Sisters in Christ

Stacy's Testimony Regarding the Mildly Infamous Matthew 18 Letter:

If this has nothing to do with you, please feel free to move on to another post or to another blog, as I'm sure you'll find the whole thing either shamefully sad, or tremendously petty.

It is disappointing that this account is even necessary; and I find it sounding rather petty, no matter how it is worded. However, there is an individual who has publicly reinvented the facts regarding a situation that occurred in a ladies online forum almost ten years ago. It is significant to mention that the person repeating the erroneous information had absolutely nothing to do with the entire affair.

Almost a decade ago, Stacy and her friend, Loretta, were both members of a small Yahoo group, which was moderated by two women. At some point, there was a conflict between the two moderators. In the following account, Stacy shares how she took up an offense (Proverbs 26:17) for the moderator who she and Loretta believed had been wronged. While she regrets the incident, she is troubled that the facts have been exaggerated in an attempt to vilify her. To set the record straight with the truth, and because "the one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him," (Prov. 18:17), here it is from the horse's mouth, so to speak:

"While I admit Loretta and I should have left the list quietly, we didn't. We felt badly for the wronged moderator who was a gentle spirit and seemed to us to have been taken advantage of by the owner/moderator of the list. This all took place back in the year 2000.

Trying to figure out a biblical approach to the offense, Loretta and I sent a Matthew 18 letter (a call to repentance) privately to the owner/moderator of the group. She did not receive our letter well and became very angry. In a misguided effort to bring peace (through repentance), we sent a copy of the Matthew 18 letter to every member of the list (as witnesses), which was a little over 100 email addresses.

"Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother." But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’" (Matthew 18:15,16 NKJV)

We would have posted the letter to the list in the regular way, but our posts were being moderated for obvious reasons. Again, it was a foolish decision; we should have walked away. It wasn't our group and it wasn't our conflict - until we made it so.

"He who passes by and meddles in a quarrel not his own Is like one who takes a dog by the ears." (Proverbs 26:17, NKJV)

I've grown a lot in the last ten years. I would never do something like that today, but my passionate nature has often caused me to do rash things I later regret. I had only wanted to defend my friend, but the way I handled the matter seemed to make things worse.

In 2002, I sent a private letter of apology to the owner/moderator. Though the entire incident was truthful and I believed her to be in sin (specifically in her dishonest communications with others after we left the group), I still felt convicted over the way I had handled the matter. In my heart, I had taken up an offense that wasn't really my business and had created a new conflict that was virtually impossible to remedy via the Internet.

At the time, I had truly hoped the Mt. 18 letter would bring peace, but after later reflection, I wondered in my heart if perhaps part of my motivation had also been pride - wanting to prove that I was "right." The owner/moderator wrote back saying she forgave me. I was happy to forgive her as well.

After leaving the group in 2000, Loretta and I started the Patriarchs Wives (PW) group, with just the two of us as members. The name was intended to be a "ladies version" of the men's forum my husband started in 1999, The Call of the Patriarchs. Two other ladies joined us a few days later; and we steadily grew during the weeks, months and years that followed.

We wanted our group to include godly, encouraging fellowship where everyone treated each other with respect. We felt it was important that the moderators were accountable to one another and that no one was allowed to treat others rudely. We made this clear in our charter. As I recall, it was when PW got close to 100 members (at around a year) that we started adding more moderators. We now have a team of seven moderators who have been faithfully leading our group of over 800 women for several years."

[It is significant to note that the individual who has misrepresented the McDonalds regarding the above matter, has also admitted to doing a background check on James McDonald, contacting old personal friends of the McDonald family, hunting down old debts of the LLC of which the McDonalds are members, and even interviewing past disgruntled employees of HST– all in an attempt to discredit the McDonalds’ character and ministry.

By grossly misrepresenting the facts, and hunting down only “one side” of any story from anyone who dislikes the McDonalds, this individual’s highest goal is to “expose” how “unqualified” James and Stacy are to minister to other Christians.]