City on the Hill: A Timeline of a Church's Self-Destruction

Imagine ordering an unseen, untested product online, and upon its arrival you discover that it is not what you expected. Most of us would either keep the product or return it. A few people would become angry, give the product a one-star rating, and proceed to destroy the product's reputation. The latter is the path that a church chose. Sadly, that "product" was a married couple – the church's new pastors.

The Stantons had left their associate pastor positions, their families, their churches, their multimedia followers, to move clear across the country to help revive a traditional, lukewarm, country club church. They were successful, maybe too successful. Within months of the Stantons' arrival, thirty-four members made a pact to not only sabotage everything the pastors had been building but also the pastors themselves.

"The pastors became sacrificial lambs the first day they stepped foot into this church! They didn't have a chance!" -- Laquisha

"What is wrong with you people? Have you no shame?" -- Chaplain Charles