Monday, September 22, 2025

Klesis and acts2fellowship are high control groups

Klesis Christian Fellowship and Acts 2 Fellowship or acts2fellowship are two common names that Acts 2 uses on college campuses. They also use other names like Koinonia, Kairos, WAV, International Student Mentorship Program, International Student Gathering, Journey, Axiom, 1Eighty, Flourish, Forge, and Harbor. SO MANY DIFFERENT NAMES so it's almost impossible to keep track. This is on purpose to distance themselves from the bad press and reputation they have earned for themselves.

It's fall and thus peak recruitment season for Acts2. Students in the organization are spending a ton of time on campus, luring you with boba, game night, sports, free food, and instant friends. They will even help you move into the dorms.

Please know that these are all high control groups and stay away. 

They use the guise of Christian fellowship and biblical living to control what you do, where you live, when you date, who you live with, what you watch, what music you listen to, etc. etc.

Do you due diligence and do research before you join any organization, even a seemingly innocuous one like a Christian fellowship on campus.

Thursday, September 11, 2025

Belonging and Agency

One of the fundamental needs of human beings is to feel they belong and also a sense of agency over their life.

One must feel like they are loved, they belong to a community of people, whoever they may be. Social connectedness and healthy relationships are a strong predictor of health and longevity.

One also must have a sense of control over their own life. Things must be a choice. Most healthy adults want to choose what they want to do with their time, who they want to have a relationship with, where they live, where they work, what they study, their hobbies, etc.

When our agency is taken away, that is a form of abuse. When belonging is contingent upon agency (you can belong to our church but you must do what is expected), I believe that is also abuse.

Acts 2 boasts that they do life together and that everyone is loved and accepted just as they are. But do not believe their lies. You are only accepted if you do what they say. You must follow their multitude of rules and expectations. If you do not, they'll drop you like a hot potato.

Friday, September 5, 2025

Acts 2 Network is now headquartered in Elgin Illinois near Chicago

Headquarters have moved from Alameda, CA to Chicago.

They now have a huge Acts 2 Training Center at 1000 N Randall Road, in Elgin, Illinois, suburbs of Chicago. 

I wonder how much they paid for that building. Did they sell their buildings in Alameda?

I'm sure this is a huge change for everyone inside Acts 2. Now they all get to travel to Chicago for their all teams retreats and trainings/indoctrination.

I have mixed feelings.

I feel sad that it'll be easier for them to distance themselves from the Gracepoint and Berkland name, hide their roots even more intentionally.

I feel sad for all those who moved, who didn't really want to, but felt forced to. But then again, moving inside this organization isn't exactly like moving when you're outside of it.

One of my biggest requests is moving every year during college because I was assigned to live with certain people. I wish I continued to live in that one apartment I was living in during sophomore year. Close to campus, super cheap rent. Instead, I just kept moving further and further for more and more money. Just because someone in the organization decided that it would be best for me to live with so and so. UGH. It really was the worst. Why was I so blind to it? Oh yeah, I thought that's what God wanted me to do. Hard to fight the will of God when you decided to have him be the Lord of your life.

If you're in this organization now and are reading this, please please please don't let them decide where you live and who you live with. Once you give that over, it's really hard to get out.

Sunday, February 16, 2025

You don't have to have sex with your spouse if you don't want to

Dear Gracepoint/Acts 2 wives, this one is for you.

It's quite common in evangelicalism for there to be some slight pressure on the wives to "obey their husbands" including letting them have sex with you when you don't really want to. There is the subtle messages from the pulpit, ok, maybe not so subtle, that your husband is the head and that you are under his spiritual authority. There may be some urging from your leader to just give in and have sex with your husband even if he's been a dick to you and didn't care for you as Christ cares for the church. He's been out every day this week, leaving you to care for the house and the kids and carry the entire mental load. Of course ministry comes first so you should be grateful that you have such a God honoring husband who cares about doing ministry and devotes so much of his time to the church.

