So much of my life has been spent in church. I don’t mean an actual church building, although I’ve also spent a huge amount of time in other people’s church buildings. The Freedom Village church was a fluorescent-lit chapel within an old administration building, with long pews and a massive pulpit planted front and center. We didn’t have outsiders coming in for Sunday services, so the pews were always full of staff members and program kids…the same people who did life with one another day by day. When I remember my church I don’t really think of a building and how it looked, I think of an experience and how it felt. It was a gathering together of everyone in my life. We sang together, performed for one another, and listened to whatever “Pastor” felt that God laid on his heart. So much of my life has been spent at these gatherings.
Sunday mornings, we were in church. Most Sunday nights, we were back in church. Wednesday nights, we were in church yet again. Being in the music director’s family also meant that we were always in church at least an hour and a half before the service, for rehearsals. Once the service began my dad would lead the congregation from behind the pulpit while he belted out hymns and waved his arms around like an enthused orchestra conductor. He loved what he did. The only instrument we used in services was a piano, played by my mom. My older brother, sister and I would sit in the same pew each service in the middle of the chapel, behind the sound board. I definitely took for granted how cool it was that I regularly watched my parents do what they loved –music- together. They’re both so talented, so incredibly musical, they loved what they did, and it showed. I always felt proud that my parents were the ones leading the room.
Yet, despite there being so much in our services about God, I don’t recall there ever being much of an emphasis on worshipping Him. We called ourselves non-denominational, but now I know that we were southern Baptist. We didn’t get emotional in corporate worship, we didn’t raise our hands…those kinds of things were seen as an attention grab. But the room did sound amazing. That’s where my attention usually went. I was proud of my parents, proud of my friends who I sang with, proud of my pastor, and tried to be proud of myself.
Church is where I learned to sing. Harmony became baked into my very soul as I spent hours upon hours as a kid singing hymns congregationally in that chapel. I was in every single children’s play and joined the choir as soon as I was old enough. I learned how to perform and be professional, how to please people and deliver what they wanted from me…and people-pleasing is a pretty intense high. I developed a drive and a desire for excellence. These are all helpful tools if you want success in the world.
But that formula does not apply very well to worship. I know now that a performance mindset might be the biggest hindrance to worship. I think I would have said that I was worshiping God back in those days. I was always able to feel what I was singing. With the exception of a few southern gospel songs we were forced to sing, I could manage to find something, anything in a song to connect to. When I managed to do that, I could find some place mentally where I wasn’t aware that I was being watched.
I did love to sing. I did not love to sing in front of people. Performance only ever produced fear for me and although I spent so much time doing it, it never got easier. There is something about being looked at with the expectation of entertainment that has always made me feel uncomfortable. Yet I constantly found myself on a pedestal, on a stage. I constantly said “yes” to doing something that made me very uncomfortable. I loved singing, feared singing in front of people, but loved the positive affirmation that I got after singing in front of people. It was a battle between fear and love (story of my LIFE) that made true worship, as I know it now, very difficult.
Now that I have a little more knowledge about mental health, I can see in hindsight that I was having anxiety attacks all the time when I was a kid and teenager. It’s no wonder I couldn’t authentically worship…my singing was drenched in fear. Sometimes I would feel like I couldn’t breathe the entire time I was singing. I would struggle through a whole song feeling like I was running on a treadmill at the same time. Other times I would forget the lyrics I had to sing and my mind would be completely blank as I lifted the microphone to my mouth in sheer faith. The words would come every single time, but my nerves were shredded as I sang them. Worshipping God couldn’t be on the forefront of my mind. But no one would have known. I wasn’t just performing…I was pretending.
In my mind worship was defined as “thanking God for who He is and what He has done.” I would sing and try to be genuinely thankful. However, when I attempted to worship a God who I believed would save me but most likely send billions of other people to Hell (perhaps even me if my salvation wasn’t real)…there was a big disconnect. And the things God had done for me? They were so abstract. While I was singing I would think in my mind, “Thank you, Jesus for dying on the cross for me. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you that I don’t have to go to hell.” Then, when I ran out of personal thanks I would praise God for things He did in Bible stories I had memorized. I was outwardly expressing something I hadn’t developed within. This became a huge pattern for me in many other areas of my life, and it affected my ability to learn what worship really was.
