While presented as an effective discipleship vehicle, the Huddle functions as the primary engine for building the system’s architecture of control. It creates an exclusive, high-demand environment that presents several significant safeguarding risks:

• Creation of an Elite ‘In-Group’ and a Two-Tier System. The “invitation-only” structure, with no transparent criteria, acts as a powerful Congregation Filter. The leader has absolute control, setting the terms and deciding who is invited. This systematically sorts the congregation, creating an elite inner circle of loyalists and an excluded “out-group,” fostering division and resentment.

• Systematic Information Control. A critical risk stems from the explicit instruction to teach the system’s proprietary language (LifeShapes) only within the Huddle, not in public settings like sermons. This creates a deliberate “asymmetry of information,” where insiders understand the true agenda while official governing bodies and the wider congregation are kept in the dark. It is this mechanism that enables the Leadership Bypass and neutralises democratic oversight.

• Fostering Psychological Dependency. The Huddle is the primary environment for the psychologically potent “Invitation and Challenge” cycle. The system’s creator describes this dynamic as “addictive,” leaving participants “ruined for life” for ordinary church environments. These outcomes, framed as success, align with clinical descriptions of coercive control and trauma bonding, creating profound dependency on the leader and the group.

• Neutralising Authentic Accountability. The model’s “vertical accountability” structure, where “every person who Huddles others is also being Huddled,” allows leaders to create closed-loop, invitation-only accountability systems. This neutralises genuine oversight by replacing independent challenge with a “closed loop of loyalty,” a pattern seen even in Breen’s own restoration process. This technique is often the capstone of a longer process and works in conjunction with other methods:

While presented as a balanced model for discipleship, ‘Invitation and Challenge’ functions as a psychologically potent cycle of pressure and release that creates dependency. The very language of the system reveals its coercive nature.

The foundational metaphor of a horse-whisperer points toward an outcome not of spiritual maturity, but of a “broken will” and “complete submission to a master”—a deeply problematic goal for Christian discipleship. The method is presented as a more psychologically sophisticated means of breaking a spirit, rather than an alternative to it.

The mechanism is not a static cultural choice but a repeating interpersonal cycle of relational aggression, which is poorly defined in Breen’s text (‘challenge’) followed by a calculated release of pressure (‘invitation’). The leader systematically causes distress and then also provides the relief from it, a dynamic that mirrors the precise conditions required to create a trauma bond.

A critical safeguarding flaw is that the term ‘challenge’ is left dangerously undefined, creating a loophole where almost any behaviour, including public shaming or targeting, can be justified as a necessary spiritual exercise. This protects the challenger at the expense of the challenged.

The system’s creator acknowledges the psychological power of this cycle, describing the result as “addictive” and leaving people “ruined for life” for ordinary church environments. These outcomes, which Breen frames as success, align with clinical descriptions of coercive control and recognised indicators of spiritual abuse.

This concept is the primary engine for the following coercive techniques:

While framed as a supportive spiritual discipline, ‘accountability’ within Breenism functions as a powerful mechanism for enforcing submission to a leader-driven agenda. The entire process is presented as “submission disguised as accountability”.

The system re-routes a disciple’s accountability away from God and their own conscience, and towards the group’s interpretation of God’s will—an interpretation heavily influenced by the leader. The core questions (“What is God saying?” and “What are you going to do?”) are not tools for personal discernment but for generating a mandatory, group-monitored action plan that the disciple must follow.

The primary safeguarding risks are significant:

• Erosion of Spiritual Autonomy: The process gives the group license to intrude into deeply personal areas of a person’s life, monitoring and directing their choices under the guise of discipleship.
• Weaponisation of Compliance: It can become a weapon to ensure conformity, where a person’s status as a faithful disciple is tied directly to their submission to the group’s monitoring and direction.
• Insulation of the Leader: The model allows leaders to create closed-loop, invitation-only accountability structures (like Huddles) where they select their own partners. This neutralises genuine oversight and protects the leader from authentic challenge, as seen in Breen’s own restoration process.

