With this post Religious and Liberty welcome a new partner, Justice.
The large committee to select the nominating committee was late in getting started. Pastor DeSilva claimed that the committee could not begin its work until the church had voted on the Paul Bordon Report, so the large committee didn’t meet until December. This committee was asked to pick a nominating committee that represented all the groups of the church. There was to be a balance of men and women, older and younger members, and members from the each of the different ethnic groups.
A list of potential members was proposed with repeated input from the pastor. He even went so far as to suggest who he felt would make a good chair person. This group was voted on and the top 20 people were recommended. The person the pastor wanted to chair was on the list and it was recommended that he serve as the chair. Committee members were assigned to call prospective members.
When the committee reconvened it was to find out that a large number of people had turned down the invitation to serve on the nominating committee. People gave a variety of reasons for declining the position. The person the pastor wanted as the chair had agreed to serve. Another group of names was proposed with a number of prospective members being suggested by the pastor. Again members were asked to call and report back to the committee.
When we met the third time, we still did not have enough members. The pastor was with us at the beginning of the meeting and again was controlling the meeting. Shortly after the meeting began, the pastor left because he had another appointment. At that point, the group that was present decided to get the job done. We proceeded to name people who we felt would serve. We pulled out our cell phones and started calling people. We got a number of people to agree to serve by appealing to their love of their church. Also, several members of the large committee volunteered to serve on the nominating committee.
The report was sent to the church body and was approved during the church service as is customary. It was hoped that the nominating committee could hurry through its work and have a report ready before the end of the year, when the current terms of office were due to expire. That was not to be.
Next: No Help
Justice
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Truth and Transparancy
A few days ago we received a comment from a reader named David. Out of a healthy concern, David raised important questions. In the interest of transparency and putting the whole discussion forward, I thought it might be good to put the entire exchange forward:
Interesting. Instead of investigating all of the evidence then coming to a conclusion, it appears that people determined that something "just isn't right" then went onto the internet to find evidence to support conclusions that they had already reached. I hope that future posts will show that the concerned church members looked at all sides of the issues. I also hope that future posts will show that the concerned members followed Jesus' command by going to their Pastor before they contacted the Conference.
Yesterday I responded:
But David your post, sadly, suggests that we did not spend time researching, then reading, a great deal of information. We poured through Seventh-day Adventist Church history and organization. We familiarized ourselves with the history of the "Church Growth Movement," on which the "Healthy Church Imitative" is based, going back to its founder Donald McGavran. We studied others that have "built" upon his ideas ranging from Robert Schuler to T.D. Jakes. We read work regarding organizational behavior theory and transformational leadership theory. And yes, David, we also read the Holy Bible. We spoke and met with Adventist pastors, faculty at Adventist colleges, personnel at the North American Division and the General Conference, as well as non-Adventist sources. Would that you could have been here to see what pains we took!
I can only give you my word, we did investigate a great deal before challenging this wrong.I promise you we did look at all sides of the "issue." It was then weighed in the balance, and the requirements as cited by Pastor Alan DeSilva and the Potomac Conference for changing the organizational structure of our Church, were found wanting.
The Bible pleads for us to come together and reason. On several occasions several members of the Takoma Park Church went directly to our senior pastor and tried to explain logically that this system he proposed was not in keeping with SDA Church doctrine. I know this to be true because I, for one, tried to get him to see that this was wrong both theoretically and Biblically. After having met with him on 2 or 3 occasions individually, I took a church member who had been trained by the North American Division regarding approved, tested, and successful SDA methods of Church growth. Pastor Desilva's response, in keeping with his character, was "Don't fight me on this." We were not fighting then. We are not fighting now. We are trying to do is simply put the truth forward.
Follow commands of Jesus? Yes by all means. We are Christians, a term derived in the First Century from phrase "Partisans of Christ." We seek to follow Him. As followers of Jesus, we must love what He loves. Jesus loves the Church. The Church is His "bride." If Jesus believes the Church is important, should not we as well? If yes, then we have a moral responsibility to stand against what is occurring at the Takoma Park Church specifically, and the Potomac Conference in general.
Having slept on what I wrote, I am really concerned that there may have been one important point that I did not answer. David, if you are reading this post, it is important to me that you understand that this is not some personal grievance between our pastor and the those of opposing a change in SDA Structure. For us at least, this is about staying the course that God, through the founders of the SDA Church, set.
Let me put it another way.
The vast majority of Advenitsts opposing this change in structure are third, forth, fifth generation Adventists. I'm different. I made a personal choice to become a Seventh-day Adventist after stumbling across a copy of the Great Controversy. Prior to baptism I went through more than a year of serious Bible studies with both a pastor and the head of the Sabbath School of a local church in the Washington, DC area. The pastor that studied with me, as well as the Sabbath School leader, in separate studies, impressed on me that the head of the SDA Church was Jesus. They impressed on me that the organization and structure of our church came as a result of a great deal of fasting and prayer, and that "we change it at our own peril."
