By Jim on
Church & Ministry
LGBTQ
Sexual Ethics

“Fallout from the vote is what Mason calls ‘the biggest misjudgment of my ministry.’ Clarifying, Mason explained he was shocked by ‘the consequence of the number of people for whom this would be a decision they could no longer remain in the church.’… the church counted its losses: About 250 members left, taking $700,000 of annual giving with them,”

Discussion

Mon, 12/25/17

Sad that only 250 left.

Mon, 12/25/17

Outside the main issue in the article, look at how the whole thing is cast—its all run like a corporation with a focus on dollars and cents, numbers, marketing, strategy, and so on. There was no concern at all for the Scriptures, and no concern at all for people. People are simply numbered, and serve only as the primary measurement of the ‘success’ of the business.

Tue, 12/26/17

It’s been my experience that, in a church, people committed to the truth and Biblical mission of the church give and those who are interested in conforming to the societal trends of the day and seek “not to offend” may be vocal but aren’t generous.

Often the first sign a church is headed down the tubes is a reduction in giving not a redultion in numbers. Many liberal churches may have pews full of people but offering plates full of one dollar bills.

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan

Tue, 12/26/17

Outside the main issue in the article, look at how the whole thing is cast—its all run like a corporation with a focus on dollars and cents, numbers, marketing, strategy, and so on.

The thing that really jumped out at me wasn’t the emphasis on numbers and money, it was the parcity of references to Scripture. I think I counted something like 4 references, and one of them was where the term scripture was used twice in a sentence.

And then there was this howler of a paragraph:

“So often what I start reading from people who are saying this is not orthodox or it’s Christian heresy, I want to say, ‘Where in the creed are we in violation?’ And then they’ll want to say, ‘Well let’s go to the Bible, the Bible plainly says.’ Alright, the Bible is not where we talk about Christian orthodoxy,” claimed Mason.

He added, “Historically, when we’ve talked about orthodoxy we’ve talked about it in terms of our creedal tradition of what orthodoxy is which has to do with who God is, with who is Jesus Christ, what is salvation, what is the nature of God…we have not had as part of these creeds, marriage is between a man and a woman only.”

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells