Similar to previous stories that I have written about Watermark Community Church, the one I’m about to tell involves a person who requested that they not be identified.
Why is that?
Because Watermark Community Church will try to silence their critics. If they discover that someone is bad-mouthing them or giving ‘bad press’, they will go to extreme lengths to harass that person. Just ask Erika Estrada.
Erika contacted me a few months ago after reading my posts. She never attended Watermark Community Church, but came into their crosshairs when she expressed her concern over the church’s involvement in her children’s elementary school, White Rock Elementary. For those of you who are not familiar with the history of Watermark, they started out meeting in Lake Highlands High School, which is in the Lake Highlands area of Dallas, TX, where White Rock Elementary is located. It would be considered an upper-middle class neighborhood, where the competition for where your child attends school is fairly high. A lot of Watermark Community Church members live in this area (including influential local politicians & community leaders). Long story short – Erika and some ‘Watermark-moms’ locked horns over these issues, as well as Erika expressing her concern over Todd Wagner’s presence in the school. Erika, a Catholic, felt her children were being left out and and singled out for not participating in the after-school activities that Watermark was doing at the school. This all culminated in a stand off with the parents of one child (the father showed up at Erika’s front door), and another ‘Watermark Mom’ calling Erika’s job to inform them of ‘the type of person they had working for them.’
You can read more about Erika’s experience in these two articles:
After these articles were published, Erika was vilified on community Facebook groups and online forums. She is planning to tell more of her story at a later date. You’ll want to stay tuned.
Where do I Sign Up?
*Wendy contacted me for the same reason most people do – they find my blog online and figure out they aren’t alone in what they have dealt with in their experience with Watermark Community Church. They finally feel validated.
*Wendy was raised in the Jehovah’s Witness faith, and when she became an adult, she decided that she no longer wanted to remain in that religion. She related to me that as a child growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, she participated in the usual activities such as door-to-door evangelizing and frequent church attendance. She was very well educated in the Jehovah’s Witness doctrine. Unfortunately she suffered ridicule from her peers, particularly those who attended local evangelical churches. I was grieved to hear that a lot of these children were apparently taught to be cruel to Jehovah’s Witnesses, because many times *Wendy was told by her classmates that she was going to hell. (parents please don’t teach your children to do this)
*Wendy met her boyfriend, who was a member of Watermark Community Church, and began attending church with him. She wanted to explore the Christian faith more, and considered herself an evangelical Christian at that point, believing in the basic tenets of mainline Christianity. After dating for a while and attending church with him, she decided she wanted to pursue membership at Watermark Community Church. She wanted to become more involved, and this required that she become a member. She knew this was an important step in her developing faith.
January 2019
*Wendy began attending membership classes in early 2019. After 3 classes, she was asked to fill out this questionnaire, to find out where she was in regards to her relationship with Christ.
As someone who was still growing in her faith, and not wanting to appear proud, she answered ‘7’ on the scale.
Apparently that was a no-no.
Rejected
*Wendy learned shortly thereafter that her membership request had been REJECTED. When she asked why, she was told that it was because she marked a ‘7’ on the Spiritual Growth Continuum chart, and not a ’10’. She explained to the membership volunteer why she answered that way – that she didn’t want to appear proud AND that she still had a lot to learn in order to grow – but the membership volunteer said there were others who answered the same way and they were rejected as well. She added that *Wendy’s denial of membership did have a lot to do with her having grown up as a Jehovah’s Witness.
This lead to more discussion with the membership volunteer, who admitted that she had no idea what Jehovah’s Witnesses believed, in which case *Wendy educated the volunteer.
Not So Fast
*Wendy was not deterred. She felt it was unfair that her membership request was rejected and decided to do whatever it took to proceed through the process. She attended the ‘Great Questions‘ class that Watermark offered and started meeting weekly with a staff member who was over membership. Little did she know that she and other ‘rejects’ who attended were the pet projects for these meetings. At the meetings, she was urged to break up with her boyfriend because he had not proposed marriage and they had not gone through the ‘Merge‘ pre-marriage classes. *Wendy later found out that she was sort of considered an ‘outsider’ – a woman from outside the church who had taken an available male from the marriage pool. She suspects that was the reason she was pressured to break up with her boyfriend.
After attending 3 of the meetings, she was told ONCE AGAIN that she would not be considered for membership. The concerns were, once again, about her past as a Jehovah’s Witness. The female staff member said that *Wendy would need to condemn Jehovah’s Witnesses and say they would go to hell. *Wendy refused, and told the staff member the reason she wouldn’t do that is because Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in hell anyway! She was also told, “you are coming to our (Watermark) doorstep” which was a direct inference to the Jehovah’s Witness method of door-to-door evangelism, implying that *Wendy was trying to infiltrate the church!
*Wendy and her boyfriend asked to meet with the director of apologetics, Nathan Wagnon. *Wendy related that during the meeting, it was apparent that Nathan’s goal was to place the final nail in the coffin on her path to membership. She did not let him off so easy. She questioned him as to why Watermark would turn away someone who is acknowledging and agreeing with what they believe and is wanting to join? She said, “I’m coming to YOU, I want to be taught and learn more.” Wagnon’s response was that *Wendy’s questions were not welcome and that they would cause other people to question their faith in a community group setting. His exact words were, “Community Group is not a place for your questions.” She asked about doing one-on-one bible studies? He said they didn’t offer those – even though *Wendy knew for a fact that they did.
Well, Mr. Wagnon, my question to YOU is – how biblically literate and strong is the faith of your members if they can’t handle someone who has a different faith in their past, joining YOUR church?
At the end of this meeting, Mr. Wagnon relented and said *Wendy would be granted membership at Watermark Community Church.
**Just to be clear about Mr. Wagnon’s statement to Wendy – it appears to 100% true for Community Groups at Watermark. A comment on one of my posts affirms it:
Joining a Community Group
As I related in *Susan’s story in the post The Aftermath: Stories From Former Watermark Church Members, the first thing you must do after becoming a member at Watermark Community Church is to become part of a community group. This presented *Wendy with a whole new set of challenges.
She went to the community formation classes and went through the placement steps. Remember, at Watermark there are no mixed-gender groups, unless you are married. *Wendy decided to pick a group that consisted of some women a little bit older than her, hoping to gain some mature insight from them. She opted out of joining this community group after one of the women said it was the responsibility of each member to be completely transparent about their sex lives and would be required to confess everything. *Wendy point blank informed them, “There’s a difference between confession and interrogation.” Also, they were going to require everyone to go through Watermark’s Re:Generation program. *Wendy refused.
Wendy was able to stay connected by serving in the Careers in Motion ministry, which is one of the two options for members who do not belong to a community group. The only other place to serve if you are not a member of a community group is in the children’s ministry (of course).
At this point I have to say that *Wendy is a better person than I am, because I would have left this insanity in my rear view long before she did.
OBSERVATIONS
*Wendy has not been back to in-person services at Watermark due to COVID. She believes that she was purposely singled out and membership denied to her initially because she is a former Jehovah’s Witness and did not fit the mold of an average Watermark member. She had too many questions, knew how to articulate her former beliefs up against mainline Christianity, and the leadership at Watermark did not want people who asked hard questions. They want easy believers who buy into their schtick, dress the part and obey the leaders.
Quite frankly, I’m appalled. I simply cannot believe a church that is supposed to be interested in reaching the lost and equipping the saints would so outright reject someone that came to THEM for answers and insight. Thankfully *Wendy now understands why she was treated the way she was, and how bizarre Watermark Church’s practices are.
I am also thankful to *Wendy for providing me screenshots of the membership workbook. This one really stood out to me, especially the sidebar on ‘Shepherding Structure‘. The terms ‘Community Group Leader’, ‘Community Shepherd’, ‘Community Director’ & ‘Campus Pastor’ are NOT in the Bible, even though they try to reference scripture to legitimize their view of church structure!
**REMINDER!! Do not sign a church membership covenant! If you do, you are signing a legal document. This gives the church the right to pursue church discipline against you for even the SLIGHTEST infraction or perceived sin, even to the point of disclosing personal information that you have confided to them in community groups, recovery groups (like Re:Gen), pre-marital classes, bible studies or any other non-LPC counseling situations. Only in very specific situations are your communications with the church considered privileged and protected by law. If you have signed one and want to be released from this contract, my friend Dee at the Wartburg Watch has a post about how to do that: http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/02/01/how-to-minimize-damage-when-resigning-from-a-mark-driscoll-like-church/
It would be one thing for Watermark to tell Wendy “we cannot consider you for membership because we do not believe you understand what Christianity truly teaches” (which, given that JW’s hold to teachings that are generally rejected by most Christians, such as their denial of the Trinity and of Hell, would be a fair comment). But I have never heard of any church that flat out wouldn’t address the questions and concerns of a seeker (especially someone who has left a group which most Evangelicals consider a cult). When my significant other and I joined a church back in… Read more »
False church, false pastors, false teachers. It’s shameful I did not initially see past the fancy facility and large numbers of what appeared to be professional people in attendance. Later of course realizing it is a Cult and complete blasphemy of both Jesus and God. This place does NOT represent the real Jesus or the real God. It is a false church of mammon. The spiritual abuses committed by these leaders are epic and go unnoticed by most. Stay away!
Adding to ~ given this organizations infiltration into our govt and media via Fox News – this perfect 10 to be allowed membership along with their false doctrine and over bearing narcissistic leadership looks like the beginnings of Hitler and the German church state merger