Why I left LFCF

Rethinking over the entire situation, conversations and sermons that I had heard leading up to my departure, it still remains very evident to me that I left Living Faith Christian Fellowship for two reasons.

They both have a common thread, which I will get to shortly, but the honest before God reasons I left, was for these two points:

1) A theological fallacy

Mark Bullen taught a theological fallacy that “everything in the New Testament can be proven from the Old”. He had a series of sermons (arguing against Mennonites, of course) in 2023 about “Living by every word of God”. He postulated that “Jesus lived by every word of the Hebrew Bible; the Tanakh!”.
This concept may seem cute on the surface to debate Mennonites, but it does not work in the real world with things like Baptism (in the name of the Father & of the Son & of the Holy Ghost), Holy Unction, & the sacrament of Marriage to name a few. It’s a logical fallacy, but I believed him and latched on to it.

2) Their unorthodox views of the Trinity

Mark Bullen rejects parts of the Nicean council, such as the eternal sonship of Jesus Christ, which states: "We believe [...] in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and born of the Father before all ages."

He also has a muddled view of God (evidenced by his text messages regarding the subject), as I asked him if YHVH was God the Father and Jesus was the Son (Logos, Word), to which he replied: "YHVH loves the son like Abraham loved Isaac". Having a clearer understanding of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity now, I can say that he was confused and (unknowingly) establishing a Tritheism belief. (For clarity, YHVH is the ineffable name of God used in the Old Testament, but God is One with three divine persons (Father, Son & Holy Ghost). One God, Three Persons).

Then his son, who is a deacon at their group, tried to explain the Trinity to me in a Modalism concept: It teaches that God is one Person who manifests Himself in different modes or roles rather than existing as three distinct Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) simultaneously. While this concept gave an easy explanation to "God is One" in the Old Testament, it does not account for New Testament revelation (e.g., Christ's Baptism, all three persons of the Trinity being manifested at a single time & space).

Then their other deacon, Jesse, tried to explain the Trinity to me by saying "Is it possible that one God, has nothing to do with how many beings that he is manifest through, but only addresses the fact that there is only one valid morality and value system. There is none other to flee to and find refuge. False gods represent false values. To worship a false god means that you depart from true morality and values." This of course, is also unorthodox, and tries to explain the mystery of the Trinity to a moral / value system. While I don't believe he outright rejects the Trinity being three divine persons, his explanation of "God is one" [having] nothing to do with how many beings that he is manifest through, was extremely confusing. I don't think he has a very good grasp on the Trinity either.


The common thread between both of these issues and the reason why I did not return after I realized the error of both of these is for this simple reason:
Living Faith Christian Fellowship is a heretical, schismatic, Protestant sect which does not have Apostolic succession or Apostolic authority.


Though they claim that they are "patterning after the First Century Apostolic Churches, with Biblical Christianity", the foundational flaw which was revealed to me came from the above mentioned issues that caused me to question the Trinity & Christianity. After months of long, deep, logical studies into history, commentaries, tradition, theories and Hebrew Scriptures, I was able to find conclusive evidence that the Trinity could be reasonably demonstrated from usage of Hebrew Scripture and Christianity was in fact the true religion. Along with my studies, I learned what true, ancient, historical Christianity looked like and discovered that it was not LFCF with their own interpretation of sacred scriptures, but rather the Roman Catholic Church. All of the puzzle pieces came together and built an extraordinary picture of Jesus Christ, the Apostles, the authority, the Church, the traditions, the succession, the councils, the scriptures, and the salvation program which Christ established and promised would last until the end of time!

So while there are those who falsely assert or claim that I left because of some inter-personal relationship issue, my wife, or some hidden sin, they are all wrong and only using this false claim to cope with my departure. I am sure that others that have left their group did indeed leave for the wrong reasons: sin, lack of submission, toes stepped on, etc, and they use these existing case histories to reassure themselves that they are the right Church, but these issues do not determine truth and are used in their confirmation bias.