As her father and his followers hammered wooden stakes into the ground around the perimeter of their south-east Victorian town, Clare Heath-McIvor decided that something wasn't right.
As she followed strict instruction to pray in tongues and sing 'He is Lord', she prayed to God that no-one saw her.
Her father, Pastor Brian Heath said she and his conservative church were taking "prophetic action" to rededicate Sale to God.
It was Remembrance Day in 1997 — a day that would become a key moment that Ms Heath-McIvor now looks back on as particularly odd.
For years, Ms Heath-McIvor has written anonymously about her father's church on her blog under the pseudonym Kit Kennedy, but last month she unmasked herself on social media amid accusations the church is trying to infiltrate and control the Victorian Liberal Party.
This weekend, the party distanced itself from one of its candidates Renee Heath, Pastor Heath's daughter and Ms Heath-McIvor's younger sister, over her links to the church.
Leaving the church
Clare Heath-McIvor remained an ardent follower of her father's teachings in the Pentecostal City Builders Church until her 30s.
"For my family and I, our faith was life itself, and the Bible was the only road map for life," Ms Heath-McIvor wrote in her blog.
In 2016, she and her then-husband Patrick McIvor were forced to leave the church under "painful" circumstances.
Their life changed dramatically in the following years.
In 2019, she helped her husband come out as gay, and their marriage ended in 2020.
"We had married because someone counselled him against accepting his sexuality for years," Ms Heath-McIvor wrote in her blog.
"We were set up by a person who knew about this and was part of this conversion-practices ecosystem and who never levelled with me about the potential implications of this."
After undergoing conversion practices, Mr McIvor, who was involved with the National Party in 2015 and was a Wellington Shire Councillor, led a campaign against sitting federal member for Gippsland Darren Chester, who had indicated he was pro same-sex marriage.
In an interview with the ABC in 2020, Mr McIvor said Pastor Heath had instructed him to lead the campaign.
Nine newspapers on Saturday detailed allegations from Ms Heath's family members that she was acting for an agent for the church inside the party.
The newspapers reported that lawyers acting for Ms Heath and her father "categorically denied" support for gay conversion therapy, discrimination against non-heterosexual people or engaging improperly in politics.
'Religion … should be positive'
Ms Heath-McIvor no longer accepts her father's conservative views and has warned others against being involved in strict religious regimes.
"Religion, spirituality, should be positive. It should be uplifting," Ms Heath-McIvor wrote.
"If these things are missing from the iteration of religion or spirituality that you are experiencing, then I would encourage you to ask yourself, 'Is this what Jesus would do to me?'
"If the answer is no, get out of there and don't look back."
Ms Heath-McIvor was not available for an interview with the ABC.
Life after church
Growing up with her father as a pastor and family members as devout disciples, privacy was non-existent.
According to former members interviewed by the ABC, teenagers were taught to spy on one another, often resulting in being brought before church elders who would hold intervention-style meetings.
"I can't think of God as an old white man in the sky who is morbidly curious about my every action, reaction and inaction, and who has a huge choose-your-own-adventure-style book of punishments and prizes depending on what I do or don't do in any given moment," Ms Heath-McIvor wrote.
Several former church members have told the ABC that if teenagers didn't turn up to services on a Sunday, home visits were made by the youth leadership team, who would drag them to the front of the church and force them to participate in Pentecostal-style worship services, where they were expected to raise their hands and dance.
The congregation meets at The Stables, a historic building and business listed on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as purchased by 24 church members.
Pastor Heath told religious radio station Life FM earlier this year he had a vision 30 years ago that the former Cobb and Co building would one day become his church.
Politics from the pulpit
Earlier this year, City Builders church member Renee Heath displaced sitting MP Cathrine Burnett-Wake from the top spot on the Coalition's ticket for the upper house region of Eastern Victoria.
In her valedictory speech to Parliament in September, Ms Burnett-Wake used parliamentary privilege to label the church, which has branches in Sale, Newborough and Narre Warren South, "cult-like".
The City Builders Church is part of the International Strategic Alliance of Apostolic Churches (ISAAC) network, which Ms Heath-McIvor has said on her blog subscribes to Dominion theology, otherwise known as the Seven Mountain Mandate.
The mandate implores Christians to gain influence in seven spheres, or "mountains", which include politics, the media and the family.
The church said in a statement to the ABC it did not adhere to Dominion theology, but Ms Heath-McIvor writes at length in her blog about being involved in Dominionism during her time in the church.
In the United States, the Seven Mountains Mandate movement was vocally supportive of Donald Trump and in 2020, the ISAAC network leader, Jonathon David "prophesied" that Trump would be re-elected.
'Changed lives'
In a statement, Pastor Heath said the City Builders Church believed in servant leadership, which it had modelled through more than 30 years of community service.
"The proof of this is in the evidence of changed lives," he said.
"We have seen people with complex mental illnesses recover, drug addicts find freedom, broken marriages be restored, criminals become reformed and at-risk youth break cycles of abuse and dysfunction.
"There should be no limitation to our service or contribution to society. In a free and democratic country, every citizen has this.
"We are a church that aims to encourage and inspire our members to leave a positive impact wherever they feel led — this is everything from community service and pastoral care to health, education, business and politics."
Seven Mountain Mandate's 'clear political agenda'
Emeritus Professor Constant Mews from Monash University's Centre for Religious Studies said while there had always been currents of religious fundamentalism in Australia, the Seven Mountain Mandate had a "clear political agenda".
"It's like a kind of a political program in which they believe that Christians sort of fight for Dominion in these areas, and are really opposed to what they see as dangerous secularist values creeping into western culture," Professor Mews said.
He said fundamentalist churches often did attract members in need of support, especially those who had grown up without a family unit.
"There are places for whom such communities provide comfort, particularly those who have had really no experience of home stability," Professor Mews said.
'I'm not unique'
Ms Heath-McIvor is still dealing with the breakdown of her marriage, the co-parenting of her children, and rebuilding her life outside the church.
It's a big reason she started sharing her story.
"The lived experience of leaving a group like this is one heck of an onion, and it turns out I'm not unique," she wrote.
"There are so many of us across the globe who experienced similar groups, similar dynamics, and similar processes resulting in us being out on our proverbial behinds.
"While each story is full of heartbreak, hope and nuance all of its own, it binds us all together in a community that sure helps soothe the soul when you're lying awake at night questioning it all."
Renee Heath has been approached for comment for the story.
