A Bomb Threat and Barricaded Doors: One Woman's Bethesda Christian Center Experience
And the "ironic and sad" behavior she now sees from Grace City Church leaders that reminds her of Larry and Devi Titus and the Bethesda days
Gen Elliston Derrick started attending Bethesda Christian Center in 1978 when she was in high school. Her decision to join the charismatic evangelical Christian organization led by the controversial pastor Larry Titus upset her parents.
So she moved out of her family home and into a Bethesda host home arranged for her by Titus and his wife, Devi. She gave up a two-year scholarship she had earned to attend Wenatchee Valley College and instead enrolled in Bethesda’s Bible College.
Gen only spent one quarter at the unaccredited Bible college before transferring to an accredited college in Spokane, but one memory from her time at Bethesda sticks out.
“I believe it was a Sunday night,” she said. “We were sitting there, and the pastor was giving a sermon or giving announcements, and everybody had settled down, and he said: ‘By the way, we got a call there’s a bomb here. Does anybody want to leave?’”
She said that his tone made it seem like he was daring people to leave.
“And nobody moved. Nobody,” she said. “We all just sat there like: ‘Well, if we’re going to die, we’re going to die and go to heaven!”
You can listen to an excerpt of that portion of the interview here:
“It was pretty sick,” she said. “There were a couple instances like that, not the bomb thing, but like ‘Ok, we’re going to shut the doors and lock ‘em. We’re going to do the offering again.’”
She said after the service, on the car ride home with her host family, the alleged bomb threat was not discussed.
“Nobody said anything in the car,” she said. “It was kind of – normal?”
Gen said it wasn’t uncommon for Titus to order the doors locked until they had reached an acceptable amount from the collection.
Before Bethesda, Gen went to the Wenatchee Free Methodist Church, where Greg McPherson was on staff.
“I was raised Catholic and then went to the Free Methodist Church and was in a big youth group,” she said. “Greg McPherson was the youth pastor and he wasn’t real happy when I went to Bethesda.”
If you have been following this series will probably recognize the name Greg McPherson. He’s the father of Grace City Church planter and leader Josh McPherson, as well as a member of the “Elder Support & Advisory Team” for that organization, according to GCC’s website. Years after Greg McPherson left the Wenatchee Free Methodist church it rebranded to Sage Hills Church.
Gen said she was in the Wenatchee Free Methodist youth group when Greg’s wife Candy became pregnant with Josh, and she visited them at the hospital after both Josh and his younger brother Carey were born.
She recalled one time when she and a group of friends were at a high school dance and Greg and Candy showed up to escort them off the premises.
“Candy and Greg showed up at one of our high school dances,” Gen said. “There were probably six of us that were in youth group and at the dance. Greg got in our faces and said, ‘There are two ways. One leads to heaven and the other to hell. This one leads to hell.’ He and Candy escorted us out. The next night he borrowed someone’s van and he took the six of us to Yakima to see a blind Christian man that played the piano and sang. I think the guy’s name was Ken Medema. Greg can be intense.”
There are more than a few ex-Bethesda followers who are now GCC members, but until I interviewed Gen, I didn’t understand how someone in her shoes would see similarities in leadership styles.
“There are a lot of connections. It is just kind of ironic because I know how Greg felt about Bethesda being this big group – this big church,” Gen said.
I have not heard any current or former GCC members report leaders talking about bomb threats, but they are pretty clear about the fact that they feel the need for a team of ”armed sheepdogs” to defend against enemy attack.
It’s an “us vs them” mentality not lost on Gen.
“I’m just kind of really sad that it’s that way there,” she said.
GCC leaders launching their own unaccredited Bible College and urging their followers to turn their backs on secular education was like history repeating itself in Gen’s eyes.
“When I saw the academy thing, the Vector Academy, I said to Matt (her partner) ‘How can these guys be like this?’”
What Happened to Larry and Devi Titus?
Where Larry Titus and his wife Devi came from and what they did in the Wenatchee Valley requires a book to cover. But where they ended up is pretty simple.
They are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas, according to their website, Kingdom Global Ministries.
And they have apparently transitioned into digital communications quite successfully. Gen said she was friends with Devi and their kids on Facebook until recently.
“Even a month ago I was watching a video of Devi decorating a table,” she said. “And she’s gotta be 70, 80?”
Hearing about the table decorating Facebook video made more sense after a source gave me a few storage boxes full of “Virtue,” the Christian women’s magazine Bethesda published for years, and which Devi edited.
They also never stopped asking for money, according to Gen.
“They did ask for money for a new home a while ago,” she said. “A couple of years ago they wanted to buy a mansion in Dallas/Fort Worth, and they were going to have couples come live with them so they could see how to raise a family or have family meals and table talk when you sit down to eat. So far as I know they did get the house.”
It should be noted that asking their followers to help provide the leader housing is also something Josh McPherson and GCC leaders did when they were building McPherson’s “nearly 5,000 sq ft home” near Monitor, Wa.
Even though Larry is beyond retirement age (according to Kingdom Global Ministry’s website they’ll be having his 80th birthday party this summer) he and Devi are still bringing in plenty of revenue from the organization.
According to KGM’s 990 tax returns available via ProPublica, In 2017 KGM brought in $581,292 and Larry’s compensation was $104,463.
In 2018 KGM’s total revenue was $749,929 and Larry took home $80,757 and Devi $69,535, which comes to a total of $150,292 between the two. 2019 and 2020 were leaner years, according to the tax returns.
After spending time under religious leaders like Titus and McPherson, Gen said she’s done with organized religion.
“I’d say I’m spiritual but I don’t really have any interest in going back to a church,” she said.
What’s Next In The Bethesda Saga?
The psychological hold leaders like Titus cultivate and use to their advantage is the most interesting aspect of this story, in my mind.
As Eyre is quoted in this article from the Walla Walla Bulletin from 1980, he said that Titus “was God” in his eyes, and he was in a “spiritual marriage” with him.
Now that I am nearly finished archiving and reading though the binders of clippings and boxes of material ex-Bethesda members have provided me, I plan on going back to the beginning and chronicling the entire story for posterity. Very little about the Bethesda story can be found online, which is something I aim to remedy.
If people are able to read and understand how Titus held his followers in thrall in the past, then perhaps they can learn how to avoid being manipulated in the present and future.
During this journey, I am interested in speaking with any ex-Bethesda member who wants to share their story. If you or someone you know has stories from their time at Bethesda Christian Center, please email me at wenatcheejournalist@gmail.com.
Nice work Dominick & Gen. Thanks for sharing.
Ok, I have to admit, my first thought was that this was just one of those bizarrely funny articles from The Onion, or Mrs. Betty Bowers. The fact that this actually happened, and is actually becoming commonplace, is frightening.