Featured Must I leave BB?

quote: Weelll, I agree to a certain extent Jim, but don't I remember a time when you went to pastor a local Anglican congregation and posted only in the open forums?
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I did that on my own volition. The then owner and founder of the Baptist Board invited me back and post as a Baptist. He knew I was a baptist and would not violate baptist principles, even though I was "pastoring" and Anglican Church at that time.

I was honest about it, and he accepted that.

Cheers,

Jim

 

I made that leap once and was a member for 12 years. Believe me, there is just as much dissension in TEC as there is among Southern Baptists. In the end, I couldn't take the decision to approve homosexual marriages and ordinations. The only way I could be Anglican now is probably through the Convergence Movement, or one of the moderate-conservative breakaway Anglican groups.

You will, however, find a breadth of beliefs accepted in the Episcopal Church -- they are able to contain Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics, Calvinists, Arminians, charismatics, and a host of other traditions and heritages, including Orthodox and Celtic.

 

I agree. I had a discussion Sunday with our Pastor about the Cal/non-cal nonsense going on. It is up to each local church to guard against such garbage from infecting the congregation. There is no way it would be tolerated at our church, either side causing division. It is one thing for uncivil threads to run rampant on this subject, but to project this garbage into a local church is a serious matter to the Lord, to put it nicely. All it takes to put an end to the SBC is one vote.

What is so sad is that most on this board are pastors, assistant pastors, or some other type of Christian leader that has had years of training at some seminary. One would expect that group of people to be a cut above the average church member. It seems it is the opposite.

As was mentioned in another thread, I wish it was possible to read some of these posts to the local church where these pastors and leaders work. I wonder what the reaction of the average congregation would be.

This is exactly why I would never belong to a denomination with a hierarchy that controls a local church, or for that matter, elder rule within a local church. It is quite obvious that so called church leaders who do things like author this letter, use mass media to oppose it in a angry manner, and those church leaders (not the administrators and moderators) on this board who type the constant angry back and forth posts, are no more spiritually mature (maybe less) than the average layman who is self taught and does not work in a Christian vocation.

There is nothing more obnoxious than a bunch of shrieking theologeans.

 

I had to get that picture in my mind. :laugh:

That might be a good name for a contemporary rock band.

 

Screetching might be a better word.

 

Personal experience tells me that a lot of places appear to have greener pastures, but in due time, everyone and everything is the same...everywhere.

I'm wondering if perhaps we make too much of a thing out of church and should really be more focused on taking on our neighbors and helping in our community on a more individual basis, rather than having so much focus on helping the church. Since church is for believers, why not just have it be a place where we encourage each other once a week so we're ready to go do things on our own, while the majority of special groups and such within the church are focuses on outreach instead of the members?

That could only work if members discipled each other though, maybe each person having a mentor within the church.

Dare to dream, huh?

Just seems that any church I've been in really is unfocused on the true purpose, with the majority of the members not interested in much of anything outside the church and nothing inside the church if it involves focusing on unbelievers.

 

Maybe it's just the fundamentalism that you're reacting to? I really don't know your case but for me, when I left my fundamentalist church years back, the attitiudes and situations you described were missing in other non-fundamentalist churches we attended. I experienced liberty from the subtle oppression of fundamentalism!

 

This is why I'm still a Baptist, though I've already determined that our congregation is not Calvinist.

No, I did that when I joined the Baptist church I'm a member of now. Thought it to be an excellent fit until my first teen joined the youth program. And then refused to participate again. *I* had no problems with her simply being in "big" church with me but found later that she had been ostracized to a certain extent because she didn't want to hear about what the kids had done on the weekend and with who. And so it went with all the others (I have 4) even when I left the children's programs to help with the youth. Now they all refuse to attend there. (with their father's backing I might add)

 

Doesn't that apply to all, regardless of age?

 

Yes, but how many pause to think about it?

 

I did.

(added to make 10 characters)

 

I agree with Oldtimer, it is what is in your heat that matters. :wavey: