This transcrpit has been edited for clarity.

Episode 035 – The Demise of Keith Green’s Last Days Ministries, Brought to you by Melody Green and YWAM – Part 1

March 13^th, 2024

T: Hi, I’m Tracey.

S: And I’m Sharon, and we are Feet of Clay…

T: Confessions of the Cult Sisters.

S: Today’s topic is not going to be quite as fun as the banter on our last episode with our Down Under little bros, Troy and Brian.

T: That’s right. Not nearly as fun. This is going to be a subject that is actually really heavy for both of us, Sharon.

S: Yeah. And for quite a few of our former LDM brothers and sisters, because lots of other people were also very deeply impacted by the events that we are going to be talking about.

T: Yeah. In our first episode of season 2, we had a heartfelt – and at times it was kind of heart wrenching for both of us – discussion about the interview that Melody Green had given in late 2023. In that discussion we touched very briefly on a few of the dynamics that come into play after Keith died.

S: And these dynamics included the role of YWAM. For the uninitiated, that stands for Youth With A Mission but Tracey, you know I prefer to call them Youth Who Are Manipulated.

T: Apropos, apropos.

S: Yes. So as time went on, YWAM gained more and more influence and control over Last Days Ministries. So now we figured, since we kind of opened that box a little bit, it’s finally time to tackle this big, hairy pile of shit that was …dun dun duuunnnhh…[in a spacey voice] the demise of Last Days Ministries!

T: Hmmmm.

S: And Tracey, as shit tons of shit are measured, I think this is probably one of the biggest and shittiest of tons.

T: Oh, yes, yes it is. This is a super important topic to me for several reasons. One, while we were on our very short break Sharon, I was following closely the events that were happening around IHOP KC – or the demise of IHOP KC (at least we hope).

S: Yep. And again, for the maybe uninitiated, that stands for International House of Prayer, Kansas City. Just want to make that clear, because none of us want to see an end to pancakes and maple syrup, right?

T: [laughing] Not at all! And of course, with all of that came some very serious allegations made against Mike Bickle which are being covered by other accounts and other podcasts in great detail which we’ll put links into our show notes – we don’t want to have to go down that rabbit hole here.

S: Right.

T: But basically, what stood out to me – almost like a flashback Sharon, was seeing how there were two groups of leaders set against each other.

S: Right! Right, yep, so there’s this – what do they call themselves, the advocate group? Or maybe other people call them that, which is made up of former leaders at IHOP KC, and they are the ones kind of just bringing forth these really serious allegations to the current executive leadership group at IHOP, and there’s this battle that started up between these two groups. Then of course there’s a host of other well-known Evangelical leaders that are jumping in to put their two cents into the fray.

T: It was so similar to what we experienced. Sharon, 37 years ago …

S: [laughing] I know, rub it in…

T: And I know that this time, because we added it, because usually I’m like oh, 20 years ago. And my heart honestly just went out to all of these young people on these Instagram accounts that I’ve been following, and seeing how they are experiencing, for the first time, that betrayal of their very own leaders, just like you and I experienced so many years ago. You could feel just how their hearts were bleeding in their posts.

S: Yeah, you are so right. And I also noticed that there are many of the words and phrases that are getting slung at these victims – and at those who dare to defend them – but those words and the accusations Tracey, I mean, they are like, frighteningly similar to what we heard way back when.

T: Yes. Words and phrases like tools of the devil.

S: Mmhmm.

T: Or being in league with the devil.

S: Right.

T: Or always my favorite, the root of bitterness. You know, it defiles many, and of course accusing the advocate group of bad motives, they just wanted to take over the ministry, that’s why they’re saying these things – all deflecting from the very serious allegations.

S: Mmhmm.

T: And I remembered back when we were going through that, almost four decades ago at Last Days Ministries and it was a terrible time of confusion, devastation, heartbreak, and disillusionment. I mean, I was 23 years old. I was so naïve, Sharon.

S: Oh man. We were all so naïve. You’re right, there are many important reasons for us to unpack that whole series of events that happened long ago. One of the reasons top on my list is so that others can identify – today, in the here and now – they can identify these oh-so-familiar red flags. They’re glaring to us, but maybe other people don’t notice them as significant as we know that they are. And also hopefully so that these people who are being victimized now can find some reassurance that they are not going crazy.

T: Mmhmm.

S: I think Tracey, that was part of the worst of it for me. At the end – the end of my time there – the YWAM international council told us that we were in sin and of the devil. Of course it made me question myself. I’m a little older than you, but I’m in my mid-twenties and I wanted with all my heart to love and follow Jesus. I still see myself as a kid, and then here are these older, wiser, the highest most “spiritual leaders” of the highest most spiritual missions ministry in the whole world, and they’re telling us this shit. I was so confused, and I was terrified. I wasn’t terrified of the YWAM leaders, but I was terrified of the possibility of my own wicked heart. Was I maybe so deceived that I didn’t even realize how evil I was? Oh my god, the self-doubt and judgement. It was so fucked up. Seeing what is happening now makes me so angry to think of the young people today who are being spiritually abused in this very same way.

T: Absolutely. Absolutely, Sharon. Of course, in the case of Last Days Ministries there were very numerous events at different points in time that could be considered the end of Last Days.

S: Wait, like, the last day of Last Days? Or there were a bunch of different last days of Last Days.

T: There were! Which fits into this so well, because in the end there will be signs, right? Well, the last days of Last Days Ministries as we knew it, and as we will discover more as we get into this, there is definitely a propensity of leadership to protect the institution at all costs.

S: Oh yeah!

T: Because Sharon, funny-not-funny, Last Days still exists on the web. We might even see IHOP KC continue in some form as well. Ugh.

S: Yep. Oh fun.

T: Oh fun, but as we talk about Last Days Ministries we intend to talk about the events that are most significant, and that are never included in that commonly known history.

S: Never! Never, never, never.

T: And of course, the entire cascade was kicked off with the death of founder Keith Green in that terrible fiery plane crash of July 1982, and you and I go into a lot more detail in episode 14 of season 1, The Plane Crash that Killed Keith Green and we will definitely put links in our show notes.

S: Yep. Alright, so in what we’re doing now, today and in the episodes to come, we’re going to cover the big picture basics about this downward spiral and eventual collapse of Last Days Ministries, and in doing so we are also going to delve deeper into some behind-the-scenes details that as far as we know, have never before been discussed publicly.

T: No! Because they’re the kind of thing that you just sweep under the carpet.

S: Mmhmm.

T: The details that ministry histories tend to want to whitewash. I hate it. I hate it so much. Mike Bickle does this all the time. He talks so much – I don’t know if you follow it, but he talks of the prophetic history and he embellishes so much to fit his narrative, and it’s absolutely not depicted as he says when you start to fact check him.

S: Oh those horrible fact checkers! They’re so, so inconvenient!

T: It’s happened with his story, and you know recently we’ve been reading a little bit more of the story of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot.

S: Oh  yeah!

T: You know Elisabeth Elliot helped fuel the whole purity culture movement back in the day, and many more details are coming out about how that relationship was not quite the narrative she was trying to tell in all of her books. Of course we’ve seen this first hand over and over again as we’ve read Melody’s book, and we’ve listened to her speak, and we’ve heard her events, and there is a serious editing of the real story of Last Days.

S Mmmhmm.

T: Sharon, you and I have always noticed that there are two pivotal events that get virtually no air play whenever Melody or YWAM are starting down memory lane.

S: And what might those be Tracey? What were those events?

T: What were those events – well, in 1986 Melody got engaged to a younger staff member at Last Days Ministries who had been her piano player, but he broke it off. I think you were involved a little bit more in that.

S: I saw that, I witnessed that in person. I did. Very sad.

T: Then in 1991 she married Andrew Sievright, a marriage that lasted that lasted – wait for it – almost ten years.

S: I know, right?

T: And then she later divorced.

S: But that’s never anywhere. It’s here’s Melody Green, widow of Keith Green but there’s no like, she was also the wife of somebody else.

T: No.

S: No, no, she was the wife of Andrew Sievright longer than she was the wife of Keith Green. Oh my god that just hit me. Is that true?

T: Are you sure of the math?

S: Wait, when did they get married? They got married in 73? Oh my god, we’ll have to look that up.

T: But it’s close, it’s close right?

S: Yeah. Yeah!

T: Oh, and so in this telling it’s as though she’s become this sweet, suffering widow figure who’d been almost virginal.

S: That’s right!

T: Which we know how we all like these virginal characters.

S: You mean the fundys do.

T: Yes.

S: The fundys like their virgins.

T: Ever since her prophet husband Keith Green went home to be with Jesus, which just builds this insidious narrative and mythos that is quite disingenuous.

