“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.” ― Steve Maraboli link
I want to thank you all for your understanding and kind comments as I deal with the my sick pug dog and my ailing parents. Your thoughts and prayers are most appreciated. I was able to get some sleep the last two nights and am feeling so much better. That stuff about 8 hours of sleep is true!
Also, I want to thank some kind people who contributed to the fund for the two boys abused by a *football star* pedophile in Texas. This means a lot to the families who have suffered under the constant rhetoric from the convicted pedophile's buddies, including those involved in a local church.
We are waiting on a post from some folks involved in the legal action against Mars Hill and will post it whenever it comes in, possibly in the next 24 hours.
Today I want to look at a post When Do You Leave the Church by Jeff Robinson which was originally featured on the Founder's Blog. This post got some deserved push back in the comment section. Please take some time to read it. Coincidentally, this morning I happened to read a fascinating AP post Pope in blistering critique of Vatican bureaucrats which I thought had some relevance to the subject at hand.
Who are the Founders?
Here is a link to their *About Page.* Basically, they are the Calvinistas of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Founders Ministries is a ministry of teaching and encouragement promoting both doctrine and devotion expressed in the Doctrines of Grace and their experiential application to the local church, particularly in the areas of worship and witness. Founders Ministries takes as its theological framework the first recognized confession of faith that Southern Baptists produced, The Abstract of Principles. We desire to encourage the return to and promulgation of the biblical gospel that our Southern Baptist forefathers held dear.
They offer church listings, have conferences, a journal, a blog, etc., which basically makes them an SBC version of The Gospel Coalition. Please browse around their site and see if you can spot any differences from the John Piper wing of the Young Restless and Reformed crowd. I can't.
Tom Ascol, President of Founders
This excerpt from a Wikipedia article about Tom Ascol, gives a hint about the concerns of the Founders, and it is not a group hug.
In June 2008, Ascol was successful in spearheading Resolution (No. 6) "On Regenerate Church Membership and Church Member Restoration" and an accompanying amendment that encouraged Southern Baptist Convention churches to repent for failing to maintain biblical standards in the membership of their churches and obey Jesus Christ in the practice of lovingly correcting wayward church members.
What do the Founders believe are invalid reasons to leave your local church?
If you are a regular reader of this blog, I bet there will be no great surprises here.
1. Because our children want to go to another church.
I found this statement rather amusing. Churches go to all lengths to capture the crowds, including really cool worship bands, hipster attired pastors, relevant sermons, etc. That goes for the SBC Neo Calvinists as well. You should see what is going on in our area to entice the adults. More bodies, more bucks seems to be the rallying cry.
They do all sorts of marketing to *reach* the adults, and they complain when families want to go to a church that reaches their kids. Good night! So long as the church which is chosen is sticking with the basics of the faith, then it really doesn't matter. My husband and I did choose churches which both suited us and our faith as well as one that worked for our kids.
2. Because there aren’t many people here my age.
We recently wrote a post which garnered much discussion The Consequences for the Church That Focuses on Youth While Ignoring Baby Boomers. Many churches focus on young families with children, often overlooking the older folks who have the time and money to contribute to the church. Many of these people are dropping out of churches which laser focus on one age group.
So, let me get this straight. It is appropriate for a church can concentrate on young families because that is the way to grow a church. However, when a older person expresses concern that older people are leaving the church, it's their problem? Look around at many of the mega churches of today. See how many have decidedly unbalanced age groupings.
3. Because the pastor’s sermons are too long and the preaching is boring.
Apparently, the Founders believe that the sermon is the pivotal focus of Christian worship and should take up the majority of the worship time. So the church truly pivots around whatever pastor gets to preach. In other words, the gathering of the Body to worship God in prayer and song is merely fluff. Is this how celebrity pastors are born? It's all focused on them?
If a church has long, boring sermons, you are supposed to suck it up and not leave. You should never, ever question if the pastor is really gifted to preach?
4. Because there are many sinners in the church
Of course, one cannot find a church which does not have sinners. However, there are problems when there is entrenched sin, particularly in the pulpit. One only has to look at the stories coming out of Mars Hill and Sovereign Grace Ministries to know that there are some sins which can border on abusive. There are also churches which conceal serious sins such as pedophilia and rape. So, we should just stick around and take it?
5. Because they don’t have a good youth/children’s program here.
Apparently, churches do not need to focus on the kids because fathers, who are more important than mothers, are supposed to be shepherding their children.
Parents are the spiritual caretakers for the children. The church should merely reinforce the biblical truths taught in the home. No church program will adequately shepherd our children; that is the calling of parents, particularly fathers.
The article goes on to state that God is going to call all of us to give an account for why we left a church. According to the post, heresy, serious doctrinal error, and tolerance of serious sin are the only reasons to leave a church. However, the author states that he typically advises people not to leave their church. If they must leave, they should do so with a chastened and humble attitude. In other words, be quiet. This is an indication to me that the author is aware that churches can do things badly, and so those things should be "kept on the down low." Why? So they can sucker more unsuspecting people?
What this post does not mention is the possibility of abusive and arrogant church leadership which has the freedom to decide what to discipline and what not to discipline. As always, church discipline is left open ended which means that some churches can (and do) discipline whatever they darn well please. In other words, they can be capricious in their application of discipline. There are no a priori standards for said discipline. We have written on this subject time and time again on this blog. This is the Achilles Heel of the entire church discipline movement.
The Pope goes after church leadership.
In the AP post Pope in blistering critique of Vatican bureaucrats, Pope Francis focused on problems in church leadership. Here are some quotes.
…Francis started off his list with the "ailment of feeling immortal, immune or even indispensable."
Then one-by-one he went on: Being vain. Wanting to accumulate things. Having a "hardened heart." Wooing superiors for personal gain. Having a "funereal face" and being too "rigid, tough and arrogant," especially toward underlings –
…At the end of the speech, Francis asked the prelates to pray that the "wounds of the sins that each one of us carries are healed" and that the Church and Curia itself are made healthy.
Perhaps the next time the Founders write a blog post on people leaving the church, they should follow the Pope's example and call out abusive church leadership as one of the valid reasons for people to leave the church. At least, then, the responsibility would be shared. Right now, it is obviously very one sided. The people need to shut up, give money, sit in the pews for long, boring sermons, and get ready to get disciplined if they decide to get out of Dodge. That is why I would be most reluctant to join any church associated with the Founders.
Lydia's Corner: Genesis 44:1-45:28 Matthew 14:13-36 Psalm 18:37-50 Proverbs 4:11-13
I love how all the reasons you aren't allowed to leave are very specific and expounded upon, but all the reasons where you are allowed to leave are just cited to a verse and left vague.
This looks like a good resource for anyone who might be looking for a church:
http://founders.org/misc/chlist/
That way you’ll know which ones to cross off your list before you get started… 😉
“Perhaps the next time the Founders write a blog post on people leaving the church, they should follow the Pope’s example and call out abusive church leadership as one of the valid reasons for people to leave the church.”
I don’t believe that Pope Frances called out abusive church leadership as a valid reason to leave the church. Maybe that’s not what you meant though.
Looks like Vatican Bureaucrats are very similar to protestant celebrity preachers
JeffT wrote:
Except they have a boss other than themselves.
founders.org – isn’t that the website where – before their redesign – you could find prominently linked an article about how to turn a church calvinist by stealth, without ever telling the members about either your convictions or your goals? Let’s not tell the pewsitters the truth and evade their questions because it’s for their own good?
If I’ve learned anything it’s that all truth is God’s truth – however uncomfortable it may make me feel -, and all lies – however well-intentioned – are not from God.
Doesn’t mean I have to blurt something that I think is the truth in people’s faces (1 Cor 13, anyone?), but lying to people in order to “protect the church”, or, more likely, the pastor’s reputation, or to ” lead people to the right doctrine”, that is from the father of lies.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
His critique really reminds me of Jesus’ tirade against corrupt religious leaders…
Submissive and authority seem to be the key words at The Founders blog. Another recent article was titled “Participating in Gathered Worship: Worship with Eager Submission.” I wouldn’t go near such a gathering.
Dee –
I don’t see a comment section for the mentioned article. Did they take the comments down?
