Once again, I come up against a failure of a local church leader. This time in a church whose pastor is married to a long-time friend's daughter, so it hurts particularly more. He was attempting to preach on church membership, a dangerous topic. But his line was to admit it isn't directly in the Bible, but is inferred. Every verse he quoted was a stretch with other interpretations glaring.
But what really got me was that he said something to the effect of, "I'm the pastor and if you want my help you need to be a member because no one gets a free ride here. That's how we work here, so if you don't like it, this probably isn't the church for you."
Are you serious? Ok dude, throw your ultimatum and watch which side I fall on. I've NEVER gotten anything more than passing encouragement from a church, and HAVE gotten a whole lot of grief and guilt for not doing enough, giving enough, forgiving THEIR faults enough. Well I'm over it
It's only by the undeniable grace of God in my life that I have any faith left at all. But it certainly isn't in your system.
And you know what? I'm not alone. Church membership and attendance in general are falling worldwide. But many like me aren't giving up their faith. We're walking away from crap like you spewed.
And like I said, I have reason to love you and this church that you don't know. The ONE man who never forced me to conform, who respected my decisions and rights, and the ONE body of Christians who once materially came through for me is YOUR Father-in-Law and the church YOU pastor.
So thanks for convincing me I was right in my conviction that the best thing we could do for Christianity is to abolish the professional pastorate.