S: Yeah. It drives me kinda crazy, these glaring omissions. We debated. We debated do we talk about this? On the one hand it would be fair to say hey, that’s her personal private life, leave it alone. And yes that is fair, except that she is holding up and promoting these hardcore religious ideals about how everyone else should behave in their private lives, and if people do anything less then they are not being good Christians. So to me, these – I don’t know Tracey, they just drive me crazy. They’re hypocrisies, right? These glaring hypocrisies are why it’s important to call out the double standard, because those hypocrisies and that false image and fantasy, it causes real life pain and real life suffering and horrific damage to innocent people who are just trying to live up to this whole fantasy shit that isn’t even really real.

T: It’s so important Sharon! And as far as her personal life on display, she is the one – and we can say Elisabeth Elliot joined in as well – they are the ones that hold up as an example of a no compromise lifestyle to the rest of us, that makes this examination of their personal lives not intrusive, but absolutely necessary. They’re the ones who introduced this to the public in the first place, and yet they edit out anything that doesn’t fit the narrative they have designed.

S: Right. Doesn’t fit the narrative, and dare I say, hurts the brand. That’s such a good point, that editing. We did figure out in looking back that Melody definitely learned how to leverage that image of the innocent suffering widow figure. You’re so good at finding these things and sending them to me, and you sent me this link to this old TV interview that Melody did in 1987, right after the tornado that hit the Last Days property. You had already watched it, I watched it separately, then when we talked about it later, we both had the exact same reaction.

T: Yes! Such the same reaction. There she is, she’s talking about her personal loss with the backdrop right – there’s this ranch house in the background that’s completely destroyed by the tornado, and all about her personal loss with of course her kids and her husband – and as we’ve said over and over again, absolutely terrible.

S: Absolutely.

T: So she positions herself so that anyone challenging that narrative, we look like the cold and callous jerks.

S: Right? We look like assholes. We do.

T: Yes.

S: But the Melody that we saw and heard in that interview – and we’ll put a link in to it too so that people can watch it – the Melody in that interview, she comes across as gentle and humble and not at all angry at God, just totally trusting God and so loving, but Tracey, that was not the Melody that we knew and lived with and worked with in real life, day after day after day. So I think she really figured out what sort of public persona would garner her the biggest benefit, and she played that part really, really well. I look at it now and I’m like, I’m embarrassed that I did not see it at all way back then, this stark contrast and the contradiction of the public Melody versus the private Melody.

T: Yeah. I don’t know how many times I actually saw her in public because we were there behind the scenes, but I do find it very interesting that in that particular interview right after the tornado, it was the one and only time I have ever seen or heard her make mention of a broken engagement. I thought that was very interesting.

S: It was very interesting, it was. But to me even that mention, it was in this context of gathering and leveraging sympathy, right? She’s just had such a hard time, so many troubling things, and she’s trusting God, and it’s almost like she’s suffering for her faith, and isn’t it so beautiful that she’s trusting God rather than – and the way it was just tossed out there – I suffered a broken engagement. Okay. But there’s nothing in that that even hints at the reality of how and why her fiancé called it quits. I think the real motivation for that interview was to get people to send money.

T: Oh my god Sharon. Yes, yes it was. I was still there at LDM and in that video clip it was actually a flashpoint for many of us, because we were not seeing Melody as the poor, broken widow, right? We were angry. For those listeners who might remember it, you might remember Sharon, I even mentioned it in my interview with Tray and Broin, Broy and Trian…

S: [laughing]

T: I even mentioned it in my interview with Brian and Troy, I talked very briefly about how we had to put back the pieces of destruction from that tornado that we had already started to clean up – remember?

S: Yeah, all the debris, all the pieces of roofing and metal and branches and all the trash.

T: Yes. And we had to do that, because the 700 Club was coming to film what had happened, and this would be an opportunity – and it was not a secret to all of us – to garner donations for…

S: Which – I’m sorry – which is so the opposite of everything Keith stood for, right? I mean, it’s like holy fuck! It’s not at all what he stood for.

T: Yes. So this interview with the destroyed ranch house in the background and her demure behavior was absolutely a staged effect. Honestly Sharon, I have been searching for evidence of that video; I have scoured the 700 Club archives, I’ve gone on YouTube…

S: Oh my god, wait, wait. You’ve scoured the 700 Club archives? You are really taking it for the team, Tracey!

[laughter]

S: If you’ve been reviewing that.

T: Well, I had gone on record and it’s a vivid memory, but I wanted to fact check myself – was that the 700 Club? Do I remember that correctly? And there it was, on one of our own alumni sites, this clip done for the 700 Club, and of course I sent it right to you but of course you are very right, it was done to garner donations.

S: Yeah. Okay, so in that timeline that was like, two months after we were kicked off the property, my ex-husband and I, so I wasn’t there when it was happening, but what you’re saying makes total sense. The demure, softspoken Melody in that interview was totally, totally by design.

