Inside Potter’s House One Man’s Escape | Our Stories | Podcast Episode 636 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John and Dennis examine Dennis's decades inside Potter's House, from the early appeal of its revival atmosphere to the deeper patterns of authority, control, and pressure that became clearer over time. They discuss discipleship, tithing, gender roles, family strain, and the difficulty of questioning leadership in a tightly structured Pentecostal environment.  They also explore Potter's House connections to broader Pentecostal and charismatic streams, including Foursquare, while tracing how fear, guilt, and isolation can keep people loyal long after serious concerns begin to surface. For listeners researching high-control religious systems, spiritual abuse, and recovery after leaving, this conversation offers firsthand testimony and historical context.  Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:07 Dennis’s background and first Potter’s House experience 04:08 Wayman Mitchell and the split from Foursquare 05:04 Contracts, control, and leaving the organization 10:14 What Potter’s House services were like 12:51 Discipleship and pastoral authority 17:35 Tithing pressure and salvation language 20:00 Personal-life control and gender roles 24:39 Rules, fear, and “fellowship distinctives” 29:24 Marriage, divorce, and church interference 32:31 Foursquare influence and Potter’s House doctrine 35:54 Rewriting the movement’s history 37:11 The beginning of leaving 41:55 Life after Potter’s House 45:23 Discovering Christians outside the group 48:37 Advice for people leaving 49:58 Resources for former Potter’s House members 53:21 Closing thoughts ______________________ Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K ______________________ – Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham – Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ – Visit the website: https://william-branham.org – Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg  – Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham – Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr – Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books

Transcript

00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.

00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research

00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Dennis Crosby, former

00:46member of Potter's House.

00:48Dennis, it's good to have you on and to talk about Potter's House.

00:51I think you might be the very first one that has actually come on the podcast to talk about

00:56it.

00:56But I have had email conversations, and I've had a few people in the comment feed, you've

01:00probably seen them, talking about the Potter's House.

01:03Anyway, it's good to have you.

01:05If you could take a moment and just introduce yourself.

01:07Okay.

01:08My name is Dennis Crosby.

01:11I'm an American.

01:12I spent 20 years in the Army.

01:14I got out in the Netherlands, and I've been living here since 96, actually.

01:23I first ran into the Potter's House.

01:25It was called Victory Chapel in Colorado Springs when I was stationed there.

01:29And I thought it was wonderful.

01:30It was a really, really great environment.

01:33It was something I was familiar with because of my upbringing, and it just, yeah, it seemed

01:40really ideal.

01:41And I went from there.

01:43I went to Arizona in 1980, and I was in one of the churches again.

01:48And they were both very, very much the same.

01:51And I had experienced when I was younger that from one church to the next, it's a lot of

01:56difference, but I was really impressed by the fact that they were similar to one another.

02:03And then I got sent back to Colorado Springs, and after that, to the Netherlands, where they

02:10had just opened their first church in the Netherlands.

02:14And they only had one other one in Europe at the time, in Germany, so it was like fresh

02:19ground here.

02:22The things that made it really different were the church services, everybody spoke in tongues.

02:29I mean, you would, yeah, especially after a certain song, it was kind of a trigger, or

02:37right before the offering, that was another trigger.

02:39But it was unrestrained, and I really liked that.

02:45To me, that made me feel at home.

02:50But I ended up, I went, okay, I got married over here, and I went back to Colorado Springs.

02:56I thought it was a little bit different, the same church.

02:58It was my third time now at that church.

03:03And then after that, I got sent to Germany.

03:07After the Gulf War, I had to turn in a lot of units, and I ended up retiring and coming

03:14back to the Netherlands.

03:16And then I started noticing, because I was stable again after, you know, moving around.

03:21I moved eight times in ten years toward the end.

03:25And I saw that a lot of stuff was not working out right.

03:30There were people that had known, it seemed like they were really on fire and really part

03:34of it, that left.

03:35They were gone.

03:37And I stayed there, in the church, I tried to do my best to help out, to come up with

03:45things to help.

03:45I had decided fairly early, I did not want to become a pastor.

03:49If you're in the door, that's your whole goal.

03:51You become a pastor too.

03:53They send you out.

03:54Nobody goes to Bible school.

03:55But they send you out to start a church.

03:59It's very much a hierarchy, very much a marketing kind of hierarchy, actually.

04:07And nobody has hardly any Bible knowledge at all, it seems.

04:11But it was founded, the founder, his name was Wayman Mitchell.

04:17Wayman Mitchell was in Prescott, Arizona, out of Foursquare.

04:23And I think it was 83, while I was in the Netherlands, that he split out of Foursquare.

04:28He took all the churches that were under him, which was like hundreds by that time, and they

04:35started their own thing, which is officially called Christian Fellowship Ministries.

04:42And I thought it was a little odd that we suddenly had a logo.

04:47And before it had been a fellowship of different churches, pastors working together, that kind

04:55of thing.

04:56And suddenly it's becoming an organization with a letterhead and everything.

05:02And they started, they came up with, I didn't know this at the time, but they came up with

05:07a kind of contract that the pastors had to sign, where they basically gave up all rights

05:13to everything, including the church, including bank accounts, including equipment, and they

05:17were required to walk away, basically, if they disagreed with the organization anymore.

05:24But I noticed something shifted.

05:27And I started noticing that people were leaving, but I was very busy in, you know, a lot of IT

05:35stuff, actually, and a lot of multimedia in the church.

05:44And I started noticing too many people, good people, leave.

05:50And one day when we were discussing the video, one of the preachers lied to me.

05:57I knew he lied.

05:59And he did this like three years in a row, because we were making the conference videos.

06:04So, I went to the council about it, and they didn't care.

06:08For them, the issue was, he was a pastor, I was not.

06:11I was questioning his authority, and that was the problem.

06:19And basically, I ended up leaving.

06:21It was a few years later still, but I just completely blew up.