But he hasn't said one kind thing to you. He doesn't even acknowledge you when he comes and goes. And since the church monitors his online activities and doesn't want him to masturbate, he comes to you to fill his sexual needs.

You are not an object.

You are a whole person.

You do not have to have sex with him if you don't want to.

You certainly do not need to have sex with him because your leader told you to.

You do not need to just lay there for a few minutes to create marital harmony. 

This is NOT what Christ calls you to do. Don't let your leader tell you otherwise.

.

Why do I write such a crass post? Because I actually know that this happens. Maybe not in all marriages, or even most marriages, but I KNOW this happens.

Marital rape is real.

You are not a receptacle.

Tell him to take care of himself and confess his sins to his leader.


Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Thank you current member who reported my blog

Someone flagged my blog and it got blocked for a little bit. They said my blog violated guidelines around harassment. Clearly, my blog does nothing of that sort. If anything, the person who reported my blog was harassing me, as evidenced by the recent comments this person submitted.

Anyway, thank you to the person who reported my blog because now I am going to be EVEN MORE proactive about getting the word out about the cult you're at.

Thanks for lighting a fire under my ass.

Friday, July 21, 2023

All Team Retreat

I learned on the subreddit that the Gracepoint All Team Retreat happened recently. I bet it was a lot of fun and good times, mostly. Get ready for the post event rebuking if you fucked up.

I tried to imagine myself attending this mandatory retreat, separated from my spouse (because it's held by gender) and using my PTO to fly to the Bay Area. I imagined myself sitting for 8 hours a day, listening to Ed Kang or a white dude telling me how I need to give more, do more, be more for God.

I bet there was so much prep that went into this event and lots of money spent, for sure.

The prep for Christian Festival during the Berkland times was intense and I bet ATR is even more intense.

I am SO SO SO glad that I left this church and that I don't have to go to events like this or help prep for one. Buy endless amount of food, cut it, cook it, serve it, clean up after it. Practice the skit, practice the songs, make slideshows. It's exhausting to just think about.

After several years in Berkland, that nagging thought of "Am I really doing this for God?" was the one that ultimately led me to leave. I realized that I wasn't... and I couldn't fake it anymore. My leaders were happy to have me leave. No one even tried to stop me. I was a thorn on their side by then, since I wasn't giving my time and money to the church without question like they wanted me to. I stopped pretending that I was repentant about dumb stuff that they wanted me to be repentant about. They didn't know what to do with me. (This was before the age of Soul Care.)

What confirmed that my decision was the right one was realizing that what I had gone through was spiritual abuse and emotional manipulation. This church had somehow ended up controlling all aspects of my life (time, career, friends, family, school, work, dating, money, etc.) and making me feel guilt and shame every time I went against their wishes. I had bought into the lie that church=god=family.

To anyone who is coming off of the All Team Retreat high and wondering, "Was that really all for God?" I want to say, maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. Maybe there was some genuine intention that this was the best way to use the church members' time and energy. But maybe there are some shadows lurking around too. Maybe Ed and Kelly Kang are perpetuating the Christian industrial complex or more accurately, the GP industrial complex. Maybe there are some hidden agendas to mold you into a soldier or factory worker for GP, not for God. Maybe they need more money or people to fund and man their next batch of church plants. Maybe ontological expansiveness has somehow seeped into GP's application of the Great Commission.

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

High Control Groups like Gracepoint and Berkland

I've been thinking a lot about high control groups like Gracepoint, Berkland, Antioch Baptist Church, and many other evangelical churches. What makes a church a highly controlling one like Gracepoint and what makes members stay in such a controlling environment? These are complex questions, but I think it's worth thinking about because everyone can be susceptible to high control groups. 

If you have left a high control group, please don't blame yourself or wallow in self-pity. Many smart, capable, and successful people have been conned into high control groups. Don't give them the power to ruin the rest of your life either. You can move on and build the life you want, the one God wants for you.