T: Absolutely, and we’ll dive more into that as we get into the details. You know Sharon, that also got me thinking. In our earlier interview with Dawn Green we put a bright spotlight on the fact that Dawn did not have a choice about joining and living at Last Days Ministries, while the rest of us clearly made a decision. We had a life, we decided to go there – and it got me thinking, did Melody have a choice?

S: Mmm. Hmm.

T: If Keith had not been so controlling, and if the toxic belief system had not pounded the idea that Christian women had to submit to virtually anything their husbands heard from God – or demanded – would this have been the life that Melody really wanted?

S: Hmm. That is a really great question. Yeah, like, if she could have started from scratch, what would she have done? I have a hard time imagining that she would have said oh, I know what I wanna do, I’m gonna  start this cult commune.

[laughter]

S: Last Days Ministries – I’m not so sure that’s what she would have chosen yeah.

T: Nope.

S: When you think about it that way, if she did not have a choice and this was forced upon her, was Keith’s legacy a liability and something she just had to continue when it wasn’t something she really wanted, or was it the perfect platform from which she could seek out attention and affirmation, and financial gain that she would not have been able to achieve on her own? It could have been either one, right?

T: Yeah. And as we’ve learned in our own lives, sometimes a combination of both. It’s hard to detangle from each other.

S: Right.

T: I have thought about it at different times over the years, how she started out I guess in the earlier days before she met Keith, in this hippie generation, pursuing fashion. I have always wondered what her life could have been like.

S: Yeah, like if Keith had never walked into that video production place she was working at, yeah. Oh, hey, do you remember Dawn messaging us a while back? She pointed out something that somehow I never really made the connection with before. So that was like, when Mel and Keith first got together, Keith walks into that video production place and he starts pursuing her, she was really stylish and attractive, and then Dawn talks about how the Last Days Ministries ball gets rolling, and so Melody becomes more and more frumpy and downright dowdy, right?

T: Yes, as both you and I also became.

S: Oh yeah!

T: From photographic evidence.

S: We rocked that look man, we rocked it. But then after Keith dies and Melody is on her own, I think she had this reawakening to some sort of sense of style and of herself. So we’ve got the new stylish clothes, and her hair gets permed – because of course, this was the 1980s everybody.

T: Yeah, and I doubt Keith would have been into permed hair.

S: No. No, absolutely not, and she gets to wear makeup again, and jewellery and Dawn said Keith did not allow that. So yeah, there’s this total physical transformation, and probably going back to her more authentic self, really.

T: Yeah, or at least parts of it. I’ve also wondered in all of that, because she goes hard into politics, right?

S: Right.

T: Was that a hangover from the counterculture days of the 1960s?

S: Well wait a second, wait, I don’t understand that. The counterculture was against the government, but then she went into it, so what are you…

T: I know! So it’s – I think that’s where it gets flipped on its head, but you know these protests that are happening against obviously the Vietnam war and the things our government are doing, but now on the Christian side we’re against what the government has done against Christianity and it’s right in that whole sphere of being in the protest, marching, having this big, outsized voice against what she sees as what’s wrong.

S: Right. Right, okay, yep, I get it. Oh my god are we going down rabbit trails? We’re trying to do an overview here.

T: Overview….

S: Overview yeah – good luck with that. Good luck with keeping us on track. Aright, so let me bring it back. How about that time period from 1987 through the late 1990s. That was after I was kicked out, and you had abandoned ship. You left Last Days.

T: Yeah, well I stayed for the wonderful half year of 1987, which there’s a lot of bad things that happened in that, that we’ll get into.

S: But it was still years before we deconstructed. I mean, we left.

T: Yes.

S: Our bodies left, but our brains were still totally hijacked and imprisoned. So in that time period you and I and many others who had left Last Days – we were very, very angry about what was happening there in those years, and we thought it was not true to Keith’s vision, not true to the commitments of integrity that we all had made, not true to what we had all sacrificed so much of our lives for, and we see YWAM’s manipulation and control, we see Melody being Melody, and what she was doing was not even close to the vision and passion that had drawn all of us, first to Jesus, and then to Keith and Last Days Ministries, all those years before.

T: Ohh Sharon, there is so much to talk about here.

S: Yep.

T: We, listeners, are going to dive into all of it, that’s why this is going to be a series. Because of course, there’s the question of whether or not Keith’s original vision was a worthy one, was worthy of all of our lives.

S: Right!