I can recall several moments of true worship that did occur in that chapel, though. Only it wasn’t God I was worshipping, it was the man of God…aka Fletcher Brothers. Every so often, one of the touring groups would sing the classic 80’s Christian hit, “Thank You,” by Ray Boltz. Maybe you’ve heard it. It’s about his dream of going to heaven and witnessing people lining up to thank his friend for his good works on earth. At best, the song is an attempt to express gratitude for other people. At worst, it’s a theological cringe-fest. Painting a picture of a heavenly afterlife where everyone is lavishing praise on us is a little disturbing. I can see why Fletcher loved it, though. It was a perfect representation of his theology. He regularly preached about how those who did the most good in their lives would earn mansions in heaven, and those who didn’t serve God (enough) would be given grass shacks. Yes, you read that right.
I remember a few times the song “Thank you” was used as a real-time tribute to this man we all called Pastor. The Victory Singers, the touring group led by my mom, had two lead singers: my sister and Fletcher’s son, Jeremy. The fear I had towards Fletcher my whole life is nothing compared to the obvious fear Jeremy had towards his father. I have personally seen Jeremy take verbal, physical, and mental abuse from his father more times than I can count…yet there he was, the son of Pastor, leading a whole room in praise to his father.
He’d turn to Fletcher and sing, “One by one they came, as far as the eye could see. Each one somehow touched by your generosity….As Jesus took your hand and you stood before the Lord, he said: My child look around you, for great is your reward.”
Then, we would all stand and join in the last chorus, singing to Fletcher. We slowly walked toward the altar in front of the pulpit where he was.
“Thank you for giving to the Lord. I am a life that was changed. Thank you for giving to the Lord. I am so glad you gave.”
So many people would be sobbing. It was incredibly emotional. It’s disturbing to realize that those were the moments of true worship in my life…I just wasn’t worshipping God. I don’t know if some people in the room were rolling their eyes during this spectacle. I don’t know if some people were disturbed as they watched us praise and adore this man. But me? I was ALL IN. Worshipping Fletcher was not nearly as abstract for me as worshipping God was. In my mind, he was the reason that my family was “in the will of God.” He was the reason so many lost teenagers were able to find hope. He was our shepherd, he was the visionary, he was our leader, and I loved him.
So I walked to the front of the chapel, tears streaming down my face, as I was overwhelmed with gratitude for this man. I believed everything he told me. “One day the only thing that will matter is how many souls you’ve won for Jesus.” Fletcher told us that he was responsible for tens of thousands of souls coming to Christ. We were able to dedicate our whole lives to winning souls for Jesus, thanks to our pastor. I truly hoped that one day I would have an impressive mansion in Heaven and lines of people waiting to tell me how important I had been in my earthly life. Ohhh, Mary :/
I see now that I was feeding the sickness that Fletcher was (still is) infected with. That sickness is fear. I believe that the root of narcissism is the fear of being irrelevant or unimportant. There is something about that fear for certain people that fuels them into manipulating and using others for their own gain. I don’t know very many details about Fletcher Brothers’ childhood. I do know that his father was a preacher, and I’ve heard it said that he was a more cruel version of Fletcher…which is honestly pretty terrifying to imagine. I believe that Fletcher Brothers has lived in fear his whole life. Fear manifests in abuse, which then increases the probability that the abused will eventually become the abuser.
Abuse is a relationship. It doesn’t just consist of a taker. There must also be a giver…but because fear is at the core of abuse, it deceives the victim into believing that it’s in their best interest to submit to the abuser. Abuse is tolerated through manipulation of will. And so many of us gave Fletcher Brothers everything he needed. I gave him my love and support, I gave him my trust, and he accepted it like someone addicted to drugs accepts money from an enabler. He needed to feel important, and his fear deceived hundreds, if not thousands (if you include his donor list of supporters) of people into giving him dangerous levels of authority and power. Not only did he convince people to put him on an emotional pedestal that he never deserved to be on, but he also used the pulpit to gain a spiritual authority that no one should have.
The abuse went unnoticed for the most part because it was disguised as love. Fear and love are complete opposites, yet they have something in common. They influence their host and spread out into others. I don’t know if Fletcher loved any of us. Maybe he wanted to, but I’m not sure he knows how to love. From his love language -scaring people into submission- to his theological language -repent if you don’t want to burn in hell- I think it’s safe to say that he believes fear is love. I’m sure he was taught this at a very early age and for that, I have discovered empathy in my heart for him. You see, I was taught that too. By him. And I’ve never met a more convincing human being than Fletcher Brothers.
Some wills are harder to bend than others, I’m sure…but I seem to have been born with a flexible will. My devotion was pure and that made me easy to teach. I believed that my pastor was my “parent in the Lord,” and that he rightfully held a higher spiritual authority over me than my parents did. Inevitably, my faith resembled his. It was built on a foundation of fear, like his. I was convinced (as a small child) that I was a depraved wretch unless I “got saved,” and being saved was something I always needed to prove to myself and everyone around me.