This framework provides the enforcement mechanism for several other manipulative techniques:

While presented as a logical pathway to mature discipleship, this rigid, sequential model is the primary engine for the misleader switch. It is the specific mechanism that systematically redirects a disciple’s focus from emulating Christ to emulating a human leader, creating dependency and enforcing compliance.

The mandatory ‘Imitation’ stage is the critical component. Disciples are explicitly taught that they cannot flourish or innovate until they have first achieved a “base level of competence” in imitating their leader’s life. This creates several significant safeguarding risks:

• Fosters Unhealthy Dependency: The model explicitly requires a disciple to “apprentice themselves to that person”. This makes them reliant on a single human model for their spiritual formation, stunting their ability to develop their own unique calling and direct relationship with God. The process is not about learning principles to connect with God, but learning “how you do it” from the leader.

• Provides Justification for Boundary Erosion: The need to imitate a leader’s “everyday life” creates the theological rationale for high-demand, high-access environments. The text directly links access and imitation: “We are inviting people into our lives… and are asking them to imitate the parts of our lives that look like Jesus”. In this system, imitation requires enmeshment.

• Suppresses Critical Thinking and Dissent: The sequence acts as a powerful Compliance Gate. The rule that “Only when we achieve a base level of competence in… Imitation can Innovation flourish” provides leaders with a tool to dismiss any follower who questions their ‘Information’ or is hesitant to ‘Imitate’. Their input can be invalidated by default as premature, because they have not yet completed the required stage of imitation.

This process provides the core rationale for the system’s most controlling techniques, codifying the very “man-in-the-middle” dynamic that defines the entire architecture of control.

On the surface, this framework appears to be a helpful corrective to a common weakness in the modern church—an over-reliance on information transfer. However, within the Breenism system, it functions as the primary educational and theological justification for creating high-control, high-demand environments.

The concepts of ‘Apprenticeship’ and ‘Immersion’ could be used to normalise and spiritualise manipulative dynamics:

• ‘Immersion’ provides the rationale for Boundary Erosion. The demand for “complete access” to a leader’s life is reframed as the ideal learning environment. This pathologises healthy personal boundaries and presents total enmeshment with a leader’s life as a prerequisite for genuine spiritual growth.
• ‘Apprenticeship’ provides the rationale for Dependency. The model of “apprenticing oneself to a master” structurally enforces the “The Substitute” dynamic, where a human leader, rather than Christ, becomes the primary model to be imitated. This institutionalises a power imbalance that can be exploited through techniques like Engineered Vulnerability.

The key safeguarding risk is that this model presents a false choice, pressuring followers to accept enmeshment and dependency as the only ‘biblical’ alternative to a dry, information-only faith. It uses a legitimate critique of the church to sell a controlling and dangerous solution, effectively becoming the justification for the system’s most harmful techniques.

The premise that “language creates culture” is a valid sociological principle. However, within the Breenism system, this principle is applied in a way that constructs a closed, high-control environment.

The most critical safeguarding risk stems from the explicit instruction to teach the proprietary language (LifeShapes) only within the private, invitation-only Huddle, and not in public settings like sermons. This instruction functions as a mechanism for controlling information and creating division within a community.

This has several harmful effects:

• It Engineers an ‘In-Group’ and an ‘Out-Group’. The private language creates an “asymmetry of information”, which is the foundational mechanism for the Leadership Bypass. Those who speak the language become insiders with access to the real agenda, while the uninitiated (including official church leadership) are excluded and unable to provide meaningful oversight.
• It Functions as a Thought-Terminating System. The simplistic jargon and shapes can replace nuanced personal discernment with a formulaic framework. Complex emotional or psychological struggles can be quickly dismissed with a label like ‘D2’, and dissent can be neutralised by labeling a person as not a ‘Person of Peace’. This is the vocabulary that enables Discernment Hijacking.
• It Enforces Compliance and Isolation. Adopting the language can become a test of loyalty and a Compliance Gate. Over time, members can become so immersed in the jargon that they struggle to articulate their experiences to outsiders, deepening their dependency on the group and isolating them from corrective perspectives.

