To the person using a WV State Computer to check this post, awesome, but it hasn’t really changed lately. I suspect that since you check it on certain days, that means you only work part time. No matter, but please visit my other posts as well. I want the hits. If you feel like this post is up in error, leave a comment or email me.
I want you to know, however, that I am still praying for you and your family. It will be difficult, you know, when Marshall starts. There is a biblical way to handle such things, but hiding them, etc… is not it.
What follows is a private (sorta) message to my brothers and sisters in Christ who are experiencing hurt and schism. (Updates at the bottom)
Thank God you left. Now, get it right, focus on God, don’t worry about the garbage you left. Focus on God, renew yourselves in Him.
Bro. Randy, you are not the bad guy for standing up for God and His holiness. Johnson was correct, about appearances. But who gives a flying leap if what you are doing is biblical?
You know of the deceit and monarchical control of your former pastor. You know of the favoritism shown in June. You know what is being covered up. You know of the hypocrisy and of the changes of rules according to the person. Of perhaps the application of those rules?
Now, I realize that this post is attracting a lot of attention today (10/14), and that’s good. Personally, the deceit shown in June is breaking up the Organization. Why? Because you, Presiding Bishops among others, have allowed a certain sin to creep in, and then, once it is in, you shield it. You protect it. All in the name of what? Friendship? For fear of bringing reproach upon the Church? (here and here)
What do you think you have done?
Yes, a crime was committed – but you who knew about committed crimes as well (see the links above). Then, you created secrecy, and hid sins, compounding sins upon sin.
The Organization will not be around much longer, maybe a year, or two. You have compromised.
See here and here.
But, is splitting the right answer? Yes. If need be, but first, take a vote. See if the pastor will actually take biblical leadership – meaning adding someone to the top tier of the ministry. If not, then you must schism. But, if you do, follow Abraham.
When you start condoning divorce and remarriage, when you start condoning homosexuality, is it a real church?
Brothers and sisters, keep this in mind. The Church has withstood so much, even from the very start. Read 3rd John. Read the words of the Apostle who had sent messengers to this local congregation. The man who took charge – he took it, it was given to him – had began to expel people who stood against him. This is not godly. The Apostle condemned this as ungodly and worthy enough of a personal visit.
What would Paul say or John say to the pastors of our congregations? We should tremble at that thought, friends.
Friends, I don’t want you think me callous to this, or that I believe that these offending pastors are hellbound or in grave doctrinal error. These are men, fallible, like everyone else. They have err’d, sinning out as we would say. I believe that their is hope to repairing the damage, in bringing together again the unity of friends and family in the Church of Jesus Christ. The pastors who have so err’d must step down. If they have committed a crime, then they should turn themselves in. Further, the local congregations must take up a biblical form of church government. But more importantly, they have to stand for God in these terrible times, regardless of appearances or hurt feelings.
For me, I wish I could fellowship again the Church, but we will see.
UPDATE 10/20
Let me sate unequivocally: Not all the pastors in the organization know the truth, or the full facts, you might say. Some of the pastors are unaware of what is going on. I am not attempting to destroy the organization, on the contrary, I want to see it saved. This is why I called for the removal of the pastors involved in the cover-up of sin. There are good men and women in this organization who don’t know the truth, and further, do not believe that they can question their pastor if they did.
However, those that know the truth – regardless of their excuses – are weak and ineffectual and very much a party to what is happening if they do nothing to correct it.
I open this up to anything someone has to say. Freely. Non-censured. I would prefer not to mention names, besides my own, however. You know where I stand. Some people seem to think that this is ‘mudslinging.’ Hardly. I have to note that the Pauline Corpus was passed around publicly, which included ‘named-calling’ and names of the wrongdoers themselves!. Further, Paul was harsh in this language. He didn’t apologize all that often. What this is, is a public call to reform our beloved organization. We can do it.
UPDATE 11/07
I get traffic to this letter from time to time, and I am hoping that it is going to call attention to the cancer which is growing in the Church. Pacifism to sin.
Usually, we understand pacifism as the refusal to fight in wars and to be ‘peace’ loving. Here to, this mentality has transferred to the battle with sin. Paul said that we are war with our flesh, but how many are still in the battle? Homosexuality has taken a place on the pulpit on some of these local churches of ours. There is no hope to recover them from the grips of this vile sin, because eyes are turned. Surely not this person, they say, but this person is gay and yet lifted up. Why? What because people believe that sin can be ignored.
Are you ignoring sin? Now, don’t get me wrong, homosexuals should not be shunned, but neither should people abide by sin. Should we allow them on the pulpit? No. We should support them, and affirm their humanity, but so to should we stand on the word of God and fight against the sin which abides with us.
Friends, you and I know how difficult it is to face this type of sin within our own family, but if we are ministers, if we are Christians, then God and His glorious Church comes first.
The Pharisee Saul was married, with children, before he became the Apostle Paul. How do I know this? Because to be a member of the Sanhedrin, and to be a Pharisee, you had to be married with children. But, in all of the New Testament, we know that he is not. Why? We don’t know, but it might very well be that upon his conversion, his family simply left him.
We know that Christ had to divorce Himself from His family to do the will of the Father.
But will our ministers? Do they have the courage to stand up to their own families?
You and I have seen that answer, and that answer is no.
UPDATE 11/28
Contrary to popular opinion, I have not gone pentecostal. Someone at Ohley has started the rumor that have gone Ripley, but that is a lie. I have not gone anywhere, as a matter of fact.
UPDATE 12/06
I’ve added this post – which, without names, details the reasons I left the ‘home church.’
UPDATE 03/06
Some thoughts.
Tags: church, church split, indiana, portage, schism, split, tcojc, the church of Jesus Christ