Obviously, the SDA church is not the same as it was in the 19th Century. But whatever changes have occurred have come as a direct result of the General Conference meeting in open session. If our pastor truly believes that our Church must change, then let these changes come from the General Conference. If not, and we have devolved to a situation in which local clergy can make whatever changes they see fit, backed by the Conference, we are in greater trouble than we all realize.
Interesting. Instead of investigating all of the evidence then coming to a conclusion, it appears that people determined that something "just isn't right" then went onto the internet to find evidence to support conclusions that they had already reached. I hope that future posts will show that the concerned church members looked at all sides of the issues. I also hope that future posts will show that the concerned members followed Jesus' command by going to their Pastor before they contacted the Conference.
Yesterday I responded:
But David your post, sadly, suggests that we did not spend time researching, then reading, a great deal of information. We poured through Seventh-day Adventist Church history and organization. We familiarized ourselves with the history of the "Church Growth Movement," on which the "Healthy Church Imitative" is based, going back to its founder Donald McGavran. We studied others that have "built" upon his ideas ranging from Robert Schuler to T.D. Jakes. We read work regarding organizational behavior theory and transformational leadership theory. And yes, David, we also read the Holy Bible. We spoke and met with Adventist pastors, faculty at Adventist colleges, personnel at the North American Division and the General Conference, as well as non-Adventist sources. Would that you could have been here to see what pains we took!
I can only give you my word, we did investigate a great deal before challenging this wrong.I promise you we did look at all sides of the "issue." It was then weighed in the balance, and the requirements as cited by Pastor Alan DeSilva and the Potomac Conference for changing the organizational structure of our Church, were found wanting.
The Bible pleads for us to come together and reason. On several occasions several members of the Takoma Park Church went directly to our senior pastor and tried to explain logically that this system he proposed was not in keeping with SDA Church doctrine. I know this to be true because I, for one, tried to get him to see that this was wrong both theoretically and Biblically. After having met with him on 2 or 3 occasions individually, I took a church member who had been trained by the North American Division regarding approved, tested, and successful SDA methods of Church growth. Pastor Desilva's response, in keeping with his character, was "Don't fight me on this." We were not fighting then. We are not fighting now. We are trying to do is simply put the truth forward.
Follow commands of Jesus? Yes by all means. We are Christians, a term derived in the First Century from phrase "Partisans of Christ." We seek to follow Him. As followers of Jesus, we must love what He loves. Jesus loves the Church. The Church is His "bride." If Jesus believes the Church is important, should not we as well? If yes, then we have a moral responsibility to stand against what is occurring at the Takoma Park Church specifically, and the Potomac Conference in general.
Having slept on what I wrote, I am really concerned that there may have been one important point that I did not answer. David, if you are reading this post, it is important to me that you understand that this is not some personal grievance between our pastor and the those of opposing a change in SDA Structure. For us at least, this is about staying the course that God, through the founders of the SDA Church, set.
Let me put it another way.
The vast majority of Advenitsts opposing this change in structure are third, forth, fifth generation Adventists. I'm different. I made a personal choice to become a Seventh-day Adventist after stumbling across a copy of the Great Controversy. Prior to baptism I went through more than a year of serious Bible studies with both a pastor and the head of the Sabbath School of a local church in the Washington, DC area. The pastor that studied with me, as well as the Sabbath School leader, in separate studies, impressed on me that the head of the SDA Church was Jesus. They impressed on me that the organization and structure of our church came as a result of a great deal of fasting and prayer, and that "we change it at our own peril."
Obviously, the SDA church is not the same as it was in the 19th Century. But whatever changes have occurred have come as a direct result of the General Conference meeting in open session. If our pastor truly believes that our Church must change, then let these changes come from the General Conference. If not, and we have devolved to a situation in which local clergy can make whatever changes they see fit, backed by the Conference, we are in greater trouble than we all realize.
Friday, March 20, 2009
If Your Brother Sins Against You
A recent comment received on this blog raises an issue which is worth a detailed consideration. “I also hope that future posts will show that the concerned members followed Jesus' command by going to their Pastor before they contacted the Conference.” This is a topic we had intended to bring up later where it best fit in with the storyline of the Epic, but since it has come up we will accelerate our timetable for addressing it.
We would like to first point out that nowhere in the Bible is there a statement from Jesus commanding us to speak with our pastors before ever communicating with our conferences. That said, we well understand that this is a reference to Matthew 18:15-17. In order to relieve your fears, David, we will say at the outset that we had no fewer than 13 separate private communications with Pastor DeSilva about our concerns both before and after the vote on the Paul Borden Report. We haven’t included these specifically in telling the Epic because A) they were private conversations, B) they did no good, and C) we dispute the premise that Matthew 18 is truly the biblical model most applicable to this situation.
