How not to do it
Yesterday, the church my family has been attending voted to receive an interim pastor. In the preceding sermon, the man made the following errors:
1. Spoke of how god predestined whom would be saved before he even made the world. I did not capitalize "god" nor "he" as this man was obviously referencing some god other than Jehova of the Bible.
2. Spoke in a negative connotation of "assault weapons." Not five minutes after that, he made denigrating comments about GLOCK by name (and not in a "I prefer a 1911 to a GLOCK" way).
What I don't understand is why he didn't just go ahead and say he was "pro-choice" too. I mean, that is two of the major three things I value in life: God, guns, and life. This man does not speak of the same God as I believe in, he dislikes guns.
I would be on to looking for another place to worship, but the kids really like it here.
Couple of bits of irony:
- This interim pastor happens to be the father-in-law of the pastor of my former church (where I had been a member for over a decade).
- The pastor and youth minister at this church resigned shortly after we started attending. I held both individuals in high esteem. But, we tried to "stick it out" and see what would happen... much as we had been mistaken to do at our former church.
- This church is now heavily under the "ministry" of a certain religious company that is headquartered in Nashville. The more I find out about this company, the less I like them. Dealings with this company sparked the rift in my current church, and assisted in the rift in my former church.
I dislike these facts, as my children do enjoy their worship services, and my daughter attends the preschool program there. I do not plan to take her out, as the pastorship has almost no interaction with nor influence upon the preschool program.
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1. Spoke of how god predestined whom would be saved before he even made the world. I did not capitalize "god" nor "he" as this man was obviously referencing some god other than Jehova of the Bible.
2. Spoke in a negative connotation of "assault weapons." Not five minutes after that, he made denigrating comments about GLOCK by name (and not in a "I prefer a 1911 to a GLOCK" way).
What I don't understand is why he didn't just go ahead and say he was "pro-choice" too. I mean, that is two of the major three things I value in life: God, guns, and life. This man does not speak of the same God as I believe in, he dislikes guns.
I would be on to looking for another place to worship, but the kids really like it here.
Couple of bits of irony:
- This interim pastor happens to be the father-in-law of the pastor of my former church (where I had been a member for over a decade).
- The pastor and youth minister at this church resigned shortly after we started attending. I held both individuals in high esteem. But, we tried to "stick it out" and see what would happen... much as we had been mistaken to do at our former church.
- This church is now heavily under the "ministry" of a certain religious company that is headquartered in Nashville. The more I find out about this company, the less I like them. Dealings with this company sparked the rift in my current church, and assisted in the rift in my former church.
I dislike these facts, as my children do enjoy their worship services, and my daughter attends the preschool program there. I do not plan to take her out, as the pastorship has almost no interaction with nor influence upon the preschool program.
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I would not stick it out, since your attendance to this church also brings the tithe? I for one would not be financially helping a group I did not believe in. Mary and I went through this several times, and it is not fun. However, being in the "right" place does make a difference. Heck, one place we stayed even though the kids did NOT like it at all. In the end, we should have not been there either.
ReplyDeleteHow much time have you been without a perm minister, and how long does the "interim" one plan to stay? Heck, with the comments alone I am pretty sure we would have been gone before the service was over..
Thanks for reading!
ReplyDeleteI have been alternating back and forth since yesterday at about 11:30 am on whether to leave. Your point about sticking it out too long is very pertinent, too. We stayed far too long at our old church.
To answer your questions:
Been without a permanent minister since July (?) or so. Dunno how long the interim one plans to stay. They made it sound like he would be there until a permanent replacement was found. Wouldn't surprise me if the interim really wanted the permanent gig.
And yes, I nearly left at the moment of the comments. In the end, I stayed as a character reference for myself, having been annoyed a bit at someone walking out of a SS discussion I led a little over a year ago (on the same topic, no less!).