06:25I called the preacher everything I could, pretty much, and never went back.

06:30About six months later, my wife left.

06:33You don't leave.

06:35You get ostracized.

06:38And, yeah, we, and then my son left.

06:43Well, actually, my oldest daughter left first, and her husband.

06:47And then my son left two years, three years later.

06:51It's like Hotel California.

06:53You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.

06:56Yeah, exactly.

06:56That's the way a lot of these groups are.

06:57Mentally, you stay bound to some of these groups.

07:01In fact, myself, I just had this conversation with a guy the other day.

07:05I can sit in a church service, and it might be the most peaceful, loving sermon that you've ever heard.

07:14Just something that's very simplistic.

07:15But all he has to do is mention that one book, chapter number, and verse number.

07:20And all the programming associated with that in my head starts to fire, and I'll just come unglued.

07:27And it's the same way for me.

07:29I can check out any time I want, but it's really hard to leave.

07:33What's really interesting about the Potter's House, and I've got this, actually had this on my list to investigate and

07:39dive deeper.

07:40Because there's a lot happening here that is a spiderweb of connections to things that I'm investigating already.

07:48Foursquare, obviously.

07:50You've got Gordon Lindsay, who was out of Foursquare.

07:52You've got Chuck Smith out of Foursquare.

07:54You've got so many people connected to Foursquare and Branham.

07:57They were platforming Branham, tied to the latter rain, so there's an epicenter there.

08:02But in Prescott, Arizona, that is where Branham had his compound, and I should say Gene and Leo.

08:10Gene Goad and Leo Mercer had a very destructive compound that made national news during the time whenever it exploded,

08:19and it was learned all of the abuse that was happening there.

08:22So it's a big deal.

08:24Chuck Smith also has ties to Prescott.

08:26So there's so many different spiderwebs of connection, and you can't really say that they're all linked.

08:32Like, I can't really link Potter's House and say that influenced Chuck Smith or vice versa.

08:37But there is this weird epicenter there.

08:40And from what I've come to understand is, in some of these towns, and especially the smaller towns,

08:47everybody in the Pentecostal community, even though they're in different denominations,

08:51they all tend to know each other for some reason or another.

08:54So there is a cross-pollination of ideas.

08:57And how much of that went to Potter's House, how much of it went the other direction,

09:02that's really what I want to know.

09:04And one day, I plan to dig deeper into that.

09:06Well, one thing I do know, my opinion, is that the founder of Potter's House,

09:13Wayman Mitchell, was basically a Chuck Smith wannabe.

09:16It's like there was this constant competition in his head, because he wouldn't even mention his name.

09:22You know, if he happened to refer to something, yeah, he wouldn't say it.

09:27But you could tell there was this parallel thing going on.

09:29But actually, when you're in the Potter's House, you don't know anything about anybody.

09:33I mean, the other organization, you don't know anything.

09:37It all started when Wayman Mitchell, you know, he figured it all out, and he started the movement.

09:44But I have found out, and largely through your podcast, just how much this web is connected.

09:53My son has actually dived in pretty deep.

09:57He's busy here in the Netherlands.

10:00And he's read the vine and its branches, or square, and several other things to investigate that.

10:10But I haven't.

10:11I have that allergy too much.

10:14So I'm real curious to know, inside the Potter's House, what was it like?

10:18What were the meetings like, the community?

10:21How was your experience when you were in Potter's House?

10:24Okay.

10:25Potter's House does a lot of street preaching, on-the-street evangelism.

10:30They're very aggressive, actually.

10:33They also have lots of skits, lots of drama, some very good ones, I think.

10:39They also use contemporary music.

10:41I mean, like, as in hits, but they change the words.

10:45They've also been sued for Hamilton.

10:49Well, I think that's the name of it.

10:51They did a version of that, their own version, and they got sued for it.

10:56So, yeah.

10:58But the service itself is very revival, and lots of, you know, in tongues, speaking in tongues.

11:08Which, you know, to me, that feels like a home.

11:11Actually, I've had to stop, because I cannot justify it biblically in public, actually.

11:21I, one of the good things I did when I left is I stopped reading translations, and I went straight

11:28to Greek.

11:29I had been working on it for years, and I finally made the break.

11:32And I copied most, well, okay, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, and Revelations.

11:39I have not copied, but the rest I've copied by hand in the New Testament.

11:43Yeah.

11:44And it taught me a lot.

11:45It taught me that this is not possible, what they're teaching, based on this verse.

11:50Because, yeah, those meanings are not here.

11:53Yeah, there were a lot of things, and I'm glad I did that.

11:57I didn't realize how helpful it would be, but it got my focus good.

12:02It is funny how many people have told me this, and myself included.

12:06If you just simply read the Bible, you would have quickly left the group, because what they're saying just really

12:10doesn't match.

12:11And, like you're saying, those who take it a step further, and they'll go back and study the Greek and

12:16Hebrew, the meanings aren't quite the same as they preach it in some of these ministries.

12:22And when you understand the meaning, number one, it opens up to a much more in-depth book than you

12:28thought it was to begin with.

12:30Yeah.

12:30But number two, it just simply doesn't match what they're saying, you know.

12:34Yeah, and I knew that.

12:37I felt that.

12:38I caught them a couple of times preaching stuff that wasn't even in the verse, but it really opened my

12:45eyes when I just broke free, and I dived in.

12:50One of the things that I have been – as I said, I've wanted to dig deeper into Potter's House.

12:55One of the things that I've wanted to dig into was the discipleship program, and I'm hoping you have some

13:01knowledge about that,

13:02because when you consider all of the things that happened after Branham died, especially with the shepherding movement, which was

13:10basically discipling,

13:11there was this initiative really to gain control of the people that was far beyond even what Branham himself had,

13:19I believe.

13:19And I'm trying to understand that.

13:21What was Potter's House version of discipling?