“The article goes on to state that God is going to call all of us to give an account for why we left a church. ”
Actually, I think they have it backwards. I think many of us will give an account for why we stayed in some churches so long!
Lydia wrote:
Yes, I think you have a good point.
Nice how these guys feel that people are obligated to stay at church even if they suck at things like sermons, children’s ministry, or actually practicing what they preach.
Maybe they can make a similar list for women who want to leave their husband…that way men who are lazy, abusive, and not very good at loving their wives can demand loyalty.
Maybe they should change their name to flounders.com “Where Abusive and Inept Pastors Learn to Demand their Flock’s Unflinching Loyalty”.
Sarcastic rant over….
What I gather from all of this is, these Founders people care for the institution called “church” but they do not care for the Lord’s sheep.
Gus wrote:
Yes!
Bridget wrote:
Scroll down past what looks like ads. I just checked and they are still there.
doubtful wrote:
🙂
dee wrote:
Wow. That’s freaky. Could you imagine how they’d react if they found an arminian leadership trying to do the same thing to one of their churches?
Agree@ Lydia:
I do have some sympathy with this. In my area, some families hop churches just to be in the hippest new youth group; these places market to teens just as much as they do to adults. They all cycle through the same 3-4 churches over and over again as each youth group rises and falls in popularity. So this can be a problem sometimes, but I don’t think you can make a blanket statement that this is never an acceptable reason to leave a church.
In other words, yeah, there are some people who really do just migrate from church to church chasing fads and basically trying to hang with the cool kids. But what percentage of people this is is impossible to demonstrate, and obviously it’s not everybody.
Music is decidedly NOT fluff to worship, as singing (at least) is directly commanded in the NT. I wonder sometimes if all these “sermon is everything” Reformed guys are subconsciously threatened by music, because it has more staying power than a sermon will ever have. (It’s also scientifically/medically proven to be good for your brain.) Or in other words, ever notice how everyone remembers the songs they learned in church growing up even decades later, but probably no sermons at all (maybe a handful if you were really paying attention)?
Are these conservative Reformed folks still subconsciously clinging to their tradition’s centuries-long animosity toward music? Please say no. (Exhibit A: mass vandalism/destruction of organs in England. Exhibit B: New England Congregationalists were just rediscovering writing out single-line psalm tunes rather than singing them by ear, at the exact same time Lutherans were producing things like Bach’s St. John Passion.)
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/fall97/sing.html
Another problem with marathon sermons and kids: are they actually getting anything out of it? Most adults I know don’t get anything out of a sermon like that. I know a PCA family whose 9yo son is already saying he “hates church” (verbatim quote), and it’s directly related to the 45-minute long dry sermons. Are you really winning when the kids hate church (and say so) before they even hit double digits? There are many, many options between lecture sermons and substance-free “churchatainment.” Not minimizing/downplaying/reducing music is usually a good first option.
…except moving, which is conveniently and magically left off all these lists even though it matches none of their criteria. This is actually a good thing – who wants a pastor trying to tell you if you’re justified in getting a new job? – but I’m actually a little surprised someone hasn’t tried to judge whether a parishioner’s move is “worthy” or not, because it’s kinda the logical outcome of some of these statements on “acceptable” reasons to leave a church. I can easily picture that happening; the pastor of the PCA church I left tried to tell my dad that he needed to get a new job, because he traveled too much with his current one and didn’t get to spend enough time with his family. I’ve also heard NCFIC guys blithely suggest that if there’s no “Biblical” church in your area, you could move to a place where there is one.
There seems to be a disconnect between the arrogance of these preachers and the view of congregants. Let’s see : it sounds like if Sunday’s are known for dyspepsia after one of those long boring sermons, nothing really was being taught except that that sermon was long and boring. Maybe it could have cogently been stated in 20 minutes or even 30 minutes. I wouldn’t anticipate SBC loyalty to trump long and dry church services.
One of the women I office with (Lady A) got a book for Christmas from someone she works with in another state (Lady B). Lady A opened the package and looked at me with a “What IS this?” expression. It turns out the book is by the lead pastor at Lady B’s church. (Lady A is not a church goer.) A few minutes later and I’d figured out this particular church was part of the Association of Related Churches (ARC). Kind of weird to have that kind of convergence.
(I’m being deliberately vague on the details because I have lots of experience with cults.)
I just read the followup article, titled When to Leave a Church, Part II: Check Your Motives and Guard Your Tongue. In it, Robinson makes reference to a book by some guy named Curtis Thomas; Life in the Body of Christ. My favorite part:
14. We should never leave, nor encourage others to leave, unless we are thoroughly convinced that one or both of the following conditions exist: 1) that the church has become an apostate church (where serious unbiblical teaching or practices are allowed), or 2) that we are convinced that, over the long haul, we cannot find a place to serve in the church, or that our families will not be spiritually fed in that body.
If you go to the blog and hit page 2, you’ll find the whole thing. Only 6 comments, but already some good pushback there.
NJ wrote:
That’s almost every Baptist or evangelical church on the planet, who tend to expect all women to want to serve in the church nursery or bake muffins in the church kitchenette.
I don’t fit any of that, I’ve never been interested in muffin baking duty or working around children.
Hester wrote:
“Are these conservative Reformed folks still subconsciously clinging to their tradition’s centuries-long animosity toward music? Please say no. (Exhibit A: mass vandalism/destruction of organs in England. Exhibit B: New England Congregationalists were just rediscovering writing out single-line psalm tunes rather than singing them by ear, at the exact same time Lutherans were producing things like Bach’s St. John Passion.)”
Exhibit C: a cappella, exclusive psalmnody among the Scottish Covenanters, some of whom also insisted on the lining out of said psalms. By the 19th century this view was no longer the majority within Presbyterianism in general, but it cast a long shadow over the most conservative outposts of the Reformed world.
Somewhere we still have a copy of Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers. I once went through the book, chapter by chapter, identifying the church backgrounds of each featured composer, from Handel to Messaien. Not a single one came from the Reformed/Presbyterian wing of Christianity, and I don’t think that’s an accident. They were either Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, or Eastern Orthodox in the case of Igor Stravinsky. When you come from a tradition where all non-canonical hymns are generally suspect, and most musical instruments frowned upon, for most of that tradition’s history, any successful musician hailing from it would probably have to leave it first. The same could mostly be said for those gifted in the visual arts.
@ NJ:
Isn’t Islam also completely a capella?
I heard that came out of a dispute in early Islam about what music to use in Friday “prayers”. Mohammed ruled to NOT use any instruments at all, only unaccompanied voice. I suspect this was an “a pox on all your houses” ruling.
NJ wrote:
You also see that pattern among SF writers as well, and probably for the same reason. Most big-name SF writers with some Christian affiliation have been Catholic (J.R.R.Tolkien, Tim Powers) or Anglican (C.S.Lewis, Cordwainer Smith).
(I’m talking about those who made it big in the mainstream, not the Christianese stuff you find in Jesus Junk stores that’s known only among the Left Behind set. In regards to quality and storytelling, that’s like getting a medal in the Special Olympics. Or an Honorary Doctorate from another ManaGAWD.)
numo wrote:
In which case, Pope Francis is carrying on an old Christian tradition.
NJ wrote:
The RPCNA, as far as I know, still holds to the “regulative principle,” i.e. singing only the Psalms and only a cappella.
I sometimes jokingly think that the Catholics (though as you’ve pointed out, I shouldn’t forget the Lutherans, Orthodox, Anglicans, etc.) make all the good music. I went looking for a piece to share from Messiaen, but ended up halfway across Youtube and back to nearly where I started, with another French and presumably Catholic composer.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Even to our Western, Christianized ears Qur’an recitation sounds like singing, if you ask a Muslim, it’s not singing. I know. I asked.
@ Josh:
Well, strictly speaking the regulative principle is “anything in worship not explicitly commanded in the Bible is forbidden,” but yeah, historically what you’re describing seems to have been the practical result. Personally, the RP sounds to me like it fails on a logical level, i.e. if all rules about worship have to be explicitly stated in the Bible, where is the RP explicitly stated in the Bible? Either that or it’s begging the question about the meaning of the silence of Scripture, i.e. in all other cases silence means discern, but in THIS ONE SPECIAL CASE OF WORSHIP it means absolute prohibition because.
I once read a hyper-Reformed guy claiming that, if they were allowed to use instruments, they would have to research and reconstruct the exact instruments described in Psalms. At which point anyone who knows anything about how much it costs to reconstruct historical instruments, started rolling in the aisles with laughter.
Another funny story: I know a lady who worked for years doing music in a black Presbyterian church, and had never heard of the RP when I mentioned it to her.
Funny, in my area most of the Catholic choirs are about half Protestant. 😉
Addendum @ Josh:
Not to mention David was probably using an entirely different scale and tonal system than we do. Which could make life kinda hard for hyper-Reformed guy’s congregation. Actually, come to think of it, it isn’t explicitly commanded in the Bible to use the Western tonal system! So how will they sing at all?
@ NJ:
I figured as much, but I don’t know much about the Covenanters. The NE Puritans are in my backyard (and my genes) so I’m a lot more familiar with them.
Yup. And not only frowned upon in church, but often viewed as “frivolous” and flirting with idleness in the secular realm.
And funny, if I recall correctly from the brief perusal of (I think) a thesis outline I found on the topic, the founder of Westminster Choir College in NJ (a PCUSA school, and quite excellent) was first influenced by folks in the (Scandinavian Lutheran) Christiansen choral tradition out of MN/IA.
Personally I suspect there is something in traditional/ancient liturgy that feeds the artistically inclined mind.
@ HUG:
Oh, I think I found the winner in that category last night: an honest-to-God fundy video game. Almost like Mario Kart, but with JESUS! And NOAH! And Christian background music!
(and probably no one cares, but this YouTuber swears)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2av978FgLI
Being an American, I believe in the principles of democracy. In other words, any reason to switch churches is just fine. It is your choice.
Hester wrote:
It’s way past my bedtime, and I have to get up early tomorrow, so this will be posted sans-sources. But didn’t one of the infamous Dougs – either Philips or Wilson – write some really messed up stuff about regulations for music in worship? He wasn’t RP per se, but there was some utter stupidity about what chord progressions you were and weren’t allowed to use. As I recall, there was discussion about music needing to be serious and possibly even a connection with war or battle (go figure).
Hester wrote:
Again, I apologize for my lack of source citations, but I’ve seen talks on Youtube where Justin Lee describes a “Christian” video game from his youth wherein you convert the enemies of the Lord by throwing the “Fruits of the Spirit” at them. What lessons are we teaching our children with stuff like that? (I ask rhetorically)
And I can’t help but think of potatoes every time someone mentions “YouTubers.” Now I’m hungry… 😛
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
A capella singing about Islam or God is called a “nasheed” and isn’t used in services. (Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens does nasheed singing now.) The Adhan, or call to prayer, is sung in some places. During the actual prayers we recite the Qu’ran, which in Arabic is heck of poetic, so it can sound a little like singing, because there are a lot of repeated sounds. Take this verse that could be recited in a prayer:
“Fata alal-lahul-Malikul-Haqqu laa Ilaha illa Huwa Rabbul- arshil-karim.”
Lots of repeated sounds there.
So basically, what Mirele said – it sounds like singing, but if you ask, people are going to think of it more like reciting poetry. 😉
There is a controversy about the use of instruments for music, but it’s not specifically for services, but in music in general. There are contradictory hadith about the permissibility of instruments in general and specific instruments in particular, so whether non-Nasheed music is considered okay varies based on the scholar.
Josh wrote:
In my evangelical days my pastor used to ironically keep a copy of a book someone gave him that was literally dedicated to spreading the idea that syncopated rhythm itself was a source of demonic urges. I really wish I could read the title, because it was amazing – straight up “contemporary worship music leads to demon possession” stuff.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
The backbonenof early Islam was the recitation of the Qur’an (it’s still true). Mohammed wss illiterate, and so were most of his companions. Recitation was their way of both memorizing and transmitting the Qur’an, which was written down in bits and pieces and later compiled in the form that’s been used for many centuries. Many Muslims devote much time to memorizing yhe entirety of the Qur’an. What I’ve heard of Qur’anic recitation is very beautiful, though the meaning is lost on me, since i dont know classical Arabic. (Incidentally, the language and cadences of the Qur’an set were the benchmwrk for Arabic-language literature for a very long time. Modetn Arabic is not the same as classical Arabic.)
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
It’s not a cappella, it is recited, not sung.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Which, as revorded in the Gospels, is actually Jewish…
@ Madhabmatics:
Ooh, didn't see this before I posted. Many thanks for the clear definition. I wouldn't characterized the Adhan as being sung, though. (Btw, big Arabic music fan here; also love Persian classical music.)
@ Madhabmatics:
I think most Muslims are cool with instruments. Instrumental and vocal music seem to be constants in all of the Muslim/predominantly Muslim societies i know of, but then, I’m an amateur music historian and play a few Middle Eastern percussion instruments, so…
@ Hester:
Oh, but the metrical Psalms are lovely! You can find some wonderful recordings on uTube.
Ok, I really need to get to bed, but…
“It’s way past my bedtime, and I have to get up early tomorrow, so this will be posted sans-sources. But didn’t one of the infamous Dougs – either Philips or Wilson – write some really messed up stuff about regulations for music in worship? He wasn’t RP per se, but there was some utter stupidity about what chord progressions you were and weren’t allowed to use. As I recall, there was discussion about music needing to be serious and possibly even a connection with war or battle (go figure).”
That sounds like Doug Wilson writing on Sunday “worship as warfare”. Basically the idea of corporate worship as a type of spiritual warfare.
“In my evangelical days my pastor used to ironically keep a copy of a book someone gave him that was literally dedicated to spreading the idea that syncopated rhythm itself was a source of demonic urges. I really wish I could read the title, because it was amazing – straight up “contemporary worship music leads to demon possession” stuff.”
If you mean the idea that beats on 1 and 3 were okay, but beats on 2 and 4 were not, that’s straight out of Bill Gothard. He believed the latter naturally appealed to the body’s rhythms in such a way as to make one susceptible to demonic influence at the very least. There were also unflattering comparisons with “African music”. This was somewhere in the IBLP-produced notebook.
NJ wrote:
The older IFB pastors call it the “Jungle Beat” as if it gives you the morality of an adolescent Chimpanzee.
All I know is that my kids and their kids are far far far better off since they separated from their respective former churches and found something better for themselves and their children. Protestant pew sitters are not prisoners and should not be considered such. Of course, we do not believe that the sermon is the primary act of worship. Preaching/teaching is the primary act of preaching/teaching but does not and should not crowd out the other acts of worship. Preacher veneration is not wise, healthy or biblical. And trying to blockade the exits is pathetic.
Hester wrote:
Remember, we are talking about folks who idolize the Puritans, and THOSE guys had 2-3 hours long sermons! (Twice on a Sunday!)
Seriously, they sincerely believe that the preached Word is the primary way God communicates with His pepole today, and it’s the only thing they have total control of theologically – CCM music is almost all mass-produced and spiritually suspect.
. .
. .
.
.
__
“Shine, Sparkle, Celebrate Jesus?”
Intro: ” Time 4 da Pöpcørn?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwg5ey6236o
Q: Is there ‘true’ unity in the body of Christ?
(a word from our ‘heavenly sponsor’, perhaps…)
hmmm…
Skreeeeeeeeeetch !
—> We are suppose ta grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even ‘Christ Jesus’,
(bump)
Dis is ‘how’ da whole dang Christian ‘body’, is ta beeee fitted and held together, silly – every joint supplies stuff according to the proper working of each individual ‘part’,
ding!
…which ’causes’ the growth of the body for the building up of itself in ‘love’…
ding, ding!
But make Nooooo mistake, Jesus is da head honcho not some ‘jack’ in a ‘religious box’, or some ‘glorified’ religious system’ wannabe…
🙂
—> Have some folk lost connection with the ‘head’ [Jesus] , from whom the whole Christian body, IS supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, N’ grows as God causes it to grow?
Krunch!
Jesus’ house is still ‘a rock’in’ don’t bother knock’in … come on it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHGWgFM3ybA
Yeah !!! 🙂
ding, ding, ding, ding!
“Dine” on da ‘True Vine’?
huh?
Jesus said : “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the ‘Vine’, so neither can YOU unless YOU abide in Me…”
Whoops!