T: Or was it totally messed up from the beginning? Was it corrupted along the way, or was it time for that vision to finally come to an end? And to be truthful, some of us were feeling that then.

S: Yeah. Yeah we were. Past time. Way past time. Those are big questions.

T: Very big questions, and I also see that very similar narrative that is weaving through the story of IHOP KC as well. You can clearly see if you go back to the beginning days that it’s absolutely built on faulty ground, yet there’s something about the prayer room that you will hear these genuine sincere souls absolutely having fond memories of. They talk about the positive change in their lives, and how it definitely changed them. You and I, we found that in our community.

S: Yes we did. Yes we did.

T: So we know that there were great aspects that kept us there for a time, until the leadership – did they start bad practices, or are we just growing up enough to start seeing bad practices?

S: That’s a great question. There’s an evolution going on.

T: There is.

S: In everybody that was there.

T: And we start to see that more and more people are being taken advantage of, and it become more and more of a machine. I know we’re going to give much more color and commentary to this along the way.

S: Yeah. Alright folks well, bottom line, these episodes we’re going to do on the topic are really kind of like a post mortem – we’re doing the autopsy after what was a long and painful, and miserable death of a vision. I think I’ve mentioned this before Tracey, but ultimately Last Days Ministries became what Keith always said he did not want; this broken, irrelevant, hollow shell on life support with these tubes and wires artificially keeping it limping along, and the useful life was long past.

T: Mmhmm.

S: Yeah, so it’s kind of ironic in that. Alright, well let’s start laying out the outline of the timeline. The birth of it all – no, I guess maybe the conception of it all was in 1975, and that’s when Keith – after a couple of years of dabbling and searching, he finally “gets saved” at age 21, and Melody was quite resistant to that whole religious journey. Ultimately she follows along because, in her own words “I was following Keith.”

T: Yep. That quiet part out loud. Of course it only is a few short months later in 1975 that Keith personally urges you Sharon, at 14 years old, to invite Jesus into your heart as your personal savior.

S: Oh my god, you know that term personal savior – do they still, is that still in the fundy circles today?

T: You know, that’s a good question. I think it’s on the fringes, I haven’t heard it take center stage like for us it was center stage.

S: Yeah – your personal savior.

T: You and I have talked about our own trauma that we had that ultimately led us to follow this path, and I know I can still say I think I was glad I went to Last Days, so how do you square that with everything else? We’ll continue to unpack all of that.

S: It’s that thing again of more than one thing can be true at the same time.

T: Yes.

S: When Keith “led me to Jesus” it wasn’t a personal savior, it was God zapped you! That’s what he used to call it. And I think so too – when I consider my family of origin, my alcoholic mom, my absent father, and I see this tragic road my younger siblings went down, so as fucked up as many things were at Last Days – I don’t know Tracey, it might have been my best option at the time. I mean, I guess it kept me off the streets and off drugs and out of jail, so there’s some good things for that, for sure. For sure.

T: And we’ll get into that, no rabbit holes.

S: Alright, sorry, so back to the timeline. Once again we have to get ourselves organized and to help listeners navigate the details, we’ve put together an outline of key dates and timeframes, dividing these ranges into….wait for it…ERAs!

T: Eras!! Oh my god, our very own Eras tour! I’m so excited, and for those listeners who may be living in a cave or under a rock, if Taylor Swift who at age 34 can have her own Eras tour, then dammit, at our age Sharon we have definitely earned an Eras tour.

S: [laughing] Oh my god Tracey, this must be really intense for you, because you usually are not the one using the colorful language you know?

[laughter]

S: Okay, so everybody, this Eras thing – it’s totally Tracey’s idea, so if you love it she gets all the credit, and if you hate it – you can blame her.

T: I don’t know how anyone can hate the Eras tour – which I also have to spell, because when I first heard about it I thought it was Eros tour – which is sexual, passionate love tour, but…

S: Well can we have one of those? I want one of those!

T: That can be another series, Sharon.

S: Okay, okay, Alright, so we are going to do our very best to be as accurate as possible with the timelines and the events of these eras – and as always, we’ve just gotta acknowledge that no one has a perfect memory. Not us, not anyone. So we certainly welcome input from anyone out there who can offer us corrections or additions.

T: Yes.

S: Okay. Tracey, do you want a drumroll to kick this off?

T: I do!

S: Okay, ready? Alright, let me see if I can get one going here.

T: I don’t know if there’s a rock and roll Taylor Swift drumroll? But go ahead.

S: [drumroll sounds]

T: Ooh!

S: Did that work?