If you are IN a high control group, I urge you to ask yourself if staying in the group is really what you want and worth what it is costing you. Namely, your agency and freedom.

Ed Kang and Gracepoint posted in their response to the Christianity Today article that they condemn abuse of any kind. He denies that their church is spiritually abusive. Any egregious incidents are one offs and not a direct result of the culture Gracepoint creates. I maintain that Gracepoint and all affiliated ministries and churches, including its mother church Berkland, are spiritually abusive because of the high control nature of these organizations.

Ed and Kelly Kang joined, created, and maintain a high control group because they think that it is God's will and that it is biblical. They believe in the Koinonia Cross (see Rebekah Kim's PhD dissertation) and that church=god=family. They believe that all Christians should be bivocational and that church activities should be prioritized over basically everything else including biological family, career, and school. 

According to them, if you really love God, you should cut your vacation short to attend their church events and limit going back home so that you can attend all church activities. You should want to stay around and not move back to your home town after graduating because God (read church) should be your priority. Not your career, not your biological family, and not any of your previous relationships including your previous church if you had one.

If you really love God, you should want to live with your class sisters/brothers because Koinonia Cross.

Everything becomes black and white.

Everything becomes about whether you love God or not.

Everything becomes a choice between God and sin.

By creating a dichotomy where it does not need to exist and painting things in black and white, Gracepoint makes it seem like you have to do almost everything according to what the church or your leader says. And this is one way that they slowly control most things about your life including how much sleep you get and what you are doing on Wednesday night.

MOST of life is in the grey. Most things are not a choice between loving God and committing sin. You can move back home and still love God. You can choose to not attend the All Teams Retreat and still be a spiritual person. You can get the rest you need and not be a lazy selfish person, full of sin. You can decide who you want to marry or date and that person can be a non GP member and you can still be a God honoring Christian. You can decide to love God by becoming a teacher or a doctor. You can decide to serve God by going back home and serving your home church (or another church or no church). You can do all these things and Gracepoint should not meddle because then they are getting between you and God.

God honors our agency. Even God honors our agency and that's why it cannot be in God's will that a church be highly controlling like GP. God wants us to CHOOSE how we live and how we love. That's why God gave us free will. If not, God would have created robots. But robots is what GP seems to want because they want to take all the messiness out of life and create a church planting machine, obedient followers who can move across the country if their church wants them to.

There can be no love without choice. And high control groups take away that choice through hierarchy, pressure, and norm setting. In theory all adults choose to do all the things they do every day. But if you look at social psychology, our behaviors are heavily influenced by many factors. By manipulating these outside factors and making you believe that GP's way is God's Way, GP eventually dictates who you live with, who your friends are, who you marry, how you spend your time, how you spend your money, and even where you work. They will tell you what you should wear and what kind of car you should drive.

If MOST of your life is being decided by what someone else wants you to do, then you have effectively lost your agency. The test to knowing if you have lost your agency is to decide to do something different and seeing what consequences arise. My experience in this church tells me that the consequences will be swift and severe.

So what causes smart adults to stay at a highly controlling church like Gracepoint? It's because they do not think that they are being controlled. They think that they are choosing this kind of life for themselves because they want to please God and the church says this is God's will for them.

But this is not what most folks sign up for when they choose to be Christians or when they decide to join a church.

When I was a part of this church, I thought in this black and white way too. I thought God wanted me to be a part of this church and that if I chose differently, that I was somehow sinning. 

But that was not true. I had decided to be a Christian and to follow Jesus. I had decided to love God and God's people but I had not decided to do whatever the church told me to do via my assigned leaders. 

