For those who have been following the events which began in the Baptismal Vows thread, here is the rest of the story...
I have felt a leading to get involved in a church planting project for some time. Last September that became a reality due to an unusual turn of events.
A friend of ours, Marie, had been playing the piano at a small independent Baptist church. Their membership had been dwindling by attrition and they were down to 3 members left (and that included the pastor). The Baptist church decided that they would simply give us the church if we could demonstrate that we were able to start meeting there immediately. We did.
This is very unusual in that it broke all of the "rules". The conference had official procedures for church planting that involved the board of a local district church deciding a target area, doing a study, forming a nominating committee to elect the officers of the new mission group, etc. Feeling Spirit led, we skipped all of that and it resulted in a rather political environment from the start.
The transfer procedure broke the rules as well. Obviously, mission groups aren't supposed to own property. Here is what actually took place: four of us (a portion of our core group) attended a business meeting of the Baptist church. Faith Baptist Church accepted us as members on profession of faith and then they elected us as trustees and officers of their corporation. Basically, we took over the existing corporation. We renamed the corporation "Crossroads" and have been operating as a church under that corporation since. The church website is at seeourchurch.com
(my post count is too low to link it... you'll need to copy/paste)
Some problems crept up immediately. While we thought that the bylaws we were taking over were acceptable, we quickly discovered that they had been amended at some point and we were not aware of the amendment. The bylaws we were not aware of included things such as "must meet on Sunday, the Lords day" and "this church can never become a part of any denomination or association". Yikes! Needless to say, we found a way to remove those provisions so that we could become a Sabbath keeping denominational church.
Thus began both the politics and my own journey. I'll start with the politics:
The local church district was not interested in us at all, but we needed a sponsoring church to be recognized by the denomination. We found one about 20 miles away that was excited to have us. The paperwork was already in, but some members (not leaders) of the local church district decided to take it upon themselves to raise a "turf war" with the conference office.
Coupled with that was some controversy regarding our sponsoring church's worship practices (too contemporary). In the end they 'requested' the pastor of the sponsoring church to not sponsor any churches due to their progressiveness. (note: They are certainly not "progressive"... they are barely "moderate" at best but around here it is about as close as you are going to get). Basically, around here progressive leaning churches are at best tolerated, but certainly apparently not accepted or allowed to sponsor another church. (Note: ironically, this pastor ended up leaving the denomination several months later after some of his "progressive" members turned on him, started inspecting for faults, and started complaining to the conference about him when they found one)
So... the turf war resulted in us losing our sponsor and us having a meeting with the conference office and the local district church. The intent of the conference office at this meeting was to arm-twist the local district into sponsoring us (even though we didn't want them since we wanted a sponsor who was excited to have us). The local district held firm that they were not interested. We remained sponsorless. To add to the fun, we started having to fight rumors that had begun about our church. Somewhere in here was also the beginning of my doctrinal issues which I will discuss in a moment.
We basically crept along for several months recognized but not recognized while the conference went through a changing of leaders. We had to wait until everyone at the conference had time to meet with us again (by this point mainly to sort out rumors). Eventually the conference matched us up with a church they felt was appropriate to sponsor us. This is the sponsor we met with back in April and didn't take the final vote on until last night.
As you'll note from the other thread, I was already having serious doctrinal issues by the April meeting. About that history:
Coming into the church planting I was probably best described as a moderate... I didn't fully understand the doctrines and I compartmentalized various EGW quotes in order to make everything fit. Others did the same and I didn't see a need to study it for myself. I held firm to the traditional opinions and saw progressives as having lost their senses. I was quick to say that "Progressive Adventists scare me".
The initial seed of questioning came when another core group member said at a meeting that our denomination's organizational structure was laid out by God himself. This did not sound right to me, which began my less than serious study of church history. The picture was different than I had "officially" been presented with before. Somewhere in the process I wound up on the GC site reading the Veltman report on EGW's plagarism. I had -never- heard this information before in my whole time in the Church (since 1997).
Not content with the plagarism accusations alone, I decided to study her content to test her as a prophet. She failed. From there I began studying each of our beliefs to determine if they could be proven Biblically. The Investigative Judgment fell and the denomination as the remnant fell. I went public with our group around the time of the April meeting and continued to study.
I consulted a pastor about my concerns. As it turns out he was a "closet progressive". He said my conclusions were completely accurate and I already knew what I needed to do. He was correct, I had already felt led in the matter and did know the path to take.
I remained in place as a positive influence as long as I could do so with integrity. So long as the church was outside the denomination and leadership was allowing me the freedom to speak openly, there was not any problem with my being there. To their credit, they let me speak openly in an official capacity anything I wanted whether or not it agreed with our doctrines.
Last night the vote was finally called on the direction of our church... whether we would accept the denomination sponsorship offer and become a denomination church, or if we would remain independant. As I said in the other thread:
The vote fell 5 in favor of joining the denomination, 1 opposed (me), 1 abstaining (my wife), and 1 not present.
The biggest sentiments the group expressed were along the lines of 'this is all I've ever known and I believe it is right', 'we need the denomination to protect us', and 'we're not accomplishing enough now; once we're part of the denomination things will take off' (basically, the denomination was perceived as a magic pill of protection and evangelistic success). At no point was any consideration given to a study of the issues prior to making a decision. Loyalty to the denomination won out over searching the scriptures.
