“I think it was understood that we were a little army,” said Julia Sinclair, who attended CFC’s Madrid location from 1990 to 2010. “Building the Kingdom by proxy of creating new humans, that was definitely part of the calling.”
Christian Fellowship Center in Madrid, NY. Courtesy of CFC
The CFC model also includes a strong rejection of divorce, support of male headship and the belief that Christians should not identify as LGTBQ. This became a problem for Julia Sinclair when, in 2010, she realized she was gay. She told RNS that her father eventually asked her to resign her CFC membership so he wouldn’t have to excommunicate her.
“There is an attempt at cutting members off who aren’t behaving properly,” Julia Sinclair told RNS, “and punishing them so they feel like they’re in a position where they need to either come crawling back to the community or they have to start anew and start their lives over again, which is what happened to me.”
For years after making the move to CFC’s Madrid location in 2003, Michelle Wilbur did her best to fit the CFC mold. She married in 2005, became an art teacher at Christian Fellowship Academy and adopted three kids.
But in 2006, Wilbur told RNS, her ex-husband assaulted her and in July 2012 drove drunk with their kids in the car. In November of 2012, she said, he physically abused her and her oldest daughter. She called Rick Sinclair, a nearby neighbor, immediately after the first assault. In November 2012, she said Sinclair came bursting through the front door along with two other CFC pastors to pry her ex-husband off her.
Attempts to locate Wilbur’s ex-husband for comment were not successful. Though he was charged with “yelling obscenities and acting disorderly” in July 2012, no other charges were brought at the time.
Wilbur also met with Sinclair in his office to discuss the abuse on several occasions. She told RNS that each time, he urged her to forgive her husband.
“With Pastor Rick, it was explicit,” Wilbur recalled. “Do not get a divorce. Even though my husband was out of control, still submit to your husband. As the woman, as the wife, you are not to take control, and take over … The woman is to submit, and God will take care of the rest.”
Rick Sinclair, senior pastor for the Christian Fellowship Center. Courtesy of CFC website
In an email to RNS, Rick Sinclair said he bases his counsel on Scripture and encourages “relational restoration as much as possible under the circumstances.” He also said that when discussing divorce, he provides “an overview of the enormous theological complexities of divorce” and encourages them to be “very cautious in making a decision of that magnitude,” while ultimately clarifying that it’s a decision they alone must make before God.
But in late December 2014, Wilbur later alleged in a complaint to police, her ex-husband molested two of her daughters. When she ultimately asked him to move out, she said the CFC pastors disapproved. At CFC pastor Ben Levendusky’s request, she met with him at the Madrid location in spring 2015.