This principle is the foundation for creating the system’s exclusive and controlling culture:

The Learning Circle is the primary mechanism used for Discernment Hijacking. It functions by replacing an individual’s personal spiritual discernment with a mandatory, group-mediated process that creates dependency on the leader and the system.

The safeguarding risks are embedded in its structure:

• It Mandates External Processing: The system teaches that for repentance to be effective, “we’ve got to share it with someone else” within the prescribed group context. This devalues private prayer and reflection and gives the group license to intrude into deeply personal matters.
• It Enforces Behavioral Control: The process requires the creation of a mandatory action “plan” that the group then monitors. The teaching explicitly states, “We cannot skip accountability and still say we are disciples of Christ. It is that simple”. This links a person’s status as a faithful disciple directly to their submission to group monitoring.
• It Replaces Intuition with a Formula: Over time, individuals are conditioned to distrust their own spiritual instincts and rely exclusively on the group’s six-step process to understand God’s will. This creates profound spiritual dependency on the system and its leaders.

While the Triangle appears to be the most benign and widely accepted tool in the LifeShapes collection, its very ubiquity is what makes it the system’s most effective Authority Laundering.

Because the UP-IN-OUT framework is a memorable summary of the Great Commandment and Great Commission, it is easily adopted by churches and seen as a valuable, neutral tool. This widespread acceptance functions as a ‘foot in the door’, lending unearned credibility to the entire Breenism system. It primes leaders and congregations to be more receptive to the other, more controlling, elements of the toolkit.

The safeguarding risk emerges when this trusted shape is used to introduce a toxic interpretation. The system uses the ‘IN’ dimension to justify pastoral favouritism and the creation of exclusionary inner circles, claiming that Jesus “doesn’t try to be fair” and “Apparently, Jesus didn’t care what they thought” about the feelings of those left out.

Therefore, the primary risk of the Triangle is not in the concept itself, but in its strategic function: it provides a veneer of biblical legitimacy that allows the more coercive aspects of the system to be introduced with less scrutiny.

The Leadership Square is arguably the most dangerous tool in the Breenism system. This tool is a prescriptive blueprint for psychological manipulation, presenting an engineered cycle of crisis and rescue as if it were a neutral developmental map. Its potential for causing profound and lasting harm cannot be overstated.

The core of the model’s risk lies in Stage 2 (D2), which mandates that every disciple must “inevitably” descend into a “deep pit of despair”. This is not presented as a potential life struggle to be pastored through, but as a required, manufactured crisis that the system is designed to induce.

The risks of internalising and applying this model are severe:

• It Spiritualises Psychological Harm: The model gives leaders a tool to re-label genuine psychological distress—such as burnout, anxiety, or depression—as a necessary spiritual stage (‘D2’). This conditions followers to “push through” profound emotional pain instead of seeking appropriate medical or therapeutic care, which can result in severe and lasting harm. It teaches people to misinterpret their own mental health crises as a sign of spiritual progress.
• It Engineers Trauma Bonds: The prescribed cycle of a leader guiding a person into a crisis and then becoming their sole source of comfort and rescue mirrors the clinical pattern of trauma bonding. It forges a powerful dependency rooted not in mutual care, but in manipulation. The leader becomes both the source of pain and the only source of relief.
• It Functions as an Aggressive Compliance Gate: The framework explicitly states that a disciple’s opinions are only “worth considering” after they have successfully endured the D2 crisis. This systematically invalidates and filters out anyone who resists the process, ensuring only the most compliant individuals gain influence.

This model is the primary instruction manual for the Engineered Vulnerability technique and functions as one of the system’s most powerful Congregation Filters.

While presented as a tool for personal empowerment, the Pentagon’s definitions of “immature” expressions function as a system of weaponised labels that neutralise predictable threats to a leader’s authority. This creates a powerful mechanism for control under the guise of spiritual development.

