Rev Bill and Kim Meyer ex WCG professional counselors speak with Steven Hassan 1 15 14 HD

Kim Meyer, “Ex-World Wide Church of God” member, PCC-S, LICDC-CS, is now a licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Independently Licensed Substance Abuse counselor and Director of Campus Outpatient and Alcohol and Other Drug Services at Beech Brook in Cleveland Ohio. Her husband Bill, also an ex-member of the WCG, was interviewed too by Steve Hassan while he was in Cleveland as the keynote speaker at the Human Trafficking Symposium co-sponsored by Beech Brook and the Rene Jones Empowerment Center on January 10, 2014. Kim grew up in the WCG from the age of eight, exiting in the mid 90’s after 30 years. She and her husband raised 3 children while in the church, all of whom are no longer affiliated with the WCG.

In her role at Beech Brook, Kim oversees the psychotherapeutic treatment of 70 Residential children with severe mental health disorders including trauma resulting from Human Trafficking experiences. She feels it is vital that Mental Health professionals treating the trafficked adolescent or adult have a working knowledge of destructive influence, coercion and mind control to adequately address the relationship trauma experienced by the trafficked victim. Kim also maintains a private practice working with those who are contemplating leaving their groups, or have left and need someone who can relate to their experience while providing therapeutic support. As a trauma trained clinician she draws on several treatment models which inform her practice including Steve Hassan’s Strategic Interaction Approach and BITE model, as well as the Lifton and Singer models of understanding cultic mind control. She along with Steve, Rachel Thomas and Christine Marie Katas will be participating in a workshop at the International Cultic Studies Conference (ICSA) in July in Washington D.C. looking at the topic of Human Trafficking and the Cult/Mind Control phenomenon. Kim can be reached at meyerkim@roadrunner.com.

Rev. Bill Meyer is a former member of the World Wide Church of God. He joined the group on his own as a sixteen year old in the mid 1960’s. He became a lay pastor who planted and pastored a WCG congregation in Northeast Ohio in the mid 1990’s. When he resigned and quit the WCG after about two years – and explained why to the congregation – it also voted to exit the WCG. To avoid just replicating the old system in new clothes, the congregation joined the mainline Protestant Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Meyer, a graduate of the Worldwide Church of God’s former Ambassador College, Ohio State University and Ashland Theological Seminary, was later ordained by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and has partner status in the United Church of Christ. He has pastored Disciple of Christ, UCC and Presbyterian Church USA congregations part time. He works full time as an editor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and is also an Ohio licensed Professional Counselor. Bill can be reached at williamdmeyer@msn.com.

WCG is now known (and has been for sometime) as Grace Communion International (GCI).