“I am the Vine, YOU are the branches; he who abides in Me [Jesus] and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me ‘YOU’ can do nothing…” ~ Jesus
ATB
Forget da Pöpcørn , is ‘religious’ blogging simply just ‘howling @ da moon’ ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXMhKdAwLbs
(grin)
hahahahahaha
SKreeeeeeeeeeeeetch !
Krunch!
“…do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near,
—> “Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep themself holy…”
“Behold, I am coming quickly…My reward is with Me, to render to every one according to what they has done…” ~Jesus
Sėė you on d@ flip-side?
Merry ‘Christ’-Max !
hum, hum, hum…toot !
Sopy
;~)
—
Josh wrote:
I think that is probably Doug Wilson, whose only regulative principle is Doug Wilson. The CREC (Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches FKA Confederations of Reformed Evangelical Churches) is big into Reconstructionist thinking. The church will take over the world for Jesus so he can come back. They view the church as an army fighting God’s enemies. So you get preaching on warfare and chanting of Psalms like war chants and imprecatory prayers and all kinds of OT things. It is so comforting to know that Jesus has Wilson leading the way.
Wilson is a seriously messed-up individual, but many of the YRRs find him fascinating because he debated Christopher Hitchens and because he is a rabid patriarchist and because he is clever. Nevermind any of his weirdness or misogyny or legalism, though. Because Piper loves him and says he has the essentials of the Gospel right. Well, he does if you think that we can be faithful covenant keepers, that is. I am not very good at covenant keeping, so I trust Jesus to keep the covenant for me. That, I think, is the Gospel, not the Recon/Dominionist/Trinity Foundation saved by liturgy crowd’s gospel.
Mark wrote:
Reminds me of the movie Pollyanna and Karl Malden’s delivery of an abbreviated version of Jonathan Edward’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” – “Hell and damnation on top of ham and eggs!”
Hester wrote:
“If the preaching is good, the music’s half the service. And if the preaching is bad, the music’s *all* of it!” — frequently heard from my father, a Presbyterian pastor for 35 years.
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
Amen.
@ Corbin:
According to them, Arminians are quite possibly heretics.
Hester wrote:
Then there are others who move out of a church because the youth group is toxic and the kids are allowed to run wild. But, because the pastor’s kids are in it, it will not change. I have heard this over and over again. Three teens used to come to our adult Sunday school class because the teens would laugh at them when they actually tried to discuss something serious.
Hester wrote:
I have heard that some churches do tell people not to move due to a job because their church is the best one on the planet and their spiritual life would suffer.
@ mirele:
Stick with us. We will keep you up on the latest *groups.*
@ NJ:
Thank you for letting us know about that. It looks like 9 Marks is not the only Hotel California.
Madhabmatics wrote:
Thank you for your explanation. I always learn so much from our readers.
NJ wrote:
I saw a viral you tube video of a dog dancing this morning. Was he possessed as well?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjPfGlKhfno
Eeyore wrote:
They also say that it was good to make those kids sit quietly through those sermons. Apparently, they had some guy walk up and down the aisles with a stick that had a hard knob on the end. If someone was dozing, they bopped them on the head. No wonder people drifted from the faith.
@ Josh:
It was Wilson, in a post about sissified feminized worship music. The chord progression thing was a classic Wilsonian attempted-but-completely-and-totally-failed joke.
@ numo:
I do absolutely love metrical psalms! I even led lining out once as part of a historical demonstration. But making them the only thing I could ever use in church ever again is a different story…
@ Gram3:
Piper seems to be turning into some kind of lightning rod for everything weird in Christendom. He’s all buddy-buddy with Doug Wilson, who is hyper-Reformed patriarchal Federal Vision Reconstructionist etc. Then he was promoting Louie Giglio a few years back, who I seem to recall is connected to the NAR that D&D are now looking into.
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
Absolutely…..
@ Hester:
Well, yes; some of the arrangements on utube are for tour voices, though. Not lined out by any means.
@ numo:
Four.
dee wrote:
I looked up the book Lady B sent to Lady A on Amazon and read the first chapter. Given the subject matter, this could have been interesting even if it followed a particular evangelical trope. However (and again I’m being vague here), the first chapter was dull as dishwater even as it followed a different evangelical trope. Or to put it another way, it was like eating cardboard. Even oatmeal would have been more flavorful and nourishing.
@ Corbin:
That’s exactly what happened in our church. Stealth takeover attempt by “Founders loving Neo-Cals”. Arminians are just too nice for that. At least I have never heard of them doing it.
Gram3 wrote:
Wilson loves him some chattel slavery. Of course, he wouldn’t be the slave, he’d be the slave owner. He’s disgusting.
When I think of long boring sermons, I always remember when a new preacher came to my church who was a little too much in love with his preaching. Someone and probably several someones, reminded him that if the Cowboy game started at noon, he better be done by 11:50.
@ nmgirl:
Ain’t that the truth around here! Cowboy fans as far as the eye can see, it’s maddening.
Gram3 wrote:
I am not sure what you are saying here, but a couple of words caught my attention: covenant and liturgy. There may be some ideas here worth exploring, probably on the discussion page, but first I would like to understand what you are saying. I have only read about some covenant ideas but have no personal experience with groups who emphasize that. I do have some personal experience with different worship styles however, pretty much from one end of the spectrum to the other, and this may be something we could discuss, if that is what you are talking about. I am thinking that there are probably right many people who read and comment here who might have a lot to contribute on either or both of those topics.
Somebody needs to get something of some sort going on the open discussion page. I will gladly participate if you do, and I am thinking others would also. Oh, wait, you and I are both female and have been labeled as thin skinned and prone to take offense apparently because of this. Well, perhaps taking offense may keep any discussion within the bounds of civility, don’t you know–not that I am hinting that some recent male conversations may have exceeded such bounds, of course. Just a suggestion.
Nancy wrote:
Oh these are new. I thought it was “easily deceived”. :o)
Hester wrote:
Probably not good for relationship building, and basically against my own philosophy of “slow and deep”, but still – there isn’t anything inherently wrong with this. I don’t even think it is “unhealthy” per se. And unlike my fundamentalist friends (and family) I do think it is unhealthy for the church to be the center of civic community in a person’s life. In other words, a person who just comes to church on Sunday and sits a pew is perfectly fine.
Lydia wrote:
Like all those who TITHE TITHE TITHE to Elevation and give ManaGAWD Furtick a standing ovation when he brags about his 14,000 sg ft mansion and eight-acre estate he bought himself with their Tithe money?
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
Oh boy do I ever agree with this. And many mega’s attempted to be a one stop shopping for life. Gyms, small groups, coffee bars, bookstores, etc. It is a person’s social, cultural and spiritual life.
mirele wrote:
The word is “Peculiar Institution regarding certain Animate Property.” And it all ties in with the 200-year-plan for your Godly descendants/Dynasty/Legacy and their estates (worked by Animate Property?) and Houseservants (AKA HouseN*****s?). With God’s Predestined Elect’s life of Godly Liesure standing on the veranda holding The Whip.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgF-rcHcPqE
Doug wrote:
How does this differ from Comrade Stalin’s stealth takeover of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of WW2?
Lydia wrote:
“Oh boy do I ever agree with this. And many mega’s attempted to be a one stop shopping for life. Gyms, small groups, coffee bars, bookstores, etc. It is a person’s social, cultural and spiritual life.”
And then imagine if you are employed full time by said church on top of that.
HUG:
“And it all ties in with the 200-year-plan for your Godly descendants/Dynasty/Legacy and their estates (worked by Animate Property?)and Houseservants (AKA HouseN*****s?).”
A few years ago on some homeschooling blog I ran across a quote from some would-be quiverfull patriarch who said he was raising each of his daughters to command a household with servants, or something like that. It was in response to someone else wondering how they would manage to homeschool a large brood of children and still have time for all the chores. I’m thinking, gee, I hope they all marry doctors, lawyers, Wall St. tycoons, etc.
dee wrote:
Oh, trust me, I know. “Arminians are Christians. Barely.” Gotta love R.C. Sproul.
Re music in worship:
We started out in the olden days with churches that did traditional hymns and gospel songs. Along came CCM in the “praise and worship” time in the church and we went along with that.
Then we moved north where the only non RCC church was a Lutheran one. We came to enjoy the “staid old hymns” as some put them and worshiped that way for years.
