Reaping The Whirl Wind, IRS Criminal Investigation of 3ABN Options

[Shepherdswife]

What I had running in the back of my mind was that the "priesthood of all believers" does NOT mean some things that they think it does.

This priesthood does not mean that all are called to be pastors, elders, or deacons
Neither can all serve, even if they want to, in these positions
Neither does this priesthood mean that God authorizes all the power to baptize.
Neither does this priesthood mean that any and all can be supported from the holy tithe.

jakann, the thought struck me as I read your list again of things you think it does NOT mean (your caps) that you might be thinking of women. That women are not called or authorized. Is that what you meant? I am still just trying to read between the lines, since your definition was so unusual, it made me wonder who the "they" was that you were speaking of. You have obviously given these topics some thought and have a different perspective and I am trying to understand where you are coming from.
shepherdswife

[SoulEspresso]

It seems to me that the NT uses the word church to describe the people, the body, not the building---(Rom 16:5--Greet the church that is in their house...)
(Acts 11:22--News of this reached the ears of the church...) and having memorials in every town and village can be as simple as a small group meeting and sharing.

We did a building project once. . .and I am not sure I would ever want to do it again...I'd rather spend my hours building people...

I was thinking of that EGW quote as we built, of the times when you could pull everyone together and build a building in a day or three. No codes, no inspections, no indoor plumbing. I wonder if she would say the same thing today?

Yeah, what she said!

[beartrap]

IMO, it is not the buildings we build, the NET programs we conduct, the evangelism we promote, the baptisms our efforts result in, the millions we reach for Adventism through TV, the millions of Adventists we entertain, the Sabbath books we distribute, or the beasts and dragons we expose and explain our theoretical interpretations of, that mean anything. I believe that doing those things is "doing great things in your name." To my recollection Jesus said that in the end he will ask where we were when he was hungry, naked, and in prison, and this will be the criteria upon which he bases his judgement of people. Those who say that they were out doing great things, and miracles in his name will end up in hell, while those who were feeding the hungry, clothing the cold, visiting those in prison, and generally doing what they could to take care on their fellow humans on the level of real human life will be surprised when God says that in stepping out to care for the temporal needs of humanity, they were caring for him, and welcomes them into his home. Those are are not things that require a salary to perform. All they require is a strong enough love for your fellow human beings to transform sacrifice of yourself and your things into something that is not sacrifice, because it is a pleasure.

This post has been edited by beartrap: Dec 5 2007, 02:06 AM

[mystery- man]

IMO, it is not the buildings we build, the NET programs we conduct, the evangelism we promote, the baptisms our efforts result in, the millions we reach for Adventism through TV, the millions of Adventists we entertain, the Sabbath books we distribute, or the beasts and dragons we expose and explain our theoretical interpretations of, that mean anything. I believe that doing those things is "doing great things in your name." To my recollection Jesus said that in the end he will ask where we were when he was hungry, naked, and in prison, and this will be the criteria upon which he bases his judgement of people. Those who say that they were out doing great things, and miracles in his name will end up in hell, while those who were feeding the hungry, clothing the cold, visiting those in prison, and generally doing what they could to take care on their fellow humans on the level of real human life will be surprised when God says that in stepping out to care for the temporal needs of humanity, they were caring for him, and welcomes them into his home. Those are are not things that require a salary to perform. All they require is a strong enough love for your fellow human beings to transform sacrifice of yourself and your things into something that is not sacrifice, because it is a pleasure.

We are repeating history except in a more mocked way. Just as the Jews of the past believed that they were the chosen of God and thus entitled to the riches that should have been Gods, so today it continues. Ministers, evangalist, pastors have to a large degree become users of the funds. These individuals live monday through Friday in the luxury of Gods comfort, driving the best cars and living in the nicest houses, dressed in gorgous robes and demanding respect and payment of tithe from people least they be forever dam to a eternal hell. The poor pew sitter shaking from the rath of God gives to the local church and Regional Conference and General Conference which has been ordained forever by God to be controlling and being in control of the masses who must submit to the governing body as the head of the church. Actually, to be against them on anything is to be outside of the will of God thus losing heaven and the riches that might be theirs if they too become a pastor. For the church board members and the pastor know all to well the jealousy of the nominal pew adventist who would dare not give his money to Gods chosen servants.

This post has been edited by mystery- man: Dec 5 2007, 02:38 AM

[watchbird]

After reading the past few contributions, all I can say is... thank God the Adventist churches I have been assoicated closely with are not like either the "ideal" that has been put forth here.... OR like the horrible picture you have collectively described as our Adventist church in general.

