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
We are Religious and Liberty, long-time SDA members in good standing, who disagreed with our pastors when they took our congregation down a path antithetical to Adventism. The purpose of this blog is to openly speak the truth about this controversy. It is our hope that by telling the story of what happened at the Takoma Park SDA Church, we can warn others whose congregations may be considering breaking away from core beliefs and following the "Growing Healthy Churches Initiative." Welcome!
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- Has your pastor brought in a consultant? Have you been told to leave your church because you wouldn't go along when your church abandoned denominational principles? Are you trying to educate your church as to why the "Church Growth Movement," or the "Purpose Driven Church Model," or the "Growing Healthy Churches Initiative," is antithetical to Protestantism? Tell us about it! religiousandliberty@hotmail.com
3 comments:
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 follwed Jesus' command by going to their Pastor before they contacted the Conference.
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 Iniative" 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 meet 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.
One more thought, David.
When I said we had a gut feeling that something was gravely wrong, that was a description of an intuitive reaction, not an ulterior motive. The internet research was conducted without any sort of predetermined agenda for the simple purpose of supplementing the information already in hand. Had what we found calmed our fears and resolved our concerns we would have been delighted to drop the matter then and there. The evidence just didn’t lead in that direction.
Religious
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