T: Not bad, not bad. The first Era is Keith Green blazing bright, till it literally goes down in flames. The first Era, Keith Green builds and drives the great big bus called Last Days Ministries from 1977 to mid-1982, which is just about five years.

S: Oh my god, I just had this vision. Do you remember the Partridge family bus?

T: Oh, yes, yes!

S: Wouldn’t it have been fun to have a Last Days Ministries decorated bus?

T: Oh my god, I may have never left!

[laughter]

S: Well, if David Cassidy was there, for sure we wouldn’t have left.

T: Yes. Um, so yeah…

S: I interrupt. Sorry. Continue.

T: We might have to recreate what we think that Last Days but… Metaphorically speaking, the Last Days bus begins with the official formation of the legal non-profit Last Days Ministries Evangelical Association in Southern California, and of course it encompasses the 1979 move to East Texas and then it all comes crashing to an end, as we have mentioned on several episodes, on July 28^th 1982 when Keith is killed when the plane goes down in a big ball of fire.

S: Mmm. So the second Era we are calling the Reign and Regime of Melody Green, starting in July of 1982 right after the plane crash, when she grabs the wheel of the Last Days Ministries bus – so to speak – and YWAM is riding shotgun in disguise. It goes through until the end of 1986, this particular period we’re talking about, about four and a half years. During these years there are the Keith Green Memorial Concerts, that’s recruiting people into YWAM schools and missions, then Melody gets more and more political with all the pro-life stuff, and the start up of Americans Against Abortion, and then she really, really wants to be a music recording and concert touring star, and that was a huge problem. So this Era ends with a giant symbolic crash. There’s a organizational crisis in which virtually every person in any sort of key or leadership role at Last Days believes that Melody needs to step down and this even includes her then-fiancé, who abruptly breaks off the engagement. When I think of this time period Tracey – and I know we’re going to go much deeper into it – but the horrible fact is that with the whole Americans Against Abortion campaign, Tracey, you and I and all of us there at Last Days – we were guilty of sowing the seeds of Christian Nationalism. What has become this incredible, insane movement of Christian Nationalism.

T: Yes. And we will definitely do much more on this, particularly as this is an election year, hitting another more in depth series on that, but we are absolutely guilty of sowing, watering, fertilizing, and of course to our great shame and sorrow, it’s our kids – more importantly our daughters’ generation – who are reaping this toxic rotten fruit.

S: Yeah. And our grandchildren. Our granddaughters to come. Yeah. That’s why we gotta help make this…

T: Which is why…

S: We gotta walk this back. We gotta do our own penance, and try to undo the shit.

T: We do. And talk about what was really behind that movement. More on that later. The third Era I like to call Touch Not God’s Anointed.

S: Ooooh.

T: Which is Melody and YWAM again at the helm.

S: I like what you did there! That was creative. Thank you.

T: Yes. Of course, this is an era of contradiction, collusion and corruption.

S: Mmmhmmm.

T: YWAM performs a very stealthy, masterful move of hijacking that LDM bus. It starts at the end of 1986 and goes through 1990 – about four years – and despite a myriad of character, ethics and qualification issues, and of course we know now that YWAM has a sordid history of never dealing or addressing appropriately leaders with character issues…

S: Yep, never, never, never.

T: We didn’t know that then, so they propped Melody back up into a prime leadership role, because she’s been anointed,

S: “Anointed”. Ohh. Anointed.

T: And so at the same time, Sharon and her then husband, Last Days elder, are kicked out, followed by almost every key LDM leader abandoning the bus before it falls off the proverbial cliff.

S: Yeah, you hung in there for a little while, didn’t you.

T: I did. We’ll get into the whys of that.

S: Okay.

T: So listeners, this was really a time of chaos and accusations, much like why we wanted to do this, because we see the same thing at IHOP KC. We’re like, what is happening, and so in the midst of this confusion, I shit you not – a tornado strikes at the very heart of Last Days Ministries in Texas, striking every significant building that we have, which drives operations to a halt.

S: Oh my god.

T: So more on that as well, but of course, YWAM’s tentacles only grow tighter. Melody dives into the duplicitous political actions, then in 1990 Melody starts dating, and hears from God, confirmed by many leaders, the call to marry her husband, Andrew Sievright.

S: That’s right. God. God’s the one who told her to do this, right?

T: Yeah, I mean, God told you to marry, God told me to marry, so…

S: That’s true. God tells all of us.

T: That’s how we got married.

[laughter]

S: That’s how we did get married! Okay, our fourth Era – the Mountains Mandate.

T: Mmmm.

