Broken Trust: Overstepping Family Boundaries

Writing out the reasons for our family leaving GCC is difficult. Revisiting painful memories that have affected my family so deeply is not pleasant. Having to leave friends and family we care for and had worshiped with and served alongside for 12 years was heartbreaking. The decision to leave wasn’t taken lightly, nor was it based on hurt feelings. Though there was a moment when it became clear that we needed to leave, it took years for me to realize and come to that point. This is my story to the best of my recollection.

Once our family figured out the cause of the rift in our relationships, and that it stemmed from Chris Riser, I knew I needed to set up a meeting with him as Matthew chapter 18 instructs. I brought another woman along because I thought it prudent to have a witness there with me. At that meeting, when I told Chris that he should have told me about the things that had happened regarding my son, he said something like, “I guess I should’ve,” in a shrugged-shoulder fashion, as if it were inconsequential, and there was no compassion or remorse in his tone. At this point in the meeting, I was in tears, which is rare; I am not typically an emotional person. He didn’t offer a tissue or exhibit any other concern for my emotional state at all. It was at that moment I knew I was done. I remember thinking, “If this is how he handles a ‘small thing,’ I know I can’t trust him with something big. What I didn’t realize at the time was how big a thing it really was.

I had two full legal-size pages of concerns that I believed I needed to discuss with Chris Riser in order to fulfill Matthew 18. However, as I thought through them and processed them over some time, I decided that I could let many of these go by choosing to consider them moderate or lesser issues.  One by one, I crossed them off the list.  However, there was one issue I could not let go of without addressing. It dealt with the treatment of my then-17-year-old son at the summer Uth camp in Ohio. While processing my list of concerns, I asked my son to tell me what happened at that camp.

He and two friends from GCC had met online a young Catholic guy and two girls from Ohio who regularly attended the Cincinnati baseball games, and they were going to be at the same game that the Uth were going to. They thought it would be fun to meet in person. My son’s plan was to introduce them to Chris while they were there, and to hang out with the Uth group. He had the approval of his father to do this.

My husband and I received a phone call from Chris asking if we had okayed the meet-up with the people my son had met online. We replied in the affirmative, but we never heard anything more after that. After camp, I heard things from another adult about how my son and a friend from GCC were treated at that baseball game, but I was never approached by Chris about any of it and I didn’t think I had reason to not trust him at that time, so I took the info with a grain of salt. I wish I had listened.

At previous Uth camps, the common practice and expectation was that you could move about freely in groups of two or three during the activities as long as you were back at the specified meeting place by a certain time to check in or so the group could leave together in a timely fashion. My son had no reason to anticipate that these rules would be different for the upcoming events. I am under the impression that someone told Chris that the boys planned to meet with their Ohio friends sometime during the week.

When the Uth were getting the instructions for their day at Kings Island amusement park, Chris Riser presented a brief speech about how the Uth were there to hang out with people from GCC, and not with other people from outside of the group. This was interesting since they were usually encouraged to have positive interactions with people and to witness to them, if possible, whenever they were engaged in camp activities. They were then set loose on the park. At one point during the day, my son was using his phone to coordinate switching groups so that the kids could enjoy other parts of the park and other friends. Chris threatened to take his phone, apparently under the impression he was trying to meet up with the Ohio friends at the amusement park.

The next day was the baseball game. Right before or after the worship meeting, my son went to Chris to tell him, in light of the previous day’s announcement, that he and his friends were planning on meeting their online friends at the game, not at Kings Island. He was trying to be upfront and on the level, and not disrespectful. Chris said he had to meet the people when they met up.  It was after this conversation that Chris called my husband to verify that my son had his permission to meet the kids. In the meeting I had with Chris to discuss my concerns, he conveyed to me that my son wasn’t truthful with him because Chris already knew about the meet-up at summer camp.  Apparently, one can only be truthful with someone if the other party doesn’t already know the information.