When we moved back south, church music had seriously morphed into love songs here in our neck of the woods. It didn’t take much googling to find out there are people actually using all sorts of musical technique as methods of crowd control, almost to the point (or maybe really to the point) of a sort of mass hypnosis.
Our time out of this endorphin producing on purpose worship has made it just impossible for us to jump back into it.
So yeah, we can stomach regulative principle worship a whole heap more than we can the sexually seductive stuff some churches use to manipulate.
But then, our theology of the church service is not that we bring something to God, or that we encounter God in church in some way we do not encounter God outside the church. We believe it is for telling forth the truth about humans, about God, about sin, and about redemption.
We don’t see it as our time for an emotional high, or for meeting our social needs, or as bringing a sacrifice to a needy god to appease said god, or to make us “feel good.”
We recognize others do come to church for those reasons and more, and their worship will show that. And that is ok by us. Just not something we choose to participate in.
Our church has recently sidelined most of the musicians as we grapple our way back to true congregational singing. It had become a stage show complete with “stars” and had become a time to get an emotional tingle and feel good EVEN IF the person feeling good was an unbeliever or in gross sin.
We also support church discipline and yes, kicking out members, but not for asking questions about the budget or holding a view contrary to the preacher. But we see no problem in revoking the membership of unrepentant thieves, murderers, adulterers, etc. We do remember the day when getting your secretary pregnant meant both you and she would lose your membership down at 1st Baptist. Of course in that day, doing the girls in the youth group would get an associate pastor arrested also.
Doug wrote:
Wow. What happened? Did sermons ? start being filled with God’s “SOVEREIGNTY!!”. Was comp-ism portrayed as the gospel?
NJ wrote:
Trust me, I know an army of them. I am related to a few.
JeffT wrote:
As if all the human misery and suffering down through the ages isn’t enough, now the Almighty is obliged to levy even more ‘punishments’ on top of it???
I believe no such thing.
“Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
~ Thomas Paine ~
nmgirl wrote:
When I was a kid, the church I attended had a man preach in view of a call…..he preached into the Cowboy’s kick-off….needless to say, he didn’t get called…. 🙂
@ linda:
Thankfully those aren’t the only two options.
Addendum @ linda:
Though I do agree that in a dystopian scenario where my only two options were only lining out, or only trance-producing CCM megachurch worship, I would opt for lining out.
linda wrote:
Like the “Symp” and “Parasymp” subliminals in organ/worship music used for mind control by a corrupt religious Heirarchy in Fritz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness!
linda wrote:
What is that?
Hester wrote:
What is lining out?
@ Corbin:
Friend of mine went to Bob Jones University back in the mid 70s. One summer while she was home from college my family (including my very strict traditional parents) took her to an evening concert at Mount Hermon (my parents honeymooned at Mount Hermon so anything they put on had to be all right, even if it involved–gasp–guitars). My friend somewhat snootily informed all of us that any music that made you want to shake your foot was of the devil. Because BJ said so.
linda wrote:
I see what you have said it is not, but I don’t see where you said what it is. So, what do you find that worship is and what does it look like when people do it, and what is the theology behind that? This is an interesting subject to me.
Nancy wrote:
If you sharply hit a ball to third base, and the the third basemen catches it before it touches the ground, that is lining out. 😉
@ Nancy:
I’ll see about a comment on the ODP after Christmas. Have lots of folks coming.
mirele wrote:
Well, certain Federal Visionists do have ties to The League of the South and they have Confederate Balls and whatnot. Don’t have time to go into it, but there is info online about these characters. I think there is a lawyer, IIRC, who wrote good stuff on the Wilsonites.
Corbin wrote:
Purity of Ideology, Comrades.
Purity of Ideology.
roebuck wrote:
Good one.
I read the wiki articles on both musical lining out and on regulative principle but I just got confused at some level as to how that would actually be if I heard it or saw it. And what the thinking would be and what it would actually be like to do either one. Plenty of time after christmas to discuss stuff.
Right this minute one of the grandchildren is at the orthopedists’ office for what may be another fracture. The next grandchild I want one of those little girly girls who never gets in trouble and never gets injured and says yes ma’am all the time and draws little hearts instead of dots over the i when she writes with perfect penmanship.
@ Nancy:
I’d never heard of it myself, and did a little poking around. Found a video example, where it seemed the congregation was made up entirely of elderly white men. It was a bit strange, but essentially ‘call and response’.
@ roebuck:
Great idea. Don’t know why I did not think of that. Eastern Kentucky mountains. One summer I did several weeks of locum tenens in the eastern kentucky mountains. Met some nice people with a fine little hospital.
I went and looked at Park Fiscal’s website and its “terms of use.” I have to think whoever put it together copied it from a commercial website. It reminds me all too much of the very litigious cult of Scientology, except that Scientology’s terms of use also have definitions included.
That said, he’s apparently promising old sermon series, which brings up the question of who actually owns that work product–Mars Hill Church or Mark Driscoll? Then I start going down the bunny trail and there are so many legal loose ends here.
I have this bad feeling Driscoll is going to come out smelling like a rose and will have a new pulpit (not on the ‘Net) in the New Year. I hope I’m wrong.
@ Nancy:
the person leading the congregational singing sings a line, and then the congregation sings that line and… repeat until finished.
@ mirele:
After reading the terms of use, I have determined that Driscoll gets all the benefit and any visitor might well get completely screwed if they are not really careful. It reads like a parady of “terms of use” for a site run by a narsasist. The man seems mentally unstable and dangerous to engage with in business or personally. My 1/2 cent.
@ StillWiggling:
It is really scary when a whole group of people cannot control their feet when they hear certain kinds of music. Good thing they do not train brain surgeons or electrians there.
StillWiggling wrote:
Yep, because shaking your foot could be interpreted as dancing. And satan invented dancing to get young people to lose their purity.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Da.
Corbin wrote:
This is why some conservative denominations are down on sex – it might lead to dancing!
Corbin wrote:
What!?! The “Hokey-Pokey” is satanic?!? Say it isn’t so….
@ Nancy:
It’s a Puritan / old-style Reformed practice where the congregation would sing a single-line psalm melody a cappella. The name comes from the fact that each line would be sung by the deacon and the congregation would then repeat it.
The RP is a Reformed idea, basically that whatever is not explicitly commanded to be used in worship in the Bible is forbidden. Historically this has been used to exclude musical instruments from church, on the grounds that the Psalms are part of the Old Covenant and thus all the uses of musical instruments therein are not normative for the New Testament church. It doesn’t have to do this, but it sometimes still does. There have also been big fights between the RP and its opposite, the “normative principle,” which is that whatever is not explicitly forbidden to be used in worship in the Bible is okay. I think the truth lies somewhere in between the two.
Nancy wrote:
Thing is, you’ve got a Rainbow Dash instead of a Fluttershy.
Hester wrote:
In practice, “Whatever is not explicitly commanded is forbidden” is always grafted to “Whatever is not forbidden is Absolutely Compulsory”.
Hester wrote:
Sounds like a variant on “Responsory Psalm”, a very ancient liturgical practice.
dee wrote:
And these churches offered to pay these people’s bills and groceries, am I right? (I’m kidding.)
Gram3 wrote:
Whatever would Jesus do without Penetrate/Colonize/Conquer/Plant Wilson to crush all His enemies and cleanse Christian America of Heathens and Heretics?
Eeyore wrote:
Sounds like a Fidel Castro speech.
!SOCIALISMO O MUERTE!
Word or Party Line?
I am confused as to why, if we Christians are the body of Christ – and therefore, by definition, so is the church -, going to a different congregation is such a bad thing? After thinking on that question for a while, the only answers I came up with were in regards to control issues.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
And probably quite as soporific.
roebuck wrote:
I almost said that joke. But I’ve only heard it said about IFBs.
Doug wrote:
Sadly, yes. The Hokey-Pokey was created to make young Christian boys stumble because of the constant sensuality. And that’s what it’s all about.
@ Albuquerque Blue:
Albuquerque Blue wrote:
Well if the Broncos keep embarrassing me!
No More Perfect wrote:
Forget control issues. I think a better reason to switch is for better coffee. There’s no reason for cheap Folgers when there are so many places which offer either Starbucks or Seattle’s Best.