As we understand the text, it is a formula for resolving disputes of a personal and private nature. Our concern is about policy, not any sort of personal offense, and it certainly isn’t private. Our senior pastor has attempted to paint this dispute as a personal campaign against him, rather than the policy disagreement that it truly is, but we have never claimed that this dispute was caused by any of our pastors having done us personal harm in any way. And our goal is not to cause personal harm to any of our pastors. All we want is proper compliance with SDA policy. The proper compliance with policy is a matter which concerns the entire congregation rather than just a single individual. Therefore, we believe that Galatians 2, in which Paul publicly reprimanded Peter for inappropriate behavior which affected the entire congregation, would actually be the more applicable biblical model to follow.
As mentioned earlier, we followed Matthew 18 anyway, just to be on the safe side. However, because this text is about the personal and the private we believe that in a situation like ours, which is impersonal and public, the spirit of the text is more applicable than the letter. We believe that that spirit intends that attempts be made to address concerns in a manner as quiet and non-confrontational as possible so as to avoid unnecessary embarrassment and hurt feelings. However, this spirit also acknowledges that the offending party may be disinclined to hear what you have to say, or take you seriously, and in such a situation it includes provisions for a gradual escalation of the confrontational nature of your efforts in order to impress the seriousness of the matter on the offending party.
This we have done.
Religious
We would like to first point out that nowhere in the Bible is there a statement from Jesus commanding us to speak with our pastors before ever communicating with our conferences. That said, we well understand that this is a reference to Matthew 18:15-17. In order to relieve your fears, David, we will say at the outset that we had no fewer than 13 separate private communications with Pastor DeSilva about our concerns both before and after the vote on the Paul Borden Report. We haven’t included these specifically in telling the Epic because A) they were private conversations, B) they did no good, and C) we dispute the premise that Matthew 18 is truly the biblical model most applicable to this situation.
As we understand the text, it is a formula for resolving disputes of a personal and private nature. Our concern is about policy, not any sort of personal offense, and it certainly isn’t private. Our senior pastor has attempted to paint this dispute as a personal campaign against him, rather than the policy disagreement that it truly is, but we have never claimed that this dispute was caused by any of our pastors having done us personal harm in any way. And our goal is not to cause personal harm to any of our pastors. All we want is proper compliance with SDA policy. The proper compliance with policy is a matter which concerns the entire congregation rather than just a single individual. Therefore, we believe that Galatians 2, in which Paul publicly reprimanded Peter for inappropriate behavior which affected the entire congregation, would actually be the more applicable biblical model to follow.
As mentioned earlier, we followed Matthew 18 anyway, just to be on the safe side. However, because this text is about the personal and the private we believe that in a situation like ours, which is impersonal and public, the spirit of the text is more applicable than the letter. We believe that that spirit intends that attempts be made to address concerns in a manner as quiet and non-confrontational as possible so as to avoid unnecessary embarrassment and hurt feelings. However, this spirit also acknowledges that the offending party may be disinclined to hear what you have to say, or take you seriously, and in such a situation it includes provisions for a gradual escalation of the confrontational nature of your efforts in order to impress the seriousness of the matter on the offending party.
This we have done.
Religious
Sunday, March 8, 2009
The Epic, Pt.6
Pastor DeSilva announced the result of the vote on the Paul Borden report after the sermon on Nov. 17, 2007. Many in the congregation reacted to this announcement with shock, frustration, and disbelief. As one person exclaimed, "This just isn't right." We couldn't quite put our finger on why, but there was an undeniable gut feeling that what had just happened was gravely wrong.
This turn of events had several immediate effects. First, being Seventh-day Adventists, we all got on the phone and started talking about the vote. As we did, we realized that there was a significant portion of the church population that was as displeased with the events as we were. Second, several people turned to the internet to investigate just who Paul Borden was and what we had just gotten ourselves into. This research brought us to the conclusion that what Borden had sold us on was anything but original. The basic philosophy behind his recommendations has been around since the fifties, and has been marketed under many different names including the "Purpose-Driven Church" and the "Church Growth Movement." It is also the basic philosophy behind the mega-church movement. This research was emailed around to the people identified by the phone calling as sympathetic to our dissatisfaction.
The result of all of this was a felt need for organization and formal action, so a series of informal meetings were called in the homes of various members to discuss the matter and devise a plan. It was finally decided that a meeting was needed with the Potomac Conference.
Next: Business as Un-usual
Religious
This turn of events had several immediate effects. First, being Seventh-day Adventists, we all got on the phone and started talking about the vote. As we did, we realized that there was a significant portion of the church population that was as displeased with the events as we were. Second, several people turned to the internet to investigate just who Paul Borden was and what we had just gotten ourselves into. This research brought us to the conclusion that what Borden had sold us on was anything but original. The basic philosophy behind his recommendations has been around since the fifties, and has been marketed under many different names including the "Purpose-Driven Church" and the "Church Growth Movement." It is also the basic philosophy behind the mega-church movement. This research was emailed around to the people identified by the phone calling as sympathetic to our dissatisfaction.
The result of all of this was a felt need for organization and formal action, so a series of informal meetings were called in the homes of various members to discuss the matter and devise a plan. It was finally decided that a meeting was needed with the Potomac Conference.
Next: Business as Un-usual
Religious
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)