My son felt that Chris Riser was watching him like a hawk during the game, waiting for him to make a misstep. Two of the Uth girls had gone to the bathroom with another Uth group member, but that Uth wandered off elsewhere. One of the girls had left her sunglasses in the bathroom, and according to the rules, they needed another person to go with them, so my son went with them to be chivalrous and to keep them safe. When they got to the ladies’ room, he stood outside the door to wait for them to retrieve the sunglasses.  Chris Riser came after him to find out where he had gone. My son told him that he was just escorting the Uth girls to the bathroom.  Mr. Riser insinuated that my son was trying to sneak around him and meet up with the people without his knowledge.  My son had already told him that they were planning to meet and he had his parents’ permission. So, why would he sneak around?

After that, they returned to their seats. Time passed, and my son went with his girlfriend and another person to get snacks. While they were in the snack line, a group of three young college aged girls were walking through the area, and one said, “I like your shirt,” and they started talking. Chris Riser showed up again and pulled my son out of the line to talk with him about his attitude and either strongly implied or outright accused him of lying. It seemed that Chris thought the three girls were my son’s friends.  My son was frustrated and righteously angry at Chris’s actions throughout camp and, in particular, that his honesty and character were impugned.

Once my son was back at the seats with the group, his Ohio friends sent him a text, so my son told them where they were sitting. They came up to the group and met Chris, who put on the ‘good pastor’ routine, although he had just finished berating my son. The friends talked briefly, and then went off to do other things since my son couldn’t accompany them because he was required to sit with the group. He was no longer allowed to leave in the approved 2-to-3-student groups. 

The treatment my son received at that camp, especially those two days, certainly didn’t leave a positive impression on him regarding church or the love and redemption that Jesus offers.

There was another incident involving my son and his girlfriend (now wife) where they were holding pinkies at a picnic table with other youth at the same table. Chris proceeded to clear out the table and then dressed them down in sight of other people who were nearby.  He told them something to the effect that their parents didn’t want them doing that, and had an attitude while addressing them. Soon after, there was a special sermon in Uth about if you were doing anything like that, you are either thinking of having sex or are having sex. I did not know about this occurrence until years later, even though I was in the building every Wednesday evening, all evening. I was very accessible, yet never heard a thing. Did they “break the rules?” Technically, yes, because touching pinkies was forbidden. Was the response over the top? Yes. Should I or my husband have been notified of what had happened, particularly since Chris felt it was a serious enough offense to merit a special mention in a sermon? Absolutely! The kicker is, Riser told them that he was going to tell their parents. He never told us. I can’t say if he contacted her parents, but he did not contact us. Because of all this, our son didn’t speak with me for a year, and was very angry and engaged in self-destructive behavior.  He thought we fully supported Chris in preaching about them and shaming them in front of their peers. It took years for him and my other sons to trust me. My son believed that Chris Riser had disclosed this incident to my husband and me, because he told him he was going to; he had no reason to think that Chris didn’t tell us.  My son’s trust in his parents was broken, and we couldn’t figure out why.   It took us years to repair the damage done at GCC. We are still working on it.

You must ask yourself why a “pastor” would insert himself into a parent and child relationship. Why would he put a wedge between parents and children? Why would he not want to be transparent in his dealings with Uth and parents? If my son’s behavior was so bad, wouldn’t it be best if we were told about it so we could work on it as a family?  For all the talk of “We’re not here to parent your children, but to come alongside you as you parent your children,” that certainly wasn’t the case for us, and I suspect at this point that we aren’t the only ones. 

These are only a couple of the incidents that I could write about. I keep finding things out that happened during our time at GCC. Ask your kids questions. Listen to them. Sit in on the Uth to see what is being taught. Get involved and keep your eyes and ears open. Keep your kids close. If something doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t. Don’t blindly trust the leader’s interactions with your kids. Don’t allow anyone to usurp your God-given role as a parent or insert themselves between you and your kids.

I am thankful for our current pastor because I fully believe my kids would not set foot in church ever again if it weren’t for him and the love and care he has for his people, and the attitude of love and care that he cultivates in the leadership of his church. I’m quite certain that I wouldn’t either after our experiences at GCC. Does that mean I’m not a Christian? No, it does not. God is good – all the time. People are not. A different son had said about GCC, “If this is what Christianity is, I don’t want any part of it.” It was something I only became aware of long after we had left. 

We are healing, but there has been a tremendous amount of pain incurred and damage done to our family. I am thankful that my kids are forgiving, and we are able to rebuild our relationships; relationships that shouldn’t have been broken in the first place.