As the "old bird" that I am I strongly think there SHOULD be an Adventist church building... AND service buildings.... wherever there are enough Adventists to erect, maintain, and utilize such a building. I have nothing against home churches... either as a front-line evangelistic outreach or in areas where there are too few Adventists to own and maintain and utilize a building. But there is something about the silent witness... 24 hours a day, seven days a week... that is only given by a building that is erected, maintained, and utilized as a house of God that cannot be accomplished by a "home church", no matter how sincere and devoted the members are.

And as a matter of fact... I have yet to see ... personally... which doesn't mean they don't exist.... any home church which comes close to the ideals of spirituality and outreach to others which you describe. The (admittedly) very few that I have actually had personal contact with have been established by a few who had some "beef" against the available Adventist local church(es) and thus were morasses of self-pity, criticism, and/or rigid doctrinal stances.

As for building programs.... I don't think I have ever, except for very brief periods of time, been a member of a church which was NOT in the midst of a building program of some kind. Most often this has been for some kind of service or outreach program.... enlargement or remodeling of an existing sanctuary... adding more service areas such as additional offices, seminar rooms, Sabbath School rooms, social areas... including kitchen and enlarged foyer... a "commons area" actually... as well as other multipurpose rooms. Sometimes... such as now... the building project is for education. We've built, over the years, a grade-school and a high-school.... and multiple additions to each of these. Currently we are in process of building a new middle school, with future plans for building a completely new grade-school building, since the current one is fast approaching the end of its usable life. Sometimes the building projects have taken the form of a significant number of members stepping out of our comfortable pews and, as the core group of a new congregation, building an entirely new church building somewhere in the nearby area... with the results being that there are more than a score of church buildings with active and still growing congregations within a 30 mile radius of where once there were only a couple hundred worshipers meeting in a weatherized campmeeting pavilion.

It has been my experience, and my observation... that wherever there is a new or enlarged church building, it soon fills to capacity and has to be enlarged again. That, IMO, bears sufficient witness to the effectiveness of building programs relative to the evangelistic outreach of the church. It may seem at the time that money is being diverted from evangelism... but IMO, that is only temporary. When the energies and focus of the congregation is on physical growth of their facilities, those energies continue beyond the building project and are in place ready to be utilized in both outreach and inreach so as to fulfil the purpose for which the building was made.

I also know of experienced pastors, who, if they are moved into a languid and dying congregation, find that a "building program" is the surest and quickest way to breath new life into the members and get them interested in "growing their church" not only in physical ways but also in spiritual, service, and evangelistic ways.

As for the complaints about tithing... and the way we as a church handle the church.... so far as I am concerned you can stash and "shove" them. Congregationalism... where the local pastor is paid by the local church may seem like a rosy bed... but just let a pastor try existing on what he can garner from the local church offering basked in most of our small churches... and he will very quickly see the advantages of having a set salary which is heavily subsidized by the tithe from our larger multi-pastor churches. For the facts are that a pastor can more efficiently serve more people when they are gathered into large churches than they can in small ones. And part of that is due to the fact that there is a larger pool of trainable lay-persons who help in the services to members as well as to outreach services than there is in a small church. And the net financial result of that is that there is more tithe paid into the system than the local pastors receive... thus the tithe payers there in effect support the pastors of small churches also.

It may sound very pious and erudite to pick all the flaws that one can find with our current church system.... but if one REALLY took seriously the suggestions that are made as better and examined them with the same kind of ferver... most of the criticisms would evaporate into thin air. Which does not mean that I think our system is completely flawless... nor that those who administer it do so in the best way possible. But it certainly does not deserve the bad rap it is getting from various posters here currently!

[Daryl Fawcett]

It seems to me that this topic has been hijacked by another topic.

[Clay]

It seems to me that this topic has been hijacked by another topic.

and? minor hijacking here is allowed within limits....

[LaurenceD]

IMO, it is not the buildings we build, the NET programs we conduct, the evangelism we promote, the baptisms our efforts result in, the millions we reach for Adventism through TV, the millions of Adventists we entertain, the Sabbath books we distribute, or the beasts and dragons we expose and explain our theoretical interpretations of, that mean anything. I believe that doing those things is "doing great things in your name." To my recollection Jesus said that in the end he will ask where we were when he was hungry, naked, and in prison, and this will be the criteria upon which he bases his judgement of people. Those who say that they were out doing great things, and miracles in his name will end up in hell, while those who were feeding the hungry, clothing the cold, visiting those in prison, and generally doing what they could to take care on their fellow humans on the level of real human life will be surprised when God says that in stepping out to care for the temporal needs of humanity, they were caring for him, and welcomes them into his home. Those are are not things that require a salary to perform. All they require is a strong enough love for your fellow human beings to transform sacrifice of yourself and your things into something that is not sacrifice, because it is a pleasure.

You sound familiar with this text...

Jn 4:21-23 "Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans
will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem.
You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day.
God's way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the time is coming—
it has, in fact, come—when what you're called will not matter and where you go
to worship will not matter.

23-24 "It's who you are and the way you live that count before God.
Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth.
That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for:
those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship.
God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being,
their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."

[Clay]

You sound familiar with this text...

Jn 4:21-23 "Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans
will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem.
You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day.
God's way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the time is coming—
it has, in fact, come—when what you're called will not matter and where you go
to worship will not matter.

23-24 "It's who you are and the way you live that count before God.
Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth.
That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for:
those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship.
God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being,
their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."

nice passages there..... thanks for sharing them.....

[Seraphim7]

What do you think about places where people will cross the street to avoid walking by a church? If church buildings get in the way of the life Jesus came to offer, shouldn't we discard them? Would you consider the possibility that church sanctuaries are a stumbling block to many people in the West? Doesn't the Bible say that God doesn't dwell in houses made by hands?

I've observed for years how much energy local congregations waste on their buildings. If they took that time and money to invest in connecting people to Jesus, He probably would have come back already.

Monuments they may be, but most of the time they turn into idols.

Amen.

"We" are the church. Unless I misunderstand scripture, God The Holy Spirit desires to dwell in the temple of our bodies. That is where our hearts and minds are changed, not in buildings.

Monuments, idols... try, in some cases the desert before coming into the promised land, or worse tombs. That's just my take.

[PeacefulBe]

There is something to be said for small groups and meeting in private homes at times. However, those here who are promoting this as the better way to have church services need to think about the undue level of stress this could be on women, if carried to excess.

In my city of around 150k, we have a 700-member congregation. While not everyone attends regularly, a large portion do. We have visitors from both the community and out of town SDAs who are able to worship with us because we have a central church building and are not meeting in unknown locations, such as in a private home.

We have a thriving community services center that ministers to the impoverished with food, clothing and other basic needs. We have a 12-step program to help with addictions of all kinds, run by several of our members and well attended. We have an annual Vacation Bible School, quite costly, I might add, that brings in over 100 children from the community each year. We have a variety of Sabbath school programs that cater to many tastes, from conservative/traditional study to more liberal/progressive ones. Our sanctuary is busy with weddings, way too many funerals, two church services every Sabbath. Our Spanish language church has grown so large that they could no longer meet in our youth chapel, so they gather for Sabbath School and church after our services are completed. We rent out areas to Sunday churches.

Our sanctuary is a place of celebration. Sure, there are some harumphers in the congregation who bristle, moan and groan about the loud and joyous praise music we sing, the greeting session before the sermon that tends to get pretty noisy, and the period of fellowship that takes place after the closing prayer.

There is a time and place for congregations to meet in private homes. I can agree with that. But there are areas where a physical building to house the church family is appropriate. I'm going to have to agree with WB on this one.

[Seraphim7]

IMO, it is not the buildings we build, the NET programs we conduct, the evangelism we promote, the baptisms our efforts result in, the millions we reach for Adventism through TV, the millions of Adventists we entertain, the Sabbath books we distribute, or the beasts and dragons we expose and explain our theoretical interpretations of, that mean anything. I believe that doing those things is "doing great things in your name." To my recollection Jesus said that in the end he will ask where we were when he was hungry, naked, and in prison, and this will be the criteria upon which he bases his judgement of people. Those who say that they were out doing great things, and miracles in his name will end up in hell, while those who were feeding the hungry, clothing the cold, visiting those in prison, and generally doing what they could to take care on their fellow humans on the level of real human life will be surprised when God says that in stepping out to care for the temporal needs of humanity, they were caring for him, and welcomes them into his home. Those are are not things that require a salary to perform. All they require is a strong enough love for your fellow human beings to transform sacrifice of yourself and your things into something that is not sacrifice, because it is a pleasure.

Very well said... Amen

[Shepherdswife]

There is something to be said for small groups and meeting in private homes at times. However, those here who are promoting this as the better way to have church services need to think about the undue level of stress this could be on women, if carried to excess.