13:25Discipleship was basically on-the-job training to become a preacher.

13:29That's really what it was.

13:31But it was – when you actually went into – and I did not.

13:35I never took that step.

13:38But when you actually did take that step, then you were kind of like a slave to your pastor almost.

13:44You know, it could get unreasonable – it depended on the guy.

13:47You know, it always does.

13:48But some of them were, yeah, still are, but, yeah, unreasonable and has nothing to do with dealing with people,

13:59you know, with being a Christian even.

14:01That's one of my great objections to this whole thing is I wasted 37 years in it.

14:07And I developed a personality kind of similar to the leader.

14:13I mean, not directly, but from the environment where I'm not a very good Christian when it comes down to

14:19it, you know.

14:20I mean, I want to be, try to be, but the personality that you take on is aggressive and not

14:26– well, to say not loving is an understatement.

14:29You know, you look down on people.

14:30It's an elitist thing because you go through the trouble to take – you know, follow all these rules.

14:35There's no TV, for instance.

14:37They try to stop internet from ever happening.

14:40You know, you're pretty cut off.

14:45But the rules actually contribute to the bad personality, really.

14:54You know, and I've tried to focus on Galatians chapter 5, you know, as a target to try to get

15:01the fruit of the Spirit.

15:03You know, you have a Christ-like character.

15:05I'm a long way from that, honestly.

15:08It's sad to say I'm 70 now, you know.

15:11Whenever you're in one of those discipleship programs, whenever you have somebody who is now becoming your authority,

15:19they get the idea that you can't question their authority.

15:22And that's usually what happens.

15:24Was that happening in Potter's House as well?

15:26Oh, yeah.

15:27I didn't realize it, though, because I kind of went along with everything, you know.

15:31I mean, they didn't have to convince me about doctrines.

15:33The only two things I disagree with is I was not 100% pre-trib when I walked in, but

15:40I was when I was there.

15:42And also, no alcohol at all.

15:47I knew that wasn't quite right, but I went along with it.

15:49You know, I didn't have any problem with not drinking.

15:52I was even a vegetarian for 30 years, and that's not their thing, but, you know, that was not an

15:58issue for me.

15:59But they make these rules.

16:03You follow the rules.

16:04They gossip about everybody who doesn't follow the rules that's in the church, or if they suspect it.

16:10It's a terrible environment, actually, for just being a decent human being, I think.

16:16And another thing that seems to match where the charismatic movement was heading, and which, what you said about Chuck

16:23Smith makes me wonder how much this would be the case.

16:26A lot of the charismatic-style ministries, they went off into this idea that you're going to have all of

16:31these conventions and things where you're basically bringing a bunch of people together who can become new converts out of

16:39other churches.

16:40Is that something that Potter's House did as well?

16:43Generally not.

16:44In fact, they spoke out against taking people from other churches, but they did it, too.

16:51They allowed it.

16:52Actually, there was a period of time where the attitude was, Calvary Chapel, those members were people who had backslidden

17:00from Potter's House.

17:02So we were, you know, giving them members, but the reverse, people from other churches, people from other churches were

17:10generally considered a problem because they had other ideas.

17:13I mean, I was one of those people, and they told my son that I was a rebel and he

17:20should find another person to look up to in the church while I was in the hospital.

17:27That was like, yeah, I have an opinion about them.

17:32The other thing about Potter's House that I'm certain is the case, a lot of the ministries that sprung off

17:38of the four square, well, Pentecostalism in general, they were real heavy on the tithing.

17:43And they were pushing it to some extent.

17:46Some of the churches would actually – I talked to a guy just yesterday that one of the churches that

17:53he attended, they were actually going into the business accounts and asking him to show his revenue for the business

18:04that he owned.

18:04They literally wanted to take tithing to the level where they are monitoring how much you make and making sure

18:11they get their fair share, which is far beyond what a church should ever do.

18:16Now, this wasn't the same group that you were in, but some of these groups take it to extreme levels.

18:23How extreme would you say that Potter's House was on the tithing issue?

18:26I have a video of the founders saying, if you don't pay your tithes, you go to hell.

18:30And another preacher, too, saying the same thing.

18:33But this is later stuff, when they start getting really extreme on that.

18:38And there's another video of the current leader, who's the son of the founder, telling people that if they were

18:48saved in the Tempe branch, which is, they have these, you know, Tempe areas,

18:54they hold their soul to that church, flat out says it, because they were doing an offering.

19:00That's why he said it.

19:03Yeah, it's during the offering.

19:06And there was something, oh yeah, Pentecostal versus charismatic.

19:10That's an issue also in the Potter's House, because Wayman Mitchell always, the founder, always made the distinction that we

19:21were Pentecostal.

19:22We're not charismatic.

19:24We're Pentecostal.

19:25We're a Pentecostal church.

19:27Yeah, it was a big thing.

19:28And that appealed to me as well, because growing up, I had seen charismatic influence that didn't seem right.

19:38So, that pitch that he gave, yeah, that appealed to me.

19:43Later, I see a lot of that charismatic stuff in the Potter's House.

19:48So, it was just a, I don't know, a selling point?

19:52So, I'm interested.

19:53You talked about the not drinking, which is something that we shared.

19:57And it's not that unusual when you think about the Pentecostal movement, charismatic movement.

20:01But I'm curious to know how much they actually got into your personal lives.

20:08Because this is a common thing, especially in the more destructive cults.

20:11They want to own your, and some of them even go so far as to tell you who you can

20:18or cannot get married to.

20:19I've seen some destructive groups like this.

20:21They're very rigid on defining the gender roles.

20:27In the message cult, the cult following of William Branham, they never really preached the gender roles.

20:33But it was assumed that men did these certain tasks and women did these other tasks.

20:38And after we started attending a new church, I find myself doing all kinds of things that I never did

20:43in my life, which is good.

20:45I confess I should probably have helped out around the house a little bit more.