There is a difference. There is a big difference between God's plan for your life and what the church or your leaders want you to do. Gracepoint will tell you that god=church=family and that your leaders are the voice of God for you. But this is not biblical and it is not true. I can love God and God's church but I should still have agency and choice over my life. And just because I decided to attend one church during college doesn't mean I have to stay there my whole life. And it is not unchristian to change churches. And changing my mind about what church I want to attend doesn't mean I love God less than those who stick with Gracepoint. The power to choose is a God given ability. Gracepoint should not take it away in God's name. This is how evil gets perpetuated so easily in high control groups, by slowly taking away people's agency and convincing them that this is God's will.

GP may claim that they're not spiritually abusive but there is no way they can reasonably and rationally deny that they are a highly controlling group. GP tries to control almost every aspect of a person's life. And the more you conform, the higher your status in GP and the more praise and affirmation you'll get from your leaders.

Don't let others define what your life should be. Don't confuse God's will with your church's agenda. God said don't have idols. Church can easily become an idol for Christians. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Let's be free. Free to love and to live the life that God had in mind for us. A life of joy. Not one of obligation.

Thursday, February 2, 2023

The Many Faces of Berkland Baptist Church, Antioch Baptist Church, BBC, etc

Just like Ed and Kelly have been planting churches, Becky has continued to plant many churches all over the USA and the World. Her home base is Antioch Baptist Church but there are many many other churches that she oversees. College students, please do your due diligence and research the church you are considering joining to avoid becoming part of a high control group that uses spiritual abuse to control their members. Here are the churches that most likely have all the same issues as Gracepoint. I recommend avoiding, unless you plan to give them your whole life. If you are aware of others, please comment and I'll add. In no particular order:

Antioch Baptist Church in Boston

  • Berkland #2
  • First church plant of Berkland Baptist Church at Berkeley (now called Gracepoint)

Frontier Baptist Church in Fairbanks, Alaska

Koinonia Community Baptist Church in Long Beach, California

New Covenant Baptist Church in Seattle, Washington with college ministries at
  • University of Washington (Koinonia Fellowship)
Compass Fellowship Church in New York with college ministries at
  • NYU (Koinonia)
  • Columbia
Philadelphia Mission Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Worthy Life Baptist Church in Washington DC with college ministries at
  • Johns Hopkins
  • Georgetown
  • University of Maryland, UMD

Ministries by former Berkland churches

Asian Baptist Student Koinonia (ABSK, a college campus ministry) at the following colleges

  • Boston College
  • Boston University
  • Brandeis University
  • Cal Baptist University
  • Cal State Long Beach
  • Drexel
  • Georgetown
  • Harvard
  • MIT
  • Penn
  • UCLA
  • University of Maryland, Baltimore
  • University of Maryland
  • Wellesley


JOYland or Joyland (Children's ministry)

Pilot Light Ministry - a prayer ministry?

Outside of the US

South Korea (Seoul and Goesan?)
Uzbekistan
Kazakhstan
Russia
Turkey
Bangkok, Thailand
Armenia
Republic of Georgia
Covenant of Grace Church in Tokyo, Japan


Bridgeway Church of Silicon Valley in Palo Alto, CA has roots with Rebekah Kim and Berkland but seems to not be affiliated.

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

The Many Faces of Gracepoint

I have become aware that there are new groups popping up all over the place that are Gracepoint church ministries but with new names. Here are some of them. Please comment with others that you are aware of. These are in addition to the well know ones like ABSK, Koin, Koinonia, MakeNew, Klesis, A2F, Acts 2 Fellowship, Interhigh, ISM (international student ministry), Impact, AYM (Area Youth Ministry), etc. etc.

Lightkeepers at Boston

1eighty at Boston

316 Collective at Boston for Boston University students

Five+Two (this one is new to me)

Moment (college student ministry) at Stanford. Website momentfellowship.org


Please BE AWARE!

Don't get sucked into this high control group.

edited on 2/7/2023 to add Moment at Stanford

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Christianity Today article on Gracepoint is published

Thank you to Curtis Yee for his thorough investigation and work on this article.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/september/gracepoint-berkland-asian-american-church-discipleship.html