In my city of around 150k, we have a 700-member congregation. While not everyone attends regularly, a large portion do. We have visitors from both the community and out of town SDAs who are able to worship with us because we have a central church building and are not meeting in unknown locations, such as in a private home. . .

There is a time and place for congregations to meet in private homes. I can agree with that. But there are areas where a physical building to house the church family is appropriate. I'm going to have to agree with WB on this one.

What a difference perspective makes!

For me, my comments on home churches were having to do with a small community that could not support a church, not taking large churches and breaking them up. 700 members (your situation, PB), building a middle school and rebuilding an elementary school (wb's illustration), these are a world away from most rural towns where 10-20 members have been meeting for 20 years, and can hardly maintain the building they are meeting in. The coal mine or steel mill has closed years ago, young people don't stay around, blue collar or retired members who do not even own a home themselves. When it takes all their resources and energy to maintain this "silent witness", the picture looks very different. Of the 100 +/- churches in our conference, a small percentage have over 100 in attendance on a Sabbath morning. And there are thousands more small towns where there is no "memorial for God" in our state. Buildings are great, yes. But those of us who have spent time in the "villages" where there is no SDA institutions around to bring in families with kids and there is no money to support a school may be speaking from a totally different perspective than where you both are now.

Not that one is right and one is wrong. Tools must vary to fit the situation. One tool doesn't accomplish every task.

shepherdswife

This post has been edited by Shepherdswife: Dec 5 2007, 10:11 AM

[PeacefulBe]

What a difference perspective makes!

For me, my comments on home churches were having to do with a small community that could not support a church, not taking large churches and breaking them up. 700 members (your situation, PB), building a middle school and rebuilding an elementary school (wb's illustration), these are a world away from most rural towns where 10-20 members have been meeting for 20 years, and can hardly maintain the building they are meeting in. The coal mine or steel mill has closed years ago, young people don't stay around, blue collar or retired members who do not even own a home themselves. When it takes all their resources and energy to maintain this "silent witness", the picture looks very different. Of the 100 +/- churches in our conference, a small percentage have over 100 in attendance on a Sabbath morning. And there are thousands more small towns where there is no "memorial for God" in our state. Buildings are great, yes. But those of us who have spent time in the "villages" where there is no SDA institutions around to bring in families with kids and there is no money to support a school may be speaking from a totally different perspective than where you both are now.

Not that one is right and one is wrong. Tools must vary to fit the situation. One tool doesn't accomplish every task.
shepherdswife

I agree! And if the system doesn't allow the tools to vary with the situation, it needs repair!

[Shepherdswife]

As the "old bird" that I am I strongly think there SHOULD be an Adventist church building... AND service buildings.... wherever there are enough Adventists to erect, maintain, and utilize such a building. I have nothing against home churches... either as a front-line evangelistic outreach or in areas where there are too few Adventists to own and maintain and utilize a building. But there is something about the silent witness... 24 hours a day, seven days a week... that is only given by a building that is erected, maintained, and utilized as a house of God that cannot be accomplished by a "home church", no matter how sincere and devoted the members are.


I am glad you qualify this, wb. For every church large enough to do the things you described, there are a thousand towns which need a memorial for God. If we wait until we can build them a building, we will be here a very long time...


And as a matter of fact... I have yet to see ... personally... which doesn't mean they don't exist.... any home church which comes close to the ideals of spirituality and outreach to others which you describe. The (admittedly) very few that I have actually had personal contact with have been established by a few who had some "beef" against the available Adventist local church(es) and thus were morasses of self-pity, criticism, and/or rigid doctrinal stances.

Very different than the small home group some of us were referring to...thanks for acknowledging that possibility

It may sound very pious and erudite to pick all the flaws that one can find with our current church system.... but if one REALLY took seriously the suggestions that are made as better and examined them with the same kind of ferver... most of the criticisms would evaporate into thin air. Which does not mean that I think our system is completely flawless... nor that those who administer it do so in the best way possible.

WB, the reality is that many/most of our NAD churches are maintaining/shrinking, many/most of our pastors are serving small churches in rural areas--where they were planted when our society was agriculturally based, while urban areas with high populations are not getting the attention they need. When a church of 20-40 believes they deserve a full-time, tithe supported pastor, who will feed, lead, and meet their need, something has gone wrong with the paradigm. Brainstorming and working to find tools that work in different parts of the country with different people groups can come across as criticism, I guess, but I am not sure that it is always intended that way.

shepherdswife