20:49But the churches seem to establish the boundaries that are set by the genders.

20:54And they, in essence, they invade your family life.

20:58And if you read Dr. Stephen Hassan's book, Combating Cult Mind Control, he defines the behavioral control, the information control,

21:06thought manipulation and control, and emotion manipulation.

21:09The behavior is a big part.

21:12And having spun off of some of the groups that you've mentioned, I will say that there's a likelihood that

21:19you experienced many of the same things that I did.

21:22How far would you say they invaded your personal life?

21:25In my case, I didn't plan on staying in the Army 20 years.

21:29And Wayman Mitchell suggested that I do that.

21:32So I did that.

21:34And my son actually left over the fact that they told him he could not marry his wife.

21:41And it wasn't just that.

21:43He was fighting with us all the time because we had left.

21:47He went from, yeah, we were kind of pillars in the church kind of thing locally.

21:54And then suddenly, you know, son of a rebel, that's it, his chapter of the book.

22:01But they told him he, they messed with him big time.

22:04Yeah.

22:05And they told him he couldn't get married.

22:07He left and married her anyway.

22:08You know, they've been married seven years now.

22:11So that didn't work.

22:12But seeing how they responded to him made him realize they were wrong.

22:18In spite of all our arguments, their behavior was the convincing factor.

22:24As far as the gender roles, they're real strict on that.

22:31You know, women can't do anything but clean up, serve, and babysit.

22:36That's about it.

22:38My wife and daughters hated it much more than I realized.

22:43I thought they went along with it.

22:45And then I get out and they start complaining.

22:46I'm like, whoa.

22:47You know, it was a lot worse than I had imagined.

22:53But what I know now, it's ridiculous.

22:55I mean, it's absurd that you're going to subject half of humanity to that kind of treatment.

23:01You know?

23:02And, yeah.

23:06Partly, and he said this over and over and over, Wayman Mitchell, it galled him that Foursquare had so many

23:14women in charge.

23:15Women in positions.

23:16And he left Foursquare and there's none of that, none of that in the Potter's House.

23:20Yeah, back to the gender roles and the women.

23:24You know, whenever my wife came out of this, she was pretty happy.

23:29And still, even afterwards, she doesn't really talk negatively of her experience.

23:34But I've noticed over time, there were things that she didn't know bothered her.

23:38And it took her years before she started to realize that things that they forced on her just weren't right.

23:44There were things that she couldn't do that really had no relationship whatsoever to even religion or the Bible.

23:51They were just rules for the sake of rules.

23:54And I've come to learn that a lot of the groups that spun off of this mess that I'm examining,

23:59that's really all they had.

24:00Rules for the sake of rules.

24:02And I've thought long and hard about trying to understand why that is.

24:06Why would you want to have that?

24:08Some people will say the leader's narcissistic and they're doing it to be overbearing to the people.

24:13But I really don't think that's it.

24:15I have come to the conclusion that people in these – leadership in these groups,

24:20they come up with the idea that if we can become slightly better than the church down the street,

24:25we can earn our salvation.

24:27And so really what it does is it takes salvation out of the hands of Jesus and salvation,

24:32according to the Bible, and it puts it into their own version of salvation,

24:36which in effect is a different gospel.

24:38Yeah, it's clearly – you have to stay in the good graces of your pastor.

24:46You have to do all the things – evangelism, you can't have a TV, all kinds of rules that you

24:52have to –

24:52no beards, no beards, here I am.

24:56I told him when I get out, and that's what I did.

25:00But yeah, just crazy stuff like that.

25:03You know, they have – that's almost the opposite of the Bible sometimes, you know,

25:09but they've come up with this.

25:10And the way they preached early on was they called it the fellowship distinctives,

25:16the things that made us different than everybody else.

25:20And yeah, well, speaking in tongues was a big part of it.

25:23And usually it almost goes hand in hand.

25:26The moment that they come up with the new set of rules that establishes the difference between us and them,

25:31and really that's what it comes down to.

25:34It's establishing boundaries.

25:35Once you set those boundaries, then comes the fear.

25:40And the fear comes through the doctrine.

25:41They will say that, you know, if you don't abide by these rules, you're bound to hell.

25:47And those people who are suffering, who are in the church down the street,

25:51and they'll just point fingers at anything they can do to give you a fear of leaving.

25:55So what it does is – the commune that I was talking about in Prescott, they did – I think

26:02they did have a fence or something,

26:03but it wasn't like a commune when you picture Jim Jones or some of the compounds.

26:09Literally, it becomes a commune of your mind.

26:11You are just so bound by fear, it's really hard to leave.

26:15Like I said before, you can check out, but you can never leave.

26:18That is imprinted into your brain.

26:20So it turns into a gospel of fear and a gospel of guilt.

26:24And from what I've come to understand from at least the comments and the little bit that I know about

26:30Potter's House,

26:31there was a deep level of fear for some of the people who have escaped and they've talked about their

26:37leaving.

26:38I don't have a problem with fear normally.

26:40That's not something I'm really sensitive to.

26:46Did they encourage or discourage critical thinking?

26:49Well, what's that?

26:53That's kind of what I thought.

26:55Yeah.

26:55And usually that – see, you're an oddball because you – well, in the Army, they train you not to

27:00have fear.

27:01So you're an oddball as it relates to a former cult member.

27:05I think for the average cult member, the way that they indoctrinate you not to critically think is usually through

27:13boundaries made by fear.

27:14So in the minds of some of the people, that's where that heads.

27:18I know that's exactly what I had whenever I tried to leave.

27:22You have to first overcome the fear of leaving, then you overcome the critical thinking of why you're leaving, and

27:27then you leave.

27:28A lot of my involvement was more triggered because of guilt.

27:32Because I felt really guilty about growing up in a pastor's family other than fellowship.

27:41I gave my parents a lot of flack.

27:43I mean, seriously, it was not good.

