Jesus has already done.

Go ahead and receive praise and gifts with a smile, but remember these paltry baubles aren’t anything in comparison to one drop of that precious blood. His work has made you his, and he has given you an eternal identity. You are his beloved daughter in whom he is well pleased.

Happy Daughter’s Day.