“We also support church discipline and yes, kicking out members, but not for asking questions about the budget or holding a view contrary to the preacher. But we see no problem in revoking the membership of unrepentant thieves, murderers, adulterers, etc. We do remember the day when getting your secretary pregnant meant both you and she would lose your membership down at 1st Baptist. Of course in that day, doing the girls in the youth group would get an associate pastor arrested also.
I had never heard of church discipline before my most recent church, an independent, Bible-believing, church here in (Silicon Valley, California).
The church is about 8-years old. It all seemed fine to me in concept…until
I watched the senior pastor trump up some charges (no immorality) against a godly doctor, married to his wife for 40+ years, and kick out of the church and order to be shunned. The good doctor was a smart man, Biblically knowledgable, who asked the pastors/elders good questions.
Next, and just a few months ago, it was my turn to be kicked out on some drummed up charge and ordered to be shunned by my angry pastors/elders. My “crime”? I discovered that a fellow member (a newer member) was a convicted sex offender on Megan’s List. He’s a good friend of the pastors/elders, they’ve given him all kinds of trustworthy positions at church, said he’s harmless, and invited him to volunteer with children at our summer basketball camp (and parents were never told this). My four pastors/elders are liars through and through, manipulative, and will lie about and order to be shunned any smart person who asks them them tough questions. (Note: My pastors/elders said I was “bringing an accusation against an elder without cause” because the California Attorney General’s Office called them “liars” about the sex offender as did the local sheriff’s sex offenders’ task force.)
Corbin wrote:
I have a distinct suspicion that in this context, “African” and/or “Jungle” are code words for “N*gg*r”.
An accusation that was also thrown at Jazz 30-40 years before Rock & Roll, and at Ragtime 30 years before Jazz.
Josh wrote:
Not too surprising but still unsettling; my former church is on their church directory list. Kind of a bummer, you know. But glad to be out of that cultish environment!!! Praise God!
Doug wrote:
Maybe that’s because Arminians seem to feel accountable for their actions while a lot of the Neo Cals think God foreordains everything? There’s no sense of personal responsibility with some of them, maybe.
If that were true, if God controls everything to that degree, wouldn’t Neo Cal’ism be self evident to people, though, or wouldn’t God make everyone into a Neo Cal? Wouldn’t everyone be a Neo Cal? Is it in God’s sovereign will for some people to be Arminian?
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Furtick’s show is coming on in a little bit, speaking of which.
If you don’t tithe, guys like Morris says God will send cancer or divorce (if you’re married) your way.
If I was going to be a greedy, smarmy preacher like that (assuming women could be preachers), and I wanted to make God sound like he was into extortion, my conscience would bother me, so I’d have to reduce the severity.
Like, instead of cancer and divorce, I’d say God would send you a bad case of dandruff, or, you’d keep losing cable in every thunderstorm, things like that. 🙂
I don’t think I could be mean enough to threaten cancer. I think the Morrises of the world are getting their reward in this life time, I hope they enjoy it while it lasts.
NJ wrote:
He’s got high hopes.
High Hopes – Frank Sinatra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWR3IkfHdLE
“Oops there goes another rubber tree plant”
Corbin wrote:
I think to be accurate when discussing things like that, you’re supposed to type it as “Satin”
nmgirl wrote:
Bears fan here so I have no room to talk.
Church hopping and dealing with said hopping(which is a different sort of hopping than what is ‘induced’ by devilish African drums…..) is a challenging subject to tackle in our consumerist age.
General thoughts;
1- The ‘Church’ is not a concept that is defined by a specific building and address. In Revelation’s letter to the churches, the letters are addressed to the ‘angel of’x’ town’ I am personally convinced that the view of the local church in God’s perspective is all those in a reasonably connected geographic region(ie, everyone within the same town/county) that call Christ Lord.
2- It therefore follows that I am not ‘leaving’ THE church if for some reasonable reason my family begins to attend another church in the same town.
Of course the challenge, which they try to address, is what is the definition of “reasonable”.
I would contend that their points are more of a response to experiencing self-centered reasons that people use to justify their departure. This does not mean that there are not times when the SAME reasoning is justifiable, but it is a difficult line to draw betwixt the two….
As a third generation pastor(we got into the wrong family business….no money) who has been blessed to observe and participate in very healthy churches with transparent church leadership and wonderful people, I see MOST often the self-centered type of leaving. My father has been the pastor of the same church since 1982 and in my lifetime I have seen the same few dozen families go for a while, get annoyed with something superficial, go to another church for a few years, rinse and repeat. There is one family that is currently enjoying their FIFTH different time in 33 years at the church. They always hang around for 2-3 years, and then off again, and we will see them again in 3-5 years…..
And what is interesting is that fundamentally, the church hasn’t changed really over the tenure of my fathers leadership. It is bigger today, but many of the people who were key people when we came in 82 are still there today. They operate the same, have the same doctrines, the preaching is clearly the same, etc.
What is frustrating as a pastor is that people like this are often highly gifted people who, when they are around, can serve and lead in a multitude of ways. And while they are around, they build great friendships and people start to count on them as a part of the community, and then….something rubs them the wrong way…and they disappear for a few years.
This “hopping” is often related to some theological/doctrinal ‘hobby horse’ they get into. We had one family a couple of years ago realllllly get into Lordship Theology(aka J Mac) and decided we should start teaching about it alllll the time. I remember a meeting with them where they tried to convince me I was doing everyone a disservice if I didn’t start really hitting that hard every week. When we said…thanks….but no thanks….you guys are great…we want you here…but that is not what we will teach….reasons being, ‘x,y,z’ They then moved on….five years later, I have heard they came down from that mountain top and are drifting back into circles closer to us. Wouldn’t be surprised to see them back again in a few years….
Outside of outright heresy, people get to obsessed with peripheral issues and decide that EVERYONE else has to be into it.
Those are my general thoughts….hope they add to the discussion…..
Daisy wrote:
“Gimme money or my familiar spirit will put a Hex on you”?
This sounds so much like those Pennsylvania Dutch Hexerai stories one of my writing partners keeps telling me — about Hexen (Witches) extorting money from people by using magical curses which they’ll lift for a price. (And how the hero outsmarts or otherwise defeats or destroys the Hex, usually with a hickory cudgel or “Pow-Wow” folk magic.)
Adam Borsay wrote:
Trouble is, sometimes the person who gets obsessed with the hobby horse peripheral issue is the pastor or an elder. Then the whole church must fall in line or get lost, never mind whether the issue is a Gospel Imperative. If someone objects to the new essential doctrine, then that person has the problem. That’s why I left or, more accurately, why I stayed in the same place and the church left me.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Lol, that floored me when I first heard it. It was an article about some pal of Gothard, I can’t remember the name (maybe it was Gothard himself?) It was around 2 years ago. Anyway, he said that jazz was invented and or promoted by the Jews as a way to arouse black people and skyrocket their numbers, therefore causing all sorts of problems for good white citizens everywhere. You can’t make this stuff up.
Daisy wrote:
Lol or devil. It has such a nice sound when you say it with an exaggerated southern accent (no offense to the southern people here.)
@ Corbin:
About any time I see very legalistic religious guys go on rants about things like rock music, dancing, or pants on women, they either type in ALL CAPS or spell Satan as SatIn. 🙂
——
I am just now hearing about Mark Driscoll’s new web site. I looked it over. I want to throw up. He didn’t waste any time in putting up a “giving” page where you can send him money.
Daisy wrote:
Doug wrote:
Sadly, yes. The Hokey-Pokey was created to make young Christian boys stumble because of the constant sensuality. And that’s what it’s all about.@ Corbin:
Lol accidentally hit post.
I glanced at it a few hours ago. The “About pastor Mark” page made me roll my eyes. It really shouldn’t; it’s the same old same old. But it’s sad that many people are developing stereotypes of us because of the actions of pastors like Driscoll.
@ Daisy:
I have no idea how It did that lol sorry. The second half of the second comment is to you.
THC wrote:
You tease. I know a couple who changed churches because First Christian ( Disciple’ of Christ) served better doughnuts….
Daisy wrote:
All hail the soft and silky Satin! 😉
Bridget wrote:
YES! The terms of use are crazy, and good luck enforcing that mess.