The primary safeguarding risks are:

• Neutralising Prophetic Challenge: The definition of an “immature Prophet” as someone who provides their own interpretation instead of releasing it to the community gives the leader veto power over any inconvenient word from God.
• Discrediting Theological Critique: An “immature Teacher” is framed as someone who idolises Scripture (“Bibliolotry”) over a relationship with God. This label disarms anyone who uses careful biblical analysis to question the leader’s teachings.
• Pathologising Pastoral Care: An “immature Pastor” is defined as someone who lacks the confidence to challenge people. This delegitimises traditional, gentle pastoral care and justifies more invasive, controlling interventions.

Ultimately, this typology provides a ready-made arsenal of labels to pathologise and dismiss internal dissent, insulating the leader from accountability.

While presented as an empowering evangelism strategy, the “Person of Peace” concept is systematically used as a Congregation Filter to justify the exclusion of critical thinkers and create a compliant inner circle. The framework provides a spiritual justification for building a two-tier community of insiders and outsiders.

Key safeguarding concerns include:

• Weaponising Exclusion: The instruction to “shake the dust off your feet” is applied internally to anyone who questions the methodology. Church members report being labelled as “not a person of peace” or “resisters” for declining huddle participation or questioning the system, leading to exclusion and ministry terminations.
• Filtering for Compliance: The strategy explicitly advises leaders to “pass on” those who are “massively cynical”. This functions as a Compliance Gate, systematically weeding out individuals with strong independent discernment and ensuring the core group is composed of those least likely to challenge the leader’s authority.
• Justifying Division: When this filtering leads to church splits and declining attendance, the model allows leaders to frame this devastation not as a failure of the system, but as the necessary and biblical process of separating the committed “people of peace” from the uncommitted “resisters.”

The primary safeguarding risk associated with 3DM is that its business model is predicated on the commercialisation and distribution of a methodology that this investigation argues is inherently coercive. While the current leadership has rightly distanced itself from its founder, and should be commended for publicising the outcome of the investigation, the organisation continues to operate under the same purpose and principles under which it was founded by Breen

While TOM has taken the commendable steps of removing its founder and initiating a learning process, a significant safeguarding gap remains. The process has been explicitly defined as a review of “historic leadership patterns” and “people’s experience,” not a “fundamental review of Breen’s published methodologies themselves”. This distinction is critical. It risks addressing the symptoms (Breen’s personal conduct) without examining the root cause: a system designed for control. By failing to critically re-evaluate the core teachings and tools the order was founded to promote, TOM may inadvertently validate the very methodologies that create the conditions for abuse. Without this crucial step, the learning process risks reviewing the man while preserving the machine, leaving members vulnerable to the same systemic patterns of control.

Kairos Connexion presents a direct and ongoing safeguarding risk by actively training church leaders in the use of Breen’s methodologies. The methodologies are still being implimented and used within the network. To continue to use the tools analyses on this website, embodies the central fallacy this investigation seeks to dismantle: the idea that the methods can be safely separated from their abusive outcomes. As an official trainer, the organisation functions as a primary vector for introducing these high-control dynamics into new church contexts across the UK. By equipping leaders with what this analysis identifies as a “blueprint for psychological manipulation” Kairos Connexion is, regardless of intent, perpetuating a system that has been documented to cause division, exclusion, and profound spiritual harm.

Changing an church’s name in the aftermath of a safeguarding scandal is a problematic step in any circumstances - especially so if not accompanied by a transparent and fundamental change in culture and practice. Without a public disavowal of the systems that enabled the abuse, a rebranding can function as an exercise in reputation management, possibly attempting to erase digital memory rather than fostering genuine accountability.

The most significant safeguarding concern is the church’s lack of a public response when questioned about its continued use of Breen’s discipleship models. As the epicentre of the scandal, this church has a unique responsibility to scrutinise the very tools and methodologies created by the perpetrator. The failure to confirm that a review has taken place raises serious questions about whether the leadership has made the connection between Breen’s personal conduct and the controlling architecture of his published teachings. By continuing to use the tools of Breenism, especially in programmes aimed at young people, the church risks perpetuating the exact high-control dynamics that proved so harmful, regardless of the new name on its building.