Twisted Scripture: Nikieta Lambert on the I.C.O.C

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[00:00:25] I'm Sarah Edmondson.

[00:00:26] And I'm Anthony, air the ICOC, a culty evangelical tentacle of Christianity that promises nothing short of a fiery eternity in hell. Under what conditions is that, Sarah? Only if you choose a different path. Convenient. Convenient. As a freshman in college, Nikita was loved bombed by the ICOC she was groomed,

[00:01:44] and she learned all the scripture that turned gospel into gaslighting. Welcome, Nikita, to a little bit culty. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. We are so excited because we've had your former group, International Church of Christ, on the list for quite some time, but didn't have anyone to interview. And then here you were. Yes, I'm glad to be of service.

[00:03:00] Just slid into our DMs and presented yourself.

[00:03:03] So I'm very happy about that.

[00:03:06] Welcome.

[00:03:07] Thank you. inside named Henry Crete put out a big letter and it's kind of funny. It's ominously referred to inside the ICOC, International Church is apprised as the letter or people will refer to, well, you know, back in 03. And it's like the book almost like Voldemort, like, you know who. And so he just basically detailed everything that's still going on 20 years later.

[00:04:25] But back then, I guess it's just really opened up the floodgates for people to talk about everything else that's wrong and people are leaving in droves again right now. So. Good. I commend you for coming forward and speaking. Yes. For people who don't know, how do you define what the international churches of Christ is? So the international churches of Christ, they will say that that way your coworkers, your neighbors, your family members will see how much joy and love you have with these other members of the ICOC and want to be just like you. They want to have what you have. They want to have people who can babysit their kids. They want to have people who are going to throw them wedding a community. Okay, that was a really good description. I appreciate that. How did you get into it? What were you signing up for and what was the main hook for you when you signed up? So I got recruited back in 2007, the fall of 2007. I was a freshman in college. I was 18 years old. I had just moved six and a half, seven hours away from home.

[00:08:22] Home for me was like the I promise, I'll do it. And then like a couple of days later, a member of the International Churches of Christ walks up to me on campus and invites me to basically a little small group lesson, what they call Bible talk on campus.

[00:09:40] And of course, I think this is my answered prayer.

[00:09:44] Oh my gosh.

[00:09:45] And so I go and they invite me to study the Bible. like how do you look for God? What effort do you need to put in, which is basically read your Bible pray and commit to start coming to things with us? Because we're gonna give you the information you need. And what's always there is this undercurrent of, and if you don't, you go to hell.

[00:11:01] You're trying to even now think of the scriptures,

[00:11:04] but it's like, for instance, ask, seek and knock.

[00:11:06] If you ask,, wait a minute. That's not what this means. That's not what is intended here. But through that narrow lens where they aren't facilitating your view and they're facilitating the experience of the scriptures for you, it seems very, very clear. If I do not listen to these people and keep coming to them and learn how to live this life, that's

[00:12:22] clearly here in the scriptures, they're showing me need to listen to? And so basically you're just signing away your autonomy and like, so anything we show you and help you to understand, if you don't agree with it, you're going against the living God. Now it's the obedience test. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:40] Do people get weeded out at this stage?

[00:13:42] Like are people kind of falling away

[00:13:43] or is it, do most people stick it out?

[00:13:45] I would say maybe it's about 50, 50.

[00:13:48] Okay. They want themselves, if they have a strong support system, their previous church community or friends or family will be like, that's weird, get out of dodge and they'll leave. But then you have some ICOPC members who may be a bit more dogmatic where it's like, if the person who is coming out that they're trying to recruit, if they're not reading

[00:15:00] their Bible a certain number of times a week win. People will feel accomplished. It's a very action oriented, so it kind of goes hand in hand with the message we're trying to teach them, which is that their productivity and their action is what matters. Okay. What would an ICOC member say about me if I told them that I always fall asleep when

[00:16:20] I'm reading it?

[00:16:21] What would they say?

[00:16:22] Oh, man.

[00:16:23] So funny.

[00:16:24] There's kind of like different profiles of ICOC members.

[00:16:27] Yeah, there's different.

[00:16:28] It's a a place where as Dekeita was saying, you know, you may have had a little bit

[00:17:41] of vulnerability or susceptibility to it.

[00:17:43] You're not on a career yet.