Corbin wrote:
Can’t remember where this first appeared but:
FUND = SEND MONEY!
A = Without
MENTAL = Brains
Corbin wrote:
Followed by “And They’re After OUR White Wimmen! We Must Protect Our White Wimmen!”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=493pL_Vbtnc
(Never understood the white supremacist “Protect the White Wimmen” meme. Sounds like a dog or horse breeder obsessed with the Purebred Status of his breeding stock, which will be utterly ruined if bred outside his pre-planned Purebred plan.)
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I’m thinking the loudest ones are those who are trying to ignore something(s) their ancestors did.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/22/a-lot-of-southern-whites-are-a-little-bit-black/
It drove my parents nuts, but I identified myself as mixed race on the last two censuses because not all of my ancestors were white. They may have passed as white, but I’ve seen pictures.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Sadly, that’s basically what they believe. They NEED to keep the race “clean” that’s why interracial marriages are so disgusting to them. I personally think it’s an identity issue: they were raised to view their whiteness as a core part of their worth, their character almost. So when they see whites with non-whites, it feels lika a part of them is dying.
I’d probably make the impure list: my dad is half Mexican, half white, and my mom is around half white, half black. She got her ancestry DNA test thing done and I don’t really get the percentages.
Corbin wrote:
Like the story about the Fifties interview with some trailer-trash Ku Kluxer.
“If Ah can’ be better than a n*gg*r, who I got ta be better than?”
i.e. his Whiteness was the ONLY thing he had to brag about.
I remember when this black kid from Tennessee I knew from fandom was crashing on my couch while attending a local game con. I told him how “by the standards of the 19th Century, NOBODY in this house is a White Man”. My mother’s ancestry came from Italy (Italians weren’t “White” back then) and my roommate is 1/8 Apache, 1/8 Comanche, and 1/4 Irish (none of which were “White” back then).
19th Century Scientific Racism (when Darwin replaced the Curse of Ham) had a LOT narrower definition of “White” than today. (Usually only the ethnicity or nationality of the Scientist(TM) doing the Race Purity analysis.)
mirele wrote:
Why do I hear Mick Jagger belting out “Brown Sugar” when I read that?
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I know, which makes no sense to to me.
My mom’s test says she’s 66% (i think. It might be 68, whatever..)Norwegian. Didn’t Hitler think that was as white as you could get?
Corbin wrote:
The NSDAP’s Ahnenerbe (Blood Purity Boyz) cut off “race mongrelization” as 1/16th Untermensch (subhuman) Blood. Right on the 1/16 was “Mischling” (mixture/half-breed) whose classification depended on whether the Impure Blood(TM) came from the Mother’s or Father’s side.
The slaveowners of pre-Revolution Haiti (and the “Negritude” ideology of the Haitian Revolution) still hold the record with a mixed-race gradation of 1/128 increments all the way from 1/128 to 128/128.
Now THAT’s Racism!
Nancy–I still hold to the rather archaic (today) teaching of the SBC local church I grew up in, which is that church services are to put forth the truth about humans, God, sin, and salvation.
Don’t get me wrong–we could get pretty lively. It just wasn’t contrived.
We spent time among frozen chosen as they called themselves in our many moves. You can bet there was no manipulative use of the staid music, rote prayers, etc. And yet in those services I saw one man so overcome by grace he couldn’t wait for the ushers or his wife to help him use his crutches or bring him Communion, but crawled on his hands and knees with tears of joy streaming down his face as he approached the altar rail. Before reciting the Lord’s Prayer, people would quietly move around and deal with hard feelings with apologies and hugs. Another time a woman broke out in sobs and tears when an usher quietly gestured it was her turn to go forward for the elements.
On the other hand, in local evangelical services the pastors often try to “whip up” tears and loud cries of repentance, etc. One calls it a “concert of prayer” and means if you aren’t wailing you aren’t praying. One uses a real popular tear jerker song to try to get folks to the altar to pray.
The thing is, often those “whipped up” orgies of emotion don’t produce the changed lives that the not “whipped up” clearly emotional moves of the Holy Spirit do.
The church I’m attending had become one of those “whip up the FALSE emotion” ones, complete with musicians at odds over who was the star. We are taking a bit of time to really play down the music portion of the service, and to try to really eliminate the manipulation in all parts of the service.
Our hope is to be able to bring back the healthy elements of the music and prayers. We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
But just because Sister Sue got goose bumps during a given song doesn’t necessarily mean God did it. Especially if the song leader decided that was the reaction he wanted when he planned the music.
So now we figure worship happens from the heart, in response to the Holy Spirit, and we cannot cause it or lead you to do it.
We can only share with you in music, in prayer, and in teaching and preaching what we believe to be the truth about God. (The gospel, non trademark usage.)
After that you are on your own in your intimate relationship with Jesus.
Adam Borsay wrote:
Indeed they do, imho, and very interesting they are too. I’d like to add a couple more, and along the same lines.
I couldn’t agree more that “the Church in [a location]” means all the believers in that location. In NT times, they weren’t split into multiple, mutually-exclusive denominations, and the idea of a town having many local churches (plural), each of which had next to nothing to do with any of the others, was foreign.
In the light of this, ISTM that church-hoppers, whatever the reason for their church-hopping, are displaying at least one NT-mandated behaviour that their congregation-affiliated siblings are not: they are in some sense living out membership of the local church, instead of a local church. That’s not to say their hearts are right, nor that they are necessarily doing a good thing, but the challenge they represent is a real one.
I do think the longer part of your comment is interesting – Lesley and I have a story to tell on that front, but I’m about to get displaced from the Mac while Lesley does some necessary Christmas emailing, so I’ll have to come back and address that separately…
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Along with being very creepy and sad.
Does anyone remember the time when there were groups of “spiritual dancers” on the street corners of cities? I saw them in the news on TV etc. people made fun of them but I thought it looked like fun. Dancing to “the glory of God.” I’ve forgotten what they called themselves. The writer Carol Shields wrote a novel about a woman whose daughter danced on the streets of Toronto leaving her family and friends, or maybe it was Shield’s own daughter. I don’t do a lot of fact checking before I post, lol. I’m always moved when I hear about people who are willing to humiliate themselves (in other’s minds) for what they feel is Christ’s sake.
Hanni wrote:
In which case, I could tell you many a moving tale!
Most of them are funny to look back on.
And speaking of funny, I’ve just followed the injunction at the top of this site to go and read Pastormark’s copyright page.
I think the funniest thing about it (at least insofar as you have to laugh, or you’d cry) is the continued use of the word “Pastor”. He has declared himself to have no pastoral gift per se, and so the title could only be attached to his holding a place of honour in a local group of believers. But he has just abandoned his post rather than submit to Biblical™_Church_Discipline.
But hey. Maybe “pastor” has a special meaning in C. Yattle that I’m not aware of. I’m sure it’s not just a tax dodge or anything.
Anyway, it is now Christmas Day in Blighty – indeed, it has been for some hours chez nos amis d’Australia – so a joyous Noel to one and all.
With the Christmas cake now out of the oven (and smelling delicious, thanks for asking), that’s me awa’ tae mah bed.
I just lost at the first round of “spoons” so thought I would check in as the game progresses. Since we left the evangelical world, we have decided to check out different churches just to get a feel for what is going on out there in a different venue. This evening we attended a very old Baptist church (Est in the late 1800’s) which broke off from the SBC back during the CR. They would be considered extreme liberal by STBTS standards. The pipe organ was majestic. (No imags! Yeah!) but my favorite part was the 80 something year old woman who read out a prayer she wrote that was such utter beauty about our King it made me weep.
No worm theology. Just us weary travelers praising our King. It was refreshing. After the games we go to sing at midnight with the Presbyterians.
So Nick, what is a “Christmas Cake” over there? Last year we had friends from England visiting who literally packed and brought with them fixings for Mince meat pies, bread sauce (which I had never heard of) and other assorted interesting items we are not used to. Don’t you usually have your big feast on Boxing day?
@ Lydia:
Traditionally, Christmas_Cake is a very rich, dark fruitcake made primarily with currants, raisins and sultanas, using brown sugar, and iced with marzipan and plain white icing. However, I’ve made a light Christmas cake, primarily with apricots, pears and apples, using white sugar with a background flavour using vanilla paste. I may or may not get around to icing it…
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I heard a pastor say I one time that this is how the hymn “Nothing but the blood of Jesus” was originally sung.