27:46And I always felt bad about that after I did become a Christian.

27:50And so when I got in the door, which seemed to me like, this is the revival that's going to

27:55last until Jesus comes back.

27:57That was my impression of it at the beginning.

28:00I just did everything I could that I could dream up to help.

28:04I started their first website here in the Netherlands.

28:09Things like that.

28:10I made databases for them and started a thing where everything was converted to MP3s.

28:16But I was looking for things that would help out, and I tried to assist the pastors out of guilt

28:23feelings.

28:24That's really what it was.

28:25Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter

28:34reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?

28:39You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.

28:46On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,

28:54John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

29:00You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.

29:07If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the

29:13top.

29:13And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or

29:19watching.

29:20On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

29:25So let's talk a little bit about the relationship of the people in the church and the leadership's incentives to

29:33get involved in those relationships.

29:35Whatever I was growing up, I was watching some families who had a very rigid, you are not able to

29:44divorce after you have been married.

29:46And if you do, you certainly can't be remarried, which is common among a lot of the Pentecostal groups.

29:52But they took it to the next level in our group.

29:55They really instilled a fear of even getting divorced.

29:58So I watched families who were together who the husband and wife, man, it was like tying two cat's tails

30:04together and putting them over a clothesline.

30:06They did not blend well.

30:08I'll just say it like that.

30:10And it's mostly because the church got involved too heavily in the lives.

30:15And as I mentioned earlier, sometimes they got involved in who married who, which made it all the more interesting.

30:20You had people getting married who didn't love each other in the first place.

30:24The Prescott group that I mentioned earlier, the case that went to the California Supreme Court, was a child who

30:32was raised in a home where the husband was homosexual.

30:38The wife, it was basically a forced marriage or a coerced marriage, I should probably say.

30:44So when you're in that type of environment where they're controlling your lives, it makes the family life difficult.

30:49But it also breeds mental health issues.

30:53How much did they get involved in the lives of the people as it related to the relationships?

30:59That's quite variable.

31:00But I do know like that.

31:03I know one case where the man was homosexual and still married a woman.

31:09That didn't work out.

31:13Also, they would sometimes recommend that they maybe split up and get divorced.

31:21If one of them left, my daughter, after I stormed out of the church, told my wife not to leave

31:30me.

31:31That was something she explicitly said when that happened.

31:36And yeah, sometimes they do.

31:38And I had never seen that before.

31:41I've seen women really suffer a lot because they stayed with their husbands.

31:45Nobody got divorced.

31:46But that happens more, I think, in the fellowship.

31:50I always attributed it to Foursquare, actually.

31:55They were a little more liberal, too.

31:57Yeah, and the Foursquare branches, it's really odd the direction that the Branham cult went with the influence out of

32:04Foursquare.

32:05Because right down to the central element, you had a female pastor, which Branham strongly condemned.

32:12And it's really odd when you think about it.

32:15But they do have a different spin on things.

32:19I think for that very reason, the female pastor had to overcome all of the stigma that she was fighting

32:28during that era.

32:29There weren't that many that allowed it.

32:32And let's talk through that a bit.

32:34With the Foursquare influence, how much of the doctrines would you say were unique to your group, and how much

32:41were borrowed from Foursquare?

32:43The doctrinally – they're very close to Foursquare.

32:47They even recommend Foundations of Pentecostal Theology that was actually a Foursquare textbook.

32:55Yeah, as far as doctrine goes, but the perspective was completely different.

33:00It was like anathema to think of a woman pastor.

33:04My opinion is, at this point, that it's just as much for men who are pastors.

33:11Because what they have come up with, and they call pastors, that is not for anybody.

33:16You know, what the fellowship has done, what Potter's House has done, that I think is unusual, unusually extreme, is

33:32they've taken the pastor.

33:34Originally, it was preached like this.

33:36They were going to restore the dignity of the local church, because that had been lost.

33:41And the authority of the pastor was a big part of that.

33:45But they have taken everything that you can name in the New Testament, in terms of having authority, and he's

33:51the pastor.

33:51Also, it doesn't matter that it says, elder, it's the pastor.

33:55These are qualities of pastor.

33:56You know, there are no apostles anymore, except they say, our Apostle, Raymond Mitchell, that has come up.

34:04But there are, further than no other, apostles and prophets also not, except for the pastors can also prophesy.

34:14Evangelists is legit, but they're mostly failed pastors, who've been brought back, and now they're evangelists as well.

34:22Now, there are no ministries other than the pastor.

34:25It's all rolled into one, you know, and that makes their authority very concentrated.

34:30The Board of Elders is appointed by the pastor.

34:33Where do you go, you know?

34:35Darrell Bock Yeah, that's the way it was for us, too.

34:37The pastor was basically the head honcho, and there wasn't much outside.

34:41What was funny is, in our group, they would preach five-fold ministry, and it was always a one-fold

34:46ministry.

34:47There really wasn't anything outside of it, because in our case, the prophet, who was the central figure, he had

34:53died, so there was only one-fold ministries.

34:55But what I've noticed is, a lot of the groups that emerge from the five-fold ministry doctrine, they all

35:02tend to have a unique one-fold perspective, but they'll still talk about the different offices and preach it like

35:10that.

35:11But in the case of Wayman Mitchell, his apostleship was the – basically, it was the central figure of the

35:19group, right?

35:19Darrell Bock Yeah, they started calling him that – he didn't call himself that – they started calling him that,

35:26I think, about ten years before he died.

35:29Oh, yeah.

35:31His son has taken over and has come up with a whole series of videos to be shown in the

35:38churches for Sunday morning Bible study, actually, where he's really retold the history a little different than the way it

35:47happened.

35:48Darrell Bock But he's clearly glorifying and building the mythology for – so it goes on.

35:54Darrell Bock Yeah, and that's another common thing among all of them.

35:58They have what's called the prophetic history.

