I was in Covenant Players a couple years before Chuck's death to a couple years after.
I can say that the fact that we still did verbal and written affirmations to Chuck even after his death raised warning flags for me, even at the time. The longer I spend out of CP, the more I realize that things were, at the very least, extremely problematic.
I didn't take the directing class for the beginner's level, because the person in charge of the class hated me, and would bully me whenever she was directing me in a play - which during the summer was pretty often.
I was placed under unit leaders that were emotionally and mentally abusive. I spent a year being one step away from a complete breakdown because of how they were treating me. One of them lied on the critique of a performance and blamed me for us skipping a couple pages of dialogue when it was another person that had done it, and said that they tried to give us three weeks to work on a play and they guessed they needed to give us more time. They had given us three hours, and I had learned a major role in that time, having never heard of the play before (for those CPers who know, it was Jill in "Best Laid Plans".) We didn't actually rehearse the play all the way through. We simply ran lines and ran lines and ran lines, and the guy playing Jack and I made up our own blocking during the performance. I was in charge of printing the reports off and happened to see them say that they'd given us three weeks and all that balderdash, so I wrote a letter to Mark and Bobbi J-T explaining that I knew I'd broken the rules by reading the critique, but that I couldn't in good conscience not say anything but that I was willing to take whatever punishment was deemed necessary for reading it, and told them what actually happened. I was chewed out and made to feel like crap, and they told the Unit Leader that I'd done it, and the UL was never in trouble for lying.
That Unit Leader was extremely abusive, but we were told in no uncertain terms by the leadership that our job wasn't to question the UL but to make sure that we helped them as best as we could.
"Chuck said" was still the fastest way to get anyone to do something your way, even with people that had joined after his death.
I very rarely made more than the $20 a week - and keep in mind, tax was taken out of it, so by the time it got to me, it was $17.86 a week, if we even got that. Since I wasn't having to pay rent or anything like that, it was easily doable - until it came time to go home, or go back to California for training. My parents had to pay for that. Training happened twice a year in the Oxnard area. It is expensive there. During training, we were expected to pay for gas, and any food we ate at the host homes (understandable, when you're living there for eight weeks in the summer). I was frequently having to go to the Deacons to get help paying for gas because I had only earned roughly $250 on a mission, and that was gone during the first two weeks of training because I was staying over an hour without traffic away from where training was taking place. (Deacons fund was basically there to help CPers who needed money for one thing or another.)
I enjoyed writing, and I would frequently be cautioned to make sure not to talk about my writing with hosts, because we needed to make sure that the focus was on Chuck and CP and God - and pretty much in that order.
I would frequently be told to not talk to my family about things, because they wouldn't understand and would think that CP was a cult.
Also for training, I was having to leave my host home at six in the morning to get to training by nine, and not getting home until two or three in the morning, because of how long training was. I was exhausted.
I had directors bully me until I had panic attacks, and then they'd congratulate themselves on finally getting through to me.
During critiques during training, Mark or Bobbi would talk to the director and cast after the affirmations time to tell them the things they'd done wrong and should work on (which is fine and not part of the problem). But if I as the actor were blamed for something I had specifically been directed to do, I wasn't allowed to point that out, because then it was arguing. I had multiple times that I'd be told why I shouldn't have done something I did that the director had told me to do and the director would nod and say "I told her not to do that, I guess I should have worked with her more on that".
I performed when I should have gone to the hospital. I performed with a dislocated shoulder. I performed with strep throat when I could barely talk - my Unit Leader made me do a singlet like that, and the church felt so bad for me that the pastor paid for me to go to the doctor because I couldn't afford to do it myself.
I was placed on a unit with a guy that date raped me. When I tried to explain why I wasn't comfortable with this, the blame was put on me, that I shouldn't have encouraged him and should have made things more clear.
There are so many things about CP that I loved. But holy hell, there were so many problems.
I can say that the fact that we still did verbal and written affirmations to Chuck even after his death raised warning flags for me, even at the time. The longer I spend out of CP, the more I realize that things were, at the very least, extremely problematic.
I didn't take the directing class for the beginner's level, because the person in charge of the class hated me, and would bully me whenever she was directing me in a play - which during the summer was pretty often.
I was placed under unit leaders that were emotionally and mentally abusive. I spent a year being one step away from a complete breakdown because of how they were treating me. One of them lied on the critique of a performance and blamed me for us skipping a couple pages of dialogue when it was another person that had done it, and said that they tried to give us three weeks to work on a play and they guessed they needed to give us more time. They had given us three hours, and I had learned a major role in that time, having never heard of the play before (for those CPers who know, it was Jill in "Best Laid Plans".) We didn't actually rehearse the play all the way through. We simply ran lines and ran lines and ran lines, and the guy playing Jack and I made up our own blocking during the performance. I was in charge of printing the reports off and happened to see them say that they'd given us three weeks and all that balderdash, so I wrote a letter to Mark and Bobbi J-T explaining that I knew I'd broken the rules by reading the critique, but that I couldn't in good conscience not say anything but that I was willing to take whatever punishment was deemed necessary for reading it, and told them what actually happened. I was chewed out and made to feel like crap, and they told the Unit Leader that I'd done it, and the UL was never in trouble for lying.
That Unit Leader was extremely abusive, but we were told in no uncertain terms by the leadership that our job wasn't to question the UL but to make sure that we helped them as best as we could.
"Chuck said" was still the fastest way to get anyone to do something your way, even with people that had joined after his death.
I very rarely made more than the $20 a week - and keep in mind, tax was taken out of it, so by the time it got to me, it was $17.86 a week, if we even got that. Since I wasn't having to pay rent or anything like that, it was easily doable - until it came time to go home, or go back to California for training. My parents had to pay for that. Training happened twice a year in the Oxnard area. It is expensive there. During training, we were expected to pay for gas, and any food we ate at the host homes (understandable, when you're living there for eight weeks in the summer). I was frequently having to go to the Deacons to get help paying for gas because I had only earned roughly $250 on a mission, and that was gone during the first two weeks of training because I was staying over an hour without traffic away from where training was taking place. (Deacons fund was basically there to help CPers who needed money for one thing or another.)
I enjoyed writing, and I would frequently be cautioned to make sure not to talk about my writing with hosts, because we needed to make sure that the focus was on Chuck and CP and God - and pretty much in that order.
I would frequently be told to not talk to my family about things, because they wouldn't understand and would think that CP was a cult.
Also for training, I was having to leave my host home at six in the morning to get to training by nine, and not getting home until two or three in the morning, because of how long training was. I was exhausted.
I had directors bully me until I had panic attacks, and then they'd congratulate themselves on finally getting through to me.
During critiques during training, Mark or Bobbi would talk to the director and cast after the affirmations time to tell them the things they'd done wrong and should work on (which is fine and not part of the problem). But if I as the actor were blamed for something I had specifically been directed to do, I wasn't allowed to point that out, because then it was arguing. I had multiple times that I'd be told why I shouldn't have done something I did that the director had told me to do and the director would nod and say "I told her not to do that, I guess I should have worked with her more on that".
I performed when I should have gone to the hospital. I performed with a dislocated shoulder. I performed with strep throat when I could barely talk - my Unit Leader made me do a singlet like that, and the church felt so bad for me that the pastor paid for me to go to the doctor because I couldn't afford to do it myself.
I was placed on a unit with a guy that date raped me. When I tried to explain why I wasn't comfortable with this, the blame was put on me, that I shouldn't have encouraged him and should have made things more clear.
There are so many things about CP that I loved. But holy hell, there were so many problems.