[00:17:44] You're not out in the world trying things,

[00:17:46] exploring the world. whose frontal lobes are not completely developed and who are away a lot of times from the adults that could be guiding them. So it's very predatory. Yeah. And I was also struck by, you know, obviously colleges such as susceptible time because you're, you know, searching to belong and wanting to figure out who your people are and all that. So there's one that element. And then

[00:19:02] there's what you've shared about having this really mean narcissistic mom who is constantly you know, if you're going to be a leader, you just have to develop thicker skin, which was just a license for them to be rude and abusive. Right. But yeah, so I think it just made me a target because I was used to it and I could take a lot of it. And it. So if you say that to me, I signed up for this and it's in the Bible. Also, if you say no to wanting that kind of training, there's not really, you don't have an option to say no. You didn't know because you're not committed. I'm not committed. That's the coercive aspect of it. Nipi, do you remember day one of the five day? Are you a one or a 10?

[00:21:43] All right. One being, I'm just here to observe 10 baptized. I was the only undergrad disciple on my campus. The other members were in grad school and I think they were trying to move on. One of them was about to get married, another one, you know, her age.

[00:23:01] She probably should have been in the young professional, AKA singles ministry, but they

[00:23:05] just, there had to be your articulate, your, you could, yeah. You shine bright. If I was starting a cold, I'd have you in the front. Nick, you'd have notes to self. I got this email from Nippy. I know where to put your emails.

[00:24:22] Oh yeah, I was groomed to be diplomatic in my narcissistic mother's household,

[00:24:24] how to say things just so without rocking the boat.

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[00:25:30] With hundreds of mind-teasing puzzles, the next clue was always within reach,

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[00:28:05] club, we were like almost like the underground railroad. We got together through whispers and we're comparing notes like, I don't think this is right. I don't think this is right.

[00:28:09] We kind of all left within six months of each other and they told me, they were like, yeah,

[00:28:16] girl, this has been exposed. It's on YouTube. Go look for it. And so there were like one or two

[00:28:21] that I had went in and seen. But of course, a fairly young member, and there's a scripture, the essence of the scripture was that as Christians, as disciples, we are supposed to kind of be like guides or ushers for people into the light, into the truth, into the kingdom of

[00:29:41] heaven or whatever.

[00:29:42] And I remember reading that and really thinking like, I don't feel like I was quote unquote getting fed anymore. And so then I had to switch my mindset. Like, well, I guess I'm at the place where I've stopped receiving, and now I go to church to give. Like I go in case someone else has a problem, which now that I say that out loud, that is so incredibly arrogant. But there's different parts of the body,

[00:31:01] and I guess my part now is to help give and encourage.

[00:31:05] And so I hated going, I'm physically often sick, probably because I'm not resting and I am so stressed. I'm not feeling well, but then of course that is not a good excuse to not go. So I'm miserable. I've been talking to little kids, staff, and parents all day or all week just to go to a Wednesday or a Friday

[00:32:20] or a Sunday service or a Saturday hangout

[00:32:23] because there's God knows there's always something.

[00:32:25] And again, groomed by my narcissistic mom, She's awesome. Yeah, she's all like, you seem to sleep and rest so you can like have the time to think about what am I doing here? And is this right for me? And I think that happens in a lot of cults where you're just so busy, busy, busy, like a little rat on a hamster wheel or whatever, you know what I mean? I mixed the metaphors, the rat race. Well, you just went through, you described me like most of my time in there in my head,

[00:33:42] I'm going, what is going on here?

[00:33:44] Jess.

[00:33:45] Except Nippy would take a nap.

[00:33:46] Nippy would actually Got a lift.

[00:35:00] Yeah, I got a lift in and picked up my son.

[00:35:03] Oh my gosh.

[00:35:04] Got a smoothie.

[00:35:06] Came back like, oh, Troy was tired.

[00:35:08] I just put him out there. Like you could go somewhere kind of a coin toss. It's a waste of time. Yeah, it's a waste of time. You should stay here. And so a scripture is in Matthew, Matthew 7, choose the narrow path. Walk on the narrow path because broad is the road that leads to destruction and many will find it. And narrow is the path that leads to life and only a few will find it.

[00:36:25] Right.

[00:36:25] Who doesn't want to be one of the Hampton Roads area, the church leaders, because the

[00:37:40] majority of them, the overwhelming majority of them are about black and brown people, you don't want to upset people. The math is not nothing. And they never had anything to say. They just kind of it was always, and then they would find some way to spin it or whatever.

[00:39:03] So, thank you so much for sharing your concern. I can't tell you how many times between just my eyes being able to be opened to all of the systems, the complete disregard and insensitivity and lack of support for justice for the Black and Brown community, and then having a couple of interactions with higher leadership where afterwards,

[00:40:21] because I wouldn't back down, it wasn't necessarily very confrontational, but lots of public kind of shaming and scrutiny. I deleted like over a thousand people off of my Facebook friends list because of course when you go to all these different conferences and retreats, you meet so many people. So I had so many Facebook friends, but they weren't really friends. They weren't really quote unquote brothers and sisters. And I felt a lot of them were just kind of watching and spying to be able to talk about

[00:41:41] me.