36:00You have to know just as much about the leader and how the group formed as you do the Bible.

36:05And in some cases, it actually takes precedence over the Bible, which is funny and sad at the same time.

36:11Darrell Bock But once that history kind of gets transmitted in a way that it can no longer go forward,

36:20they will invent a new history or rewrite the histories or change the histories, what would you say are the

36:26biggest revisions that are made in the history right now?

36:28Darrell Bock They stumbled into a lot of things in the beginning, but now it's told more like it was,

36:33you know, insight and guidance.

36:36Darrell Bock I remember that Wayman used to preach that Bible school, he did go to life.

36:42Darrell Bock Bible school doesn't make a preacher.

36:45Darrell Bock Bible school, he actually talked really down on it, really bad about it.

36:51Darrell Bock He said he learned more from his Columbia Book Club, all the free books, business books, than he

37:01did about it from Bible school.

37:03Darrell Bock And that's kind of the approach he went with the churches.

37:09Darrell Bock It was an organization.

37:11Darrell Bock So let's talk a bit about what it looks like whenever a person starts to come to terms

37:17with the fact that they're going to leave the group.

37:19Darrell Bock What was that like for you when you first started to realize that something was a bit off?

37:24Darrell Bock And what was it that you found that was the thing that made you decide you're going to

37:28leave?

37:29Darrell Bock Yeah, that's kind of a rough question.

37:31Darrell Bock I was sick a lot.

37:34Darrell Bock I mean, I went through four years of interferon treatments.

37:40Darrell Bock That stuff, it actually has murder and suicide.

37:44Darrell Bock It's possible side effects.

37:45Darrell Bock I was experimental when I started it, and it burned up my nervous system really bad.

37:51Darrell Bock I've been a pain patient for the last 20 years, and I have problems with my hearing as

37:57well.

37:57Darrell Bock So I'm in the hospital thinking about what's going on, and I had, okay, I'll back up a

38:05bit.

38:05Darrell Bock When I was in the Gulf War, I spent practically my whole time in Saudi Arabia wondering how

38:12it was possible that Pastor Mitchell or Ron Jones, another pastor, he was the one in Colorado Springs, my first

38:21one, how either of them could be so wrong that they split.

38:25Darrell Bock Because the first split was my old pastor left, and I had just left his church like six

38:33months earlier, and now I'm in the Gulf War.

38:35Darrell Bock And I spent my time wondering what's going on here.

38:40Darrell Bock And I ended up not leaving, for lack of proof that I should, but specifically when he asked,

38:48I got better.

38:51Darrell Bock At the end, I had cancer, even, and I had to have an operation, but I got better,

38:55and I went to visit a friend of mine who had gotten sick.

38:58Darrell Bock And he had been in the church in the Netherlands since 83.

39:03Darrell Bock He was actually from Ghana, and we were both English speakers.

39:07Darrell Bock I can speak Dutch, but we're both native English.

39:11Darrell Bock And he died.

39:15Darrell Bock That was the last time I saw him alive.

39:18Darrell Bock But he started talking to me about we've fallen so far, and he started talking about how you

39:24used to be in the church.

39:25Darrell Bock And, I mean, it broke me up, because everything he said was true.

39:30Darrell Bock I couldn't deny anything, and it's like he put words to what I was feeling, but I was

39:34trying to avoid facing, and that started the ball rolling for me, and it was, that's when I got really

39:41hyper alert about people leaving, you know, and I had a friend, I talked to him almost every Sunday, and

39:49suddenly he was gone.

39:51Darrell Bock His wife and their four kids were gone, so I got a hold of him, and I found

39:56out what had happened, and it's kind of typical.

39:59Darrell Bock You know, the pastor didn't want to listen to anything else other than his thing, you know, and

40:04they left.

40:06Darrell Bock Yeah, there's no openness to anything but their own chain of command.

40:10Darrell Bock You know, and I think that's one of the reasons why they put such boundaries of critical thinking

40:15around you,

40:15Darrell Bock Because I have to believe that over time, whenever one of the groups learns what happens whenever somebody

40:23leaves, and they watch the way that that circle of friends, they all see what happens, and they will often

40:31go ask questions what happened.

40:32Darrell Bock Well, once they ask questions and realize there's something wrong here, then that family leaves, and the next

40:37family leaves.

40:38Darrell Bock Yeah.

40:38Darrell Bock So over time, you have to silence the questions.

40:40Darrell Bock And that's exactly what happened whenever I started asking them, to my grandfather, who was leading the Branham

40:47Tabernacle.

40:48Darrell Bock He did not want the questions, and the questions were actually more important than the answers to him.

40:53Darrell Bock Let's stop the questions.

40:54Darrell Bock Let's not – they have answers.

40:56Darrell Bock They're very critical to the movement, but we cannot let the questions out of the bag, and I'm

41:03not the kind to keep things in a bag.

41:05Darrell Bock Yeah, I know of one case, a woman whom I'm known for.

41:10Darrell Bock Since 82, actually.

41:12Darrell Bock And she started having questions about Andrew Womack.

41:17Darrell Bock She wanted to know, so she goes to the pastor about that.

41:21Darrell Bock The pastor doesn't know anything, because he doesn't know anything.

41:24Darrell Bock So he called Mitchell, and Mitchell said, kick her out.

41:30Darrell Bock She was asking questions about, kick her out.

41:33Darrell Bock So, like, in Arizona, he tells the guy in Zola to kick a woman out of the church

41:39in another church, you know, like an hour drive from there.

41:44Darrell Bock He didn't even know her.

41:46Darrell Bock But it's for asking questions.

41:48Darrell Bock Yeah, absolutely.

41:49Darrell Bock Like I said, silencing the question, that is the most important part for many of these groups.

41:54Darrell Bock So, you're able to finally understand something's wrong, and you started to leave.

