I've been either a member or regular-attender at several different churches, over over close to thirty years. (Put that way, the "church hopping number" doesn't sound all that bad, especially since two of the moves were because I moved to a new state.) Church hopping has a definition that doesn't fit my whole experience: First, ...continue reading
I got a letter from my old church; a reply to my letter (read my letter here). (There's a question at the bottom that I would dearly love to have somebody on the outside give some thoughts on...) Up to this point, the differences have been largely about the decisions made by the pastors and ...continue reading
My membership is still at the old church (for the time being) I am NOT a one-issue person. I'm not all about stirring things up. I have at times been devastated, angry, frustrated and saddened by all of this. I'm devastated that people who have trusted their church have been exposed to this. I've been ...continue reading
I'm posting a comment from Moonshadow and following up in a post - the only reason is that she asked good questions for a follow up and it's going to be long and have links - I's way rather do the links in a post than in a comment, since Blogger does it for you ...continue reading
Down to the Wire at my Old Church. Today, I’m writing a letter to the board of elders at my old church. The letter is including a lot of things, some of which I’ve blogged about here. This is an important point – I’m not blogging about anything that is not public knowledge – this ...continue reading
It's a very small church, very mixed congregation, not very far away. It's a church that is not ashamed to have "Reformed" on the sign out in front, which is important to me. All of the elders are male, which is becoming increasingly important. Easter seems like an odd time to visit, but when I ...continue reading
Manda and I visited a church this morning (Tom has a long work day) and I have a lot of thoughts. 1) the church has beautiful stained glass 2) the church has a real pipe organ - I love pipe organs 3) the church has some very friendly people 4) there was a lot of ...continue reading
Mark Driscoll, on his blog, wrote a few comments about large and small churches today (from Lyle Schaller in The Very Large Church: Larger churches tend to be more conservative in theology and more liberal in practice, while smaller churches are often more liberal in theology and more conservative in outward practice (e.g., liturgy, hymns, ...continue reading
As I am in the process of looking for a new church, I'm reflecting not only on what Sunshine is doing wrong, but what I want to see done right in a church that I belong to. (This will probably take a while.) Biblical elements of corporate worship include preaching and teaching the Word of ...continue reading
I'm going to try to tie my last three posts together in an attempt to show you all where I am right now. (In this post, they're not in the order I posted them, the school paper makes it out of order) "Bad Doctrine Has Consequences" - a recurring theme around our home. Last night ...continue reading