S: YWAM and Andrew and Melody are kind of at the pinnacle of this one. I think there’s distractions, dissembling and decline. Here we go with my alliteration again, right? So Melody – actually, I’m not sure was it Melody or was it Andrew? Anyway, they basically give YWAM official control, or whatever that is, because YWAM says they’re decentralized but – what the fuck does that even mean?

T: I don’t know. I call it the acquisition from hell, but go ahead.

S: Okay, but even with YWAM now having whatever ownership they have, even they can’t keep the wheels from falling off the bus. This lasts also about four years, goes from 1991 to 1996. In 1991 Melody marries Andrew Sievright and officially moves Last Days into or under YWAM, whatever we want to call it. But get this – Andrew becomes the leader, right? He becomes the leader of the base.

T: Because Sharon, he’s now the head of this new household, duh?

S: Right, because hey, if you’ve got a cock and balls, that makes you qualified.

T: That qualifies you.

S: Well, he then starts to proclaim proudly that this is one of the largest YWAM bases in North America, and he is the leader of it.

T: And he’s the leader!

S: But in spite of his self-proclaimed business acumen and whatever other shit he wants to say about himself, the donations start drying up and the place is ultimately physically closed down in 1996, ending the Mountains Mandate era.

T: Yes, and you would think, ending Last Days.

S: You would think!

T: But no. But no, Sharon, there’s more. We have a fifth Era. This could be called The Hidden Years, or The Dark Years, because Melody goes strangely silent for a period of time, and this of course is where the Vineyard and IHOP KC enters. This period is from 1997 to about 2006. So Melody divorces Andrew in 2000 – of course, despite this being a God-sanctioned marriage confirmed by several elders and several leaders…

S: The top leaders, right? It would have been the top leaders of YWAM.

T: And you know, you and I have been divorced so we absolutely get that this is another painful blow to her, and actually we heard recently from someone from that exact year that was very close to a very well known Christian leader, that she had come to stay with them. In this person’s perspective, Melody was going through a nervous breakdown. So we get that. This is super, super painful, and it makes sense. Because she returns to her Vineyard roots, which by this time had become a part of the International House of Prayer, Kansas City, where, throughout (I guess) Fundamentalism it was touted as the next big movement of God that was happening here in Kansas City.

S: Right, and gotta be drawn to the next big movement! Gotta be drawn to the big public stuff, right?

T: Yes, and the big news there is of course, this was birthed out of the Metro Vineyard fellowship in Kansas City and there is definitely a lot out there, and that’s very much a pun intended, because this news is out there as far as what that history is like. You will see from many people who now are posting even more about that original history, that it has this entire network of global ministries that share the same eschatology, that it is their job to usher in Christ’s return, which then brings us back around to Last Days shit, Sharon.

S: Last Days. Yes. Okay. Our sixth era and I guess our final era, really – shall we call it The Zombie Years?

T: The Zombie Years.

S: Yeah, so Last Days is reborn, or maybe just reanimated. It’s onlined, 2006 to the present, and limping along on this life support.

T: I think a Zombie image is so accurate. In 2006, Melody proclaims that it’s 10 years after the actual closing of the ranch, that physical closing of the ranch, that they have heard from God to be released to launch out again.

S: Wait, I gotta interrupt you. That just so fucking drives me crazy. We’ve been released from God; we’ve heard from God – I’m like, holy shit people, just acknowledge it’s what you want to do!

T: Yes.

S: It’s okay – this is what I want to do, so I’m gonna do it. But this need to cloak everything in well, we’ve got the direction of the Lord. Okay, I know I interrupted, but go on.

T: Yes, which gets you into trouble, that’s the very thing that gets you into trouble, because now we have records of all of these things right, so every time it’s God this and God that and you have a record of it going awry, and it just causes you problems. So they have been called by God to launch again, and design and envision Last Days Ministries as an online platform. I don’t know what happened between 2006 and 2008, but it takes them until 2008 to actually launch the LDM online platform – which Sharon, is live to this day.

S: Sadly. Yes.

T: And we know that there is at least one staff member that’s associated with this who answers to emails, because you Sharon actually got an answer to an email that you sent to the Last Days Ministries online platform.

S: I did, and by the way I’m still waiting for them to remove that last article that I found, but yeah. The online platform, where you can sign up to “get Melody’s monthly newsletter”. I have no idea whether it really is going out monthly, or has been or whatever, there is a link to get information on the “Keith Green Feature Film”. This is way over 10 years old, this news announcement, calling for prayer so that it won’t be just a “good movie” but have a “powerful anointing so lives around the world will be touched and transformed”. That update was in 2012, so um, I guess maybe God isn’t behind that one because it hasn’t happened? I don’t know.

T: I don’t know, but it’s also one of the reasons we have to also help set the record straight before the movie takes the story and makes it one of those edited versions. Of course, on this website you can get  lot of this old LDM pamphlets and newsletters. That’s where various anniversary events are announced to honor Keith. These events are usually styled in that memorial concert style, and are always touted as helping to reacquaint the next generation with Keith’s message, and of course that message is No Compromise. There’s also a link to invite Melody to a speaking engagement, so I’m sure that’s a revenue stream.

S: I wonder what her speaking fees would be.

T: I have no idea.

S: Shall we invite her to come and speak at our Flamy Grant concert?

T: To be on our podcast?

[laughter]

T: Oh wow.

S: Sorry.

T: No, that’s great. One of the things I did find out that I bet you didn’t even know – I found that Melody did launch Melody G, not Green but Melody G music in June of 2013, introducing one of her very newest songs that she wrote. It’s called Neverending Love. We can definitely put that in our show notes. It’s written by Melody Green and it’s sung by someone named Rebecca Friedlander – I don’t know who that is.

S: Wow. I did not know that. When we get done recording I’m going to have to go listen. I had no idea.

T: Yes, it’s a song that completely reminds me of one of the choruses that we used to sing – [singing] Only when life will soon be past, only what’s done for God will last… Just a dirge of basically our lives are nothing.

S: Oh yeah. Alright. God. Well that’s great yeah, our lives are nothing. Our lives are nothing. That is what we lived. That is what we lived. So, it brings us back to – I’m gonna admit, this feels really heavy to me Tracey, revisiting all of this. It ain’t nearly as fun as talking with Troy and Brian.

T: Not at all.

S: No, but as – as we’ve noted before, as far as we can tell, no one else is stepping up to put more of the real story out there, so at this point it’s you and me, sister. You and me.

T: Yep, you and me, so here we are with our very own Eras tour, Sharon. I will just say that it’s not nearly as spectacular – I think one fan of Taylor Swift said, her Eras Tour is a spectacular journey, and ours is anything but spectacular, but it is our shared journey.

S: And it’s really important to me. I know we talked about this in the beginning but I want to say it again. It’s really important to me that we lay these things out as accurately and fully as possible in this and coming episodes, and – I don’t know how many episodes it’s gonna take to cover all this, I guess we’re just gonna figure that out as we go along. The other thing Tracey I just wanted to mention to you, and I want our listeners to hear, is I don’t want to feel rushed or jammed. I want to do this once, I want to tell this whole story once, and then I want to be done with it. I’d like to think we can keep to our every other week plan, but if we need a little more time, the quality to me is more important than the schedule.

T: Yes.

S: Take the time we need to do it justice.

T: Yes. And I like that tell it once and then be done. Many people will notice we’ve mentioned little titbits because we haven’t taken the time to really tell the story from start to finish. We’ve only done little snippets. Just also to let listeners know – I’ve been one, I think I’ve also shared a post of how big of a stack of journals I have that I’ve keep very, very detailed journals over the years. Of course Last Days Ministries has lots of stuff that they’ve published that help confirm some of these timelines, but even though all of that is out there, it takes a lot of time to fact check all of our memories, to really cross-reference what we believe we experienced and happened with what’s out there, and I know takes hours that listeners may not know we’re spending, just to make sure we do it justice, and we do a good job.

S: Yep, and then we’re back to that question – you know, I’m always searching my heart Tracey. To look at my motives. Why does this matter? Why the fuck does it matter for us to do all this? And again, back to the beginning of what we were saying, to me it really matters because there are young people right now, full of idealism, looking for answers, willing to sacrifice – they’re like we were, they’re wanting to be good people, they want to help others and make a real positive difference on earth – and in their belief system, in eternity. They look to these legends of faith that get held up and propped up on these pedestals, and the problem is these legends and these stories, they are being told by people with hidden agendas. There’s no way for listeners to possibly know the dark parts of the story, the underbelly. So inevitably, these young people are just ripe for manipulation and abuse by organizations that take advantage of that beautiful, youthful zeal.

T: Mmm. You know Sharon, I was absolutely a classic example of this in my youth.

S: Yeah.

T: I took to heart the messages. These books that were on our reading list; these sold out ministers of God that I wanted to be like, when in reality all of them – wait for it Sharon, all of them had feet of clay.

S: Yes.

T: That’s why we’re telling this part of the story. Feet of clay.