In order to do that, I needed to get other people to affirm that I was good, that I was safe, that I was saved. I was a performer in every single aspect of my life, feeding more and more off the positive affirmations I received. The same fear that uses Fletcher to this day used me, and taught me to use others. That spirit of fear is what tainted my love for singing and my ability to worship. It taught me to use others as a measuring tool for how good I was. I was taking praise from people, just like my pastor was taking praise from me.
I did not realize that my faith mirrored Fletcher’s until I began writing this blog in 2018. It didn’t even occur to me that I had been spiritually lied to or manipulated until I had been outside of his influence for 7 years. That’s how long it took for me to realize that I resembled this man in the way I related to God and others. I started to realize that fear tainted all of my relationships. I was using people, and I was hurting them in the process.
Here is where the resemblance between Fletcher and I ends. Once I realized I was hurting others -and myself- I wanted to change. Perhaps a saving grace for me was the fact that even though I lived in an atmosphere of fear on the campus of Freedom Village, I had a home life where real love was displayed. My parents knew the love of God, or rather, the God of love. I do believe their faith was also influenced by Fletcher over the years, but he wasn’t the one who laid their spiritual foundation. Their pure love for God was like a seed planted way down deep in my heart. It grew under layers and layers of fear and shame until the day it finally emerged and revealed to me that I was causing harm.
One profound thing about love is that it uses the truth to heal. It doesn’t accuse, it reveals. When I encountered the love of God in early 2019 after I finished writing my story, everything changed. That love revealed that I was hurting myself and everyone around me by doing exactly what was done to me at Freedom Village…I was attempting to control everything around me. I was trying to scare my kids into submitting to me. This was my worst fear, yet somehow love revealed it to me in a way where I not only didn’t feel condemned…I realized I could change. I had hope. That love I discovered in 2019 (the discovery was that it had been there all along) was the same love that was in the atmosphere of my home when I was a child. My parents loved me. They did the very best they could have done, considering the atmosphere we were all in. And they did their job…they planted love within the hearts of their children.
I don’t think I ever really loved Fletcher Brothers. Now I clearly see that I was only ever afraid of him. I’m positive that the clarity I have now was only possible because I got away from him. This is why I believe accountability is crucial. He must have influence removed from him if he is ever going to stand a chance of really seeing what he has done. I might seem naive, especially after what I have been through, but I hold out hope for him. And before you write me off as an upbeat overly-positive optimist, let me be clear that I have NOT always felt this way. Even when I published the blog the first time around, I wanted him to suffer for eternity. He put my family through hell. I didn’t want to see him in Heaven one day. I will elaborate on exactly how my heart has changed more over the course of these chapters, or else this one alone will take hours to read! My hope for Fletcher and Jeremy Brothers is that perhaps if influence is removed with the intention of their own healing, they will understand what they have done, and they will know that change is possible. And if someone can change, someone can heal.
Anyone who is currently under the influence of Fletcher Brothers must be separated from him as well, so they can have a chance to think without him influencing their thoughts. His pedestal is much smaller than it once was, but he still holds authority. If you’ve met him, you’ll know. He dominates whoever he comes into contact with. His “pulpit” these days is a podcast where he still preaches fire and brimstone mixed in with all that is wrong with the world. He still receives missionary support. His legacy will carry on through his son, Jeremy, who despite being less intellectually cunning than his father, might actually be more perverted than him. I do not believe either of them have a chance of really seeing the harm they’ve caused until they are held accountable by love.
Small amounts of revenge have been had. Fletcher’s kingdom did fall, yet he refuses to account for his actions. No matter how many times he is told that he has caused harm, he will not believe it. Is there a way to love this man? I’m beginning to believe that there is. Now that I know the God of love, I cannot hate my enemy. Not because it’s not allowed…because I don’t want to. My heart has completely changed in so many ways. Blessed disillusionment has removed Fletcher from the pedestal I placed him on as a child. That miracle opened up the way for me to step down off my own pedestal of needing the praise of people.
I can finally worship. I’m not afraid. I know who I am because I finally know love. I’m healing.
My storytelling is for anyone to read, but it is all written with a specific group of people in mind. If you have experienced Freedom Village, in all of its complexity, this is for you. If you hate Fletcher or Jeremy Brothers, this is for you. If you think I’m a liar and Freedom Village only ever helped you, this is for you. I believe the time is coming when both sides will come together to see truth, accountability, and ultimate redemption prevail.
I just cannot believe anymore that sin is more powerful than grace.
Until next time 🙂