41:59Darrell Bock What happened after that, for me, that was actually was the most difficult part, because once you leave,

42:06you're suddenly faced with the fact, well, where do we go?

42:09Darrell Bock Yeah.

42:09Darrell Bock What church do we attend?

42:10Darrell Bock Who do we see?

42:11Darrell Bock And for me, it was like, I don't know if you have seen the movie Dances with Wolves.

42:16Darrell Bock Yes.

42:17Darrell Bock They had you so scared of that grass, man, because you didn't know what was in that grass,

42:23right?

42:23Darrell Bock All the Native Americans coming up, and they might take your scalp.

42:26Darrell Bock That's kind of what I felt in my gut.

42:30Darrell Bock I didn't know where to go.

42:31Darrell Bock I felt like we were indoctrinated to believe all of the other churches were infected by the devil.

42:37Darrell Bock And so I looked at it much like I did the grass in Dances with Wolves, and I

42:43came to realize that on the other side of that grass were some really, really good people, but it took

42:47me a long time to get there.

42:49Darrell Bock What happened when you first left?

42:52Darrell Bock Well, when I first left, I never decided to leave.

42:55Darrell Bock I just left.

42:56Darrell Bock It was like, in the moment.

42:59Darrell Bock I never went back, but when I realized what I'd done, I got a newspaper and started looking

43:06for churches in town, because I didn't know where to go.

43:08Darrell Bock I didn't know what was there, because we didn't have anything to do with anybody.

43:12Darrell Bock The fellowship has nothing to do with anybody.

43:14Darrell Bock They don't work together.

43:16Darrell Bock When they have, they regretted it, kind of thing.

43:19Darrell Bock So I started looking, and I started running, I followed Torben Sundergaard for a long time on YouTube,

43:29and I watched Curry Blake a little bit on YouTube for a while.

43:38Darrell Bock But I ended up, ran into just a local home Bible study group, and we kind of, it

43:49took a little while to figure this out, but we started studying the Bible.

43:54Darrell Bock We read through entire books at a time, you know, until next week, and we went through Paul's

44:03letters again, and we're in John now, but that's what I started doing.

44:08Darrell Bock And now I'm in, like, more than one of these, but yeah, just studying the Bible, that's all.

44:15Darrell Bock And that's kind of the same journey I have.

44:17Darrell Bock I've mentioned I read the Bible over and over and over again.

44:20Darrell Bock I did attend some Bible studies, and I had some interesting experiences there, too, because some of the

44:27churches we went to afterwards, you could tell that they were heavily influenced by some of the things that I

44:33had left.

44:34Darrell Bock And so I came to experience both positive and negative.

44:38Darrell Bock I did learn a lot, but going back to the Bible as the root, I think, was the

44:43key, because I started to notice, even in the groups that we, after we left, we started attending new different

44:50churches and different groups, I started to notice the things that I felt were in alignment with what I was

44:56reading in the Bible, and I could easily discern what wasn't.

44:59Darrell Bock And it was just simply by reading.

45:01Darrell Bock I didn't have to go through any difficult exercises.

45:04Darrell Bock So after you go through that and you start connecting to the small groups, the next thing that

45:10hit me, and I'm interested to hear your experience, I suddenly went from the feeling that I had with the

45:17dances of wolves grass to suddenly now there are so many more Christians in the world than I thought was

45:24possible.

45:24Darrell Bock Because we had this isolationist mentality.

45:27Darrell Bock Did your group have that same mentality where you were the elite, the elect, and everybody else was

45:33the apostate?

45:34Darrell Bock Everybody else that feels that way is wrong, but we were right.

45:38Darrell Bock Yeah.

45:39Darrell Bock Definitely.

45:40Darrell Bock The elitist thing is, it's so unbiblical, but it is so prevalent.

45:46Darrell Bock Along with gossip, gossip is also very, very prevalent, because everybody's talking about people who aren't doing what

45:53they're supposed to be doing.

45:54Darrell Bock So yeah, that elitism is really, really strong.

45:59Darrell Bock And I didn't know, I measured things wrong, and I started seeing that people who were marginal Christians

46:08were actually very good.

46:09Darrell Bock They had more Christ-like character than I do, you know, and I'm working on it, but it's

46:16not, you know, they seem farther along.

46:18Darrell Bock I don't know how long they've been at it, but I've been at it a long time.

46:21Darrell Bock It's like, yeah, I missed the boat in that regard.

46:28Darrell Bock And a lot of people were right and didn't even make a big deal out of it.

46:32Darrell Bock Yeah, I know exactly what that feeling is.

46:35Darrell Bock So whenever I left, I started having people saying, John's just trying to create a following.

46:40Darrell Bock And the people who know me, they just kind of laugh at it because I'm the opposite mentality.

46:46Darrell Bock Yeah, yeah.

46:46Darrell Bock I would run screaming from a following.

46:49Darrell Bock But it's more than that.

46:50Darrell Bock I left and I came to realize that I know nothing.

46:53Darrell Bock I know absolutely nothing.

46:55Darrell Bock I'm starting over from scratch.

46:57Darrell Bock If you're following me, you're going to follow somebody who is just learning.

47:02Darrell Bock Why don't you learn yourself?

47:03Darrell Bock That's my mentality.

47:04Darrell Bock And so I've kind of changed the platform over time to bring people in like

47:11you who can talk through their experiences because I feel that everybody can learn from everybody

47:16else's experiences and we can all kind of grow at the same time.

47:19Darrell Bock I learned a lot from you though.

47:21Darrell Bock Things that I grew up with and I didn't know they were connected.

47:26Darrell Bock And I discovered a lot of connections even with the fellowship through the things

47:36that you've been talking about.

47:40Darrell Bock I'll tell you the truth, I try to limit myself to two of your podcasts per day

47:47because it gets to you a bit.

47:50Darrell Bock I can't imagine how anybody would listen to one of me a day and not go crazy.

47:56Darrell Bock Yeah.