Gram3 wrote:
I dare not ask what you are speaking of. Particularly the “whatnot”.
nmgirl wrote:
Try being a Liverpool F.C. supporter this season.
The only upside is that I think we may stave off relegation.
@ Adam Borsay:
Part 2… regarding the whole business of people leaving local churches and then coming back to them.
Up until a few years ago, Lesley and I were members of a local church (as they’re known) that is affiliated with one of the mainstream denominations represented in Scotland. We’d been there for seven or eight years, when it was decided that the Sunday school * would spend three weeks covering the topic “Jesus Heals”. Which was all very exciting, up until the point where Lesley actually told the story of how she was healed from chronic and debilitating asthma. At this point, one of the church members, who is opposed to the idea of Jesus healing, approached the Sunday school workers to say that she didn’t want it to be about Jesus healing, but about how our belief in Jesus can help us to make good things happen after bad experiences. To cut a long story short, we were both told, by several and varied people in the church, that we were irresponsible to tell children that Jesus heals (because they’ll all refuse to take any medicine, won’t they?). And our testimony was banned.
Several things disturbed us about this. For one thing, it became evident that the titular leaders were not really the leaders. Whatever our ecclesiology may be, if we join any kind of organisation then it is our wish to honour the people who have duly accepted responsibility within it. So a “shadow-leadership” is a big problem in our book. For another, Lesley’s healing was something we had prayed, fought, held fast to Biblescripture, and stood together for over a period of years. To dismiss it is to do more than to “upset” us, as though by telling a child there are no fairies at the bottom of the garden. It is to dismiss us personally, and the truths we have proven by experience, as though telling a returning Columbus that the world is flat.
So we resigned our membership. We felt our position there was untenable; we no longer felt that we had the company of fellows, without which there is no fellowship.
But recently, we have decided to go back. What changed our minds was the funeral of a long-standing member we’d been close to. We realised that in walking away from counterfeit kingdom, we’d been robbed of some real relationships. So we’re attending again, though not formally joining. We’ll make whatever friends we make, and pursue those relationships wherever they lead.
This comment is getting rather long, so I’ll pause there, I think!
* It is known locally as the “Children’s Work”, but “Sunday school” is probably a fair equivalent in US english!
Mark wrote:
You underestimate the brand loyalty of the SBC.
NJ wrote:
You say a capella like it’s a bad thing. I’ve found the a capella worship of the Church of Christ I’ve been attending to be a refreshing corrective to the laser show and rock and roll, only using the latest worship music as heard on Corporate Praise(TM) FM, hipster type of megachurch worship which is also mimicked at small 20-member congregations. It’s a blessing to actually HEAR a congregation sing!
dee wrote:
And the title of the guy with the stick? The “tithing man”! I kid you not.
I have not read all the posts on this topic but feel the gist is “why people leave church.” I don’t go to church at this time in my life (83 next month), but I want to. I have arthritis and my mobility is not too good, so parking, (church has valet parking available, but still very complicated moves with cane, etc)., sacraments, getting in and out of church a problem, which I dread. I have never been particularly concerned with the sermons; I have always found something good for me in them. I would assume this is what The Lord has put on his heart. A way to keep people in the church, IMO, is to be a real pastor. Call;Visit;Take Communion to the shut ins; Visit, Pray with them; Visit! I have taken care of my now deceased mother, sister, aunts, and found this very much lacking in pastors. For many years I served in a Lutheran church in Calif. And if my family missed 2 or 3 Sundays, Pastor would visit. You should care about the sheep.
@ Hanni:
Hello Hanni, have you considered attending the E-church Dee and Deb post each week? I’ve been very blessed by them.
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2014/12/20/echurchwartburg-12-21-14/
Hope you have a very Happy and Healthy New Year!
Hello Victorious! I love the service at TWW! Also Internet Monk service. Such wonderful prayers. This is not anything they throw together, it takes a lot of thought and prayer. I look forward to these blogs every Sunday. Thanks for reminding me.
Mike wrote:
That may be true, but there are more “brands” around to compete with the SBC. I am a cessationist, but 5 highly involved church members left my SBC church for charismatic churches and other evangelical communions. And now there is competition where child events take up time that in times past would have gone into Sunday night church and church visitation. Also SBC churches don’t tend to clean up rolls, which is a good thing. They always hope people who left without asking for their names taken off the roll will be back. I like the SBC: I just don’t like what I see happening and it isn’t a conservative liberal thing.
Be@ Mark:
Years ago two of our deacons thought that inactive members would be better prospects than cold calls. They got a list and resolved to go see them all during that year. They went to see them all. They discovered that people who were not active almost always had specific reasons for being inactive. They were not prospects in any sense of the word.
Bennett Willis wrote:
I understand because I participated in visitation where we visited people who hadn’t been in church for quite awhile. Some left because they were hurting. Baptists can be mean to one another, so it was the right thing to visit these people, even if they were unlikely to come back to church.
Regarding visitation: I received cold calls from a black Baptist church and I really didn’t have time because I had to be somewhere. And I thought they were JW’s I closed the door in their face. I felt bad about this and apologized. Visitation and cold calls and making friends in the community is important even if the door in closed in your face.
Mark wrote:
Several years ago, I was told that a local church did cold calls especially to those who may have recently moved into their rather small community. I thought that was very welcoming of the church until I learned (from an elderly widow) that the church developed its cold call list from members that worked at the local banks who would check records and find out who had money (such as certificates of deposit, etc.)
Joe2 wrote:
That is unfortunate. Old time Baptist pastors I knew didn’t make it their business what I could contribute to the church. I had doctrinal issues with the cooperative program and they didn’t confront me because of my concerns. Money should be no ones business and what is cheerfully given in funds and in other forms of non monetary giving ( Ie giving of your time) is between a person and God. The tithe, by the way, is a controversial topic. I tend towards John MacArthur’s view that it is from the Old Testament.
Years ago a friend was confronted by the local Roman Catholic Church because he had not paid his tithe. We hurt for our friend. What you are describing reminds me of the Roman Catholic discipline, not that of a radical Protestant.
The day my church knows my personal business is the day I will walk out its door. This is akin to an indulgence, and should be confronted as a “salvation by works” at odds with salvation by grace. If I do or don’t tithe is no one’s business.
Mark wrote:
I suspect we’re barking up the same hymn sheet here, but it’s more than unfortunate; it’s almost certainly illegal, being a breach of client confidentiality. To say nothing of betraying – if indeed it is true – a grossly carnal attitude on the part of the church leadership, who clearly believed some variation on the theme of “godliness as a means of financial gain”.
Mark further wrote:
I respectfully assert that Mr MacArthur is not the owner of this viewpoint! He merely happens to be correct.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
He is an example of a pastor who holds this viewpoint. Here is a quote from Spurgeon:
“”It is also noteworthy that, with regard to Christian liberality, there are no rules laid down in the Word of God. I remember hearing somebody say, ‘I should like to know exactly what I ought to give.’ Yes, dear Friend, no doubt you would; but you are not under a system similar to that by which the Jews were obliged to pay tithes to the priests. If there were any such rule laid down in the gospel, it would destroy the beauty of spontaneous giving, and take away all the bloom from the fruit of your liberality!”
There are many preachers and theologians throughout history who hold this opinion. Funny I am agreeing with Reformed theologians/pastors and I am finding myself turned off by the stealth tactics of Neocalvinists in the SBC. I bet I could go to Luther and beyond regarding the tithe.
@ Mark:
I was being rather facetious on that second point – there are indeed many folk, great and small, who have rejected the idea of tithing as a new covenant command over the years. Though by the same token I wouldn’t try to take away someone’s freedom to tithe if they wanted to (and I’d guess that you probably wouldn’t either).
Spurgeon makes quite a good point in that quote, as of course do you by extension. One does encounter a fair sub-set of Christians who actually want to live under generic Law.
Daisy wrote:
Lose-cable-in-a-thunder-storm-threat…you are one smart woman! That’s good for at least a 20% donation not a mere 10%.
Next, you’ll put a pox on their favorite sports teams (that’s worse than the dandruff threat)…for even more $.