[00:41:42] So I just cut off the access.

[00:41:43] Like you don't get to see what I'm saying.

[00:41:44] You don't get to see what I'm doing.

[00:41:45] It's causing me stress. little bit culty listener. Since you listen to this show, I'm guessing you might be interested in the true crime genre. And if you're a true crime kind of person, maybe you also like solving fictional crimes. Am I getting warmer? Personally, I've been really digging and playing June's Journey, this immersive hidden objects mystery game where you travel back in time and become June Parker, international detective, and try to uncover clues and unearth scandalous

[00:43:04] family secrets. And it takes you places, the sidewalks a month, I thought, sure, okay buddy, what's the catch? But after talking to them, it all made sense. There actually isn't one. Mint Mobile's secret sauce is that they sell wireless service online. They cut out the cost of retail stores and pass those sweet savings

[00:44:24] directly to you. And the quality's way better too. You seem so clear and so articulate. What's your healing journey been like? Because it sounds like you woke up pretty quickly and had support with your book club.

[00:45:40] Mm-hmm. My little book club.

[00:45:42] It was a book. Emotionally healthy spirituality. I don't passionate about being a good mom because of the kind of mom that I had. Yeah. And so even though I was able, I would like take the beatings for myself, but when I saw that they left me so tired, so sick, so unhappy, so irritable, and how it would then result

[00:47:00] in me not having the patience for him.

[00:47:04] This will not, this will not be. these characters, because I don't like confrontation. I don't, and people wouldn't know that, because like I said, I've been on a war path, but I really don't. I wanna be harmonious. And so even recently realizing like, oh my gosh, even my marriage, like that was, we met,

[00:48:20] courted and married in the ICOC,

[00:48:23] and seeing that even after putting in work

[00:48:25] and going to therapy and different things same kind of like, okay, we met, courted, married in a cult. Who are we and what do we love about each other separate from all that? And is it sustainable? It's so difficult also, I think, because it's a type of scrutiny that's kind of reminiscent of that work. Do you know what I mean? At least for us sometimes, it's like some of the questions are the same, like the internal analysis. You have to revisit a process that has been somewhat poisoned a little bit in order to

[00:49:45] revolve it, which is questioning and other times I feel like it's sort of like kind of a bonus me very much of the children's story, the emperor's new clothes,

[00:52:23] where everyone can see that something's not right, but no one's going to say it.

[00:53:26] So I'm not really sure what's going on. I know I think back in the spring I saw an infographic that

[00:53:32] Membership was rapidly declining. So I hope it burns

[00:53:38] Isn't there also a civil case for the people that were or a case of the people who were abused? I believe so and so I know there's a woman named Shell Rowland. She has a podcast called What the Flop

[00:54:41] I'm pretty sure. Yeah, so it's probably her.

[00:54:42] Yeah, they're doing big things.

[00:54:44] I know that for us talking to ex-members is always one of the most, the most, if not

[00:54:50] more so than more so healing than therapy has been like just being able to talk freely,

[00:54:55] you know, without having, you know, the threat of God's punishment or going to hell or the

[00:55:01] leader is being like, for sure.

[00:55:04] Just some people are listening to this and they're like, well, it depends on who's facilitating the study. Some people will say be as exhaustive as you can and from little to big, write it all out. Some people will say, write the earliest memory you have of sinning, write your most recent sin, and then write the thing that you are most ashamed of. And then maybe they'll throw in like, what

[00:56:22] do you think is your most frequent sin or something, that's fine. You're just not like God, even the light. Like that's fine. The grace of Jesus will just not wash over you, but I didn't say it. The scripture said it. And if you are not specific enough, depending on where you are and who is leading at the time,

[00:57:44] because different leaders have different ways of doing things, the study can get very, very to get you in the light, but to help people feel shamed so they can identify with how disgusting and depraved they truly are without Jesus. And so if you can make them connect with how depraved they are, they will more clearly

[00:59:00] see their need for grace and forgiveness.

[00:59:03] Right. sheep bar or whatever, and then applying it to the specific Bible scripture that's used to do that tactic. You know what I mean? Like, I love it. We could do this all day. It should be a separate limited series on the podcast and Wondery is the biblical studies used to coerce people to take who really likes to give it something they're all. Just make sure that you continue to rest in your journey to shine light. Don't burn yourself out again. Yes, I think you so much. I appreciate that. And I'm so grateful for the opportunity to come on here and spread some awareness to

[01:01:42] hopefully spare anybody else who is possibly a potential target.