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Historian Needed - Dave Freeman [message #2377]

Tue, 15 July 2008 11:43

OnceRemoved
Messages: 5
Registered: July 2008
Location: New Berlin WI

Junior Member

I first listened to a Hobart Freeman tape in a dorm room in Oshkosh, WI. A friend was on the automatic list and she invited a group of us to meet and listen to tapes. She told us about a small store front church, in Milwaukee, where "the word was preached with signs following" by a young man named Dave Freeman. A few weeks later a group of us made the hour-and-a-half drive to Milwaukee. After the message Dave ministered to the assembly and the Holy Spirit moved in a dramatic way, unlike anything I had experienced to that point.

We were hooked. From that point on we scraped together gas money and begain making the weekly pilgramage to Milwaukee. Only a few weeks later, a man I had never met stood up to inform us that Dave would not be coming back, that he had been "Disfellowshipped." That was in either late '76 or early '77.

A local man assumed the role of pastor of the congregation and his teaching mirrored whatever was coming out of Indiana at the time. But the church never seemed to rise to the status of a sister church even though Steve Hill, Bruce Kinsey and Tom Hamilton made regular apperances.

I traveled to Indiana several times but I only saw Hobart Freeman teach once. Faith Assembly was meeting in a tent, at the time.

I dropped out of school and moved to Milwaukee. I met my wife at the Milwaukee church(Charismatic Faith Assembly) and we were a part of that body until 1984. Just before we left, our twins were born. It was a home birth and we knew we were having twins only when the second one was delivered. We took them to church the very next week only to learn that many of the children were "battling the lying sypmtoms of whooping cough." All four of my children became sick and one of the twins became critically ill.

I sought medical attention for my daughter, a fact we kept to ourselves because I didn't feel as though I "missed it" and I was not ready to repent for what I did. Eventually I said as much in a letter to the pastor which also informed him we would not be coming back. The next week he told the congregation to "turn off the tape recorders" and he instructed the congregation to have nothing to do with us until we repented. It was a crushing experience.

I've tried to make sense of those years. Finding the website has stirred up all kinds of memories.

Can anyone give me the background on why Dave Freeman was disfellowshipped? What became of him?

Thanks,

OnceRemoved

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