47:58Darrell Bock Yeah, but I understand too, I like to be the guy behind the curtain that

48:02nobody sees.

48:03Darrell Bock I like to be out front and personally in terms, I have a lot of my own thoughts,

48:09you know, my own ideas, but I might be wrong and I don't want to mislead anybody.

48:14Darrell Bock I think that's a big deal.

48:17Darrell Bock Yeah, I like part of it.

48:19Darrell Bock Yeah, I'm very much the same way.

48:20Darrell Bock I think it's an IT mentality.

48:22We like to be in the back corner and everybody else can go at the coffee machine, talk to each

48:27other.

48:27We're working.

48:29And what's interesting is I'm that type of personality, but I'm out front doing the podcast.

48:35So I'm out of my element just a bit.

48:38If you could give some advice to people who are, you know, either in Potter's House or in something similar,

48:45and they're trying to break through that first step after you leave and you're trying to find your footing,

48:53what advice would you give them on how to find your footing?

48:56Well, okay, you have to read the Bible.

48:59I mean, the Holy Spirit is in the Bible.

49:01You know, that's where you actually find your reference points and you become oriented.

49:09But you really have to find other Christians.

49:11You've got to find somebody around.

49:13And I know it's hard to avoid cults because it's everywhere and crazy, crazy doctrines.

49:19I have to watch what I say because people think sometimes that I'm talking about crazy stuff.

49:24That's not what I mean.

49:27Yeah.

49:30I do know that we have caused some people to leave the Potter's House.

49:36I feel very good about that.

49:38It includes pastors.

49:39I feel very good about that.

49:41But it's, the evidence is there, you know, it's just there.

49:48And when you really look at it, that's, you can't deny it.

49:52It's not the same thing as the Bible talks about.

49:55It's not.

49:56They misrepresent God.

49:58And you mentioned, before we got on the call, you mentioned some resources for people who are thinking about leaving

50:04the Potter's House.

50:04What are the best resources you could recommend?

50:07Okay.

50:08First of all, I would recommend, it's called Leaving the Potter's House.

50:11It's a Facebook page.

50:13I'm one of the admins.

50:15There's like 3,000 of us all over the world.

50:18Australia, there's been a lot of stuff going down with the Potter's House in Australia.

50:23The States, Europe, we also have a lot of links in Dutch, because, yeah, that's where we are.

50:33That's the best.

50:34We also have this book, which my son is the author, but it's actually an anthology.

50:40There were 10 of us from that Facebook page that contributed chapters to this.

50:46It's also in Dutch.

50:50Yeah.

50:51But this book, which has recently come into reprint, this is Potter's House's own book.

50:58This is their very first book.

51:00They have many books that have come out since.

51:02But this was one, it was almost mimeographed, the original.

51:06It was definitely, but it's out again now.

51:09And this tells, from their perspective, before it went haywire.

51:15And if you read this, they don't want you reading this.

51:18They're not like that anymore.

51:20It's something else now.

51:21But, yeah, that's them.

51:24And I always forget to do this.

51:26I'm glad I remembered this time.

51:27For the listeners who are on Spotify or Apple who can't see the book you held up,

51:31can you read the title and give the name of the author?

51:34Well, Escaping the Potter's House is the name of the book.

51:37It says, An Anthology of Memoirs by Former Members.

51:42And the author is Joel E. Crosby.

51:44That's my son.

51:45Okay.

51:46Yeah.

51:46It's real.

51:47You know, if you read just the first two chapters, mine and his, it's going to blow your mind.

51:51The way they were messing with us, you know, seriously trying to split my son off, you know,

51:56to completely have nothing to do with me.

52:00You know?

52:00And I hadn't done anything.

52:02They didn't even tell me that they considered me to be a rebel.

52:06You know, they called me their friend.

52:08And then this stuff went down because I caught somebody in a lie.

52:12It's just not changed.

52:17That's the bad part.

52:18Still the same.

52:19Yeah, it's so sad.

52:21I know families that are just severed and they may never get back together because of the way the cult

52:26has broken the families apart.

52:29And it's just so sad.

52:30No matter what cult you're in, you should, if you're in a group that is teaching Jesus Christ and the

52:35Bible and the gospel,

52:36it should bring families together.

52:38And there should not be a place where it's bringing families apart.

52:41Yeah, I have a daughter still in.

52:44And that's the turbulence in our family, actually, is because, you know, we still have one in.

52:49But that's been improving as well.

52:52You know, she even said leaving was good for you.

52:57You know, she can see that it's done me and my wife and my son also a great deal of

53:02good.

53:03Yeah, it's got to go.

53:06Got to leave it.

53:07You know, it won't do you any good.

53:09But it's a waste of time to be in that.

53:12And hopefully, you know, there's some people out there that are trying to be more Christ-like that you can

53:17run into and hang out with them.

53:20Well, thank you so much for doing this.

53:21This has been fun.

53:22And like I say, I'm going to be digging into it deeper here soon.

53:25So hopefully I'll have some more information.

53:27But if you're listening and you're part of this group and you want to share your story, you're welcome to

53:31contact me on the website and join.

53:33But thank you so much for doing this.

53:35Thanks.

53:35I'm happy to do it.

53:37And thanks for your stuff.

53:39Because seriously, I didn't know this stuff.

53:43I didn't know it, you know?

53:44And I grew up in it.

53:45I was raised in it, you know?

53:47And it's like, whoa.

53:49And I can see, I recognize the truth of what you're saying, you know?

53:52I've only skimmed the surface of all of the rabbit trails that I intend to go down.

53:57Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story, you can check us

54:01out on the web.

54:01You can find us at william-brannum.org.

54:04For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, read Weaponized Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR.

54:11Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

54:15I love you.

54:21All bright.

54:30Follow me.

54:31Go.

54:32Go.

Inside Potter’s House One Man’s Escape | Our Stories | Podcast Episode 636

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