I turned in my resignation after the vote.
I have felt a leading to get involved in a church planting project for some time. Last September that became a reality due to an unusual turn of events.
A friend of ours, Marie, had been playing the piano at a small independent Baptist church. Their membership had been dwindling by attrition and they were down to 3 members left (and that included the pastor). The Baptist church decided that they would simply give us the church if we could demonstrate that we were able to start meeting there immediately. We did.
This is very unusual in that it broke all of the "rules". The conference had official procedures for church planting that involved the board of a local district church deciding a target area, doing a study, forming a nominating committee to elect the officers of the new mission group, etc. Feeling Spirit led, we skipped all of that and it resulted in a rather political environment from the start.
The transfer procedure broke the rules as well. Obviously, mission groups aren't supposed to own property. Here is what actually took place: four of us (a portion of our core group) attended a business meeting of the Baptist church. Faith Baptist Church accepted us as members on profession of faith and then they elected us as trustees and officers of their corporation. Basically, we took over the existing corporation. We renamed the corporation "Crossroads" and have been operating as a church under that corporation since. The church website is at seeourchurch.com
(my post count is too low to link it... you'll need to copy/paste)
Some problems crept up immediately. While we thought that the bylaws we were taking over were acceptable, we quickly discovered that they had been amended at some point and we were not aware of the amendment. The bylaws we were not aware of included things such as "must meet on Sunday, the Lords day" and "this church can never become a part of any denomination or association". Yikes! Needless to say, we found a way to remove those provisions so that we could become a Sabbath keeping denominational church.
Thus began both the politics and my own journey. I'll start with the politics:
The local church district was not interested in us at all, but we needed a sponsoring church to be recognized by the denomination. We found one about 20 miles away that was excited to have us. The paperwork was already in, but some members (not leaders) of the local church district decided to take it upon themselves to raise a "turf war" with the conference office.
Coupled with that was some controversy regarding our sponsoring church's worship practices (too contemporary). In the end they 'requested' the pastor of the sponsoring church to not sponsor any churches due to their progressiveness. (note: They are certainly not "progressive"... they are barely "moderate" at best but around here it is about as close as you are going to get). Basically, around here progressive leaning churches are at best tolerated, but certainly apparently not accepted or allowed to sponsor another church. (Note: ironically, this pastor ended up leaving the denomination several months later after some of his "progressive" members turned on him, started inspecting for faults, and started complaining to the conference about him when they found one)
So... the turf war resulted in us losing our sponsor and us having a meeting with the conference office and the local district church. The intent of the conference office at this meeting was to arm-twist the local district into sponsoring us (even though we didn't want them since we wanted a sponsor who was excited to have us). The local district held firm that they were not interested. We remained sponsorless. To add to the fun, we started having to fight rumors that had begun about our church. Somewhere in here was also the beginning of my doctrinal issues which I will discuss in a moment.
We basically crept along for several months recognized but not recognized while the conference went through a changing of leaders. We had to wait until everyone at the conference had time to meet with us again (by this point mainly to sort out rumors). Eventually the conference matched us up with a church they felt was appropriate to sponsor us. This is the sponsor we met with back in April and didn't take the final vote on until last night.
As you'll note from the other thread, I was already having serious doctrinal issues by the April meeting. About that history:
Coming into the church planting I was probably best described as a moderate... I didn't fully understand the doctrines and I compartmentalized various EGW quotes in order to make everything fit. Others did the same and I didn't see a need to study it for myself. I held firm to the traditional opinions and saw progressives as having lost their senses. I was quick to say that "Progressive Adventists scare me".
The initial seed of questioning came when another core group member said at a meeting that our denomination's organizational structure was laid out by God himself. This did not sound right to me, which began my less than serious study of church history. The picture was different than I had "officially" been presented with before. Somewhere in the process I wound up on the GC site reading the Veltman report on EGW's plagarism. I had -never- heard this information before in my whole time in the Church (since 1997).
Not content with the plagarism accusations alone, I decided to study her content to test her as a prophet. She failed. From there I began studying each of our beliefs to determine if they could be proven Biblically. The Investigative Judgment fell and the denomination as the remnant fell. I went public with our group around the time of the April meeting and continued to study.
I consulted a pastor about my concerns. As it turns out he was a "closet progressive". He said my conclusions were completely accurate and I already knew what I needed to do. He was correct, I had already felt led in the matter and did know the path to take.
I remained in place as a positive influence as long as I could do so with integrity. So long as the church was outside the denomination and leadership was allowing me the freedom to speak openly, there was not any problem with my being there. To their credit, they let me speak openly in an official capacity anything I wanted whether or not it agreed with our doctrines.
Last night the vote was finally called on the direction of our church... whether we would accept the denomination sponsorship offer and become a denomination church, or if we would remain independant. As I said in the other thread:
The vote fell 5 in favor of joining the denomination, 1 opposed (me), 1 abstaining (my wife), and 1 not present.
The biggest sentiments the group expressed were along the lines of 'this is all I've ever known and I believe it is right', 'we need the denomination to protect us', and 'we're not accomplishing enough now; once we're part of the denomination things will take off' (basically, the denomination was perceived as a magic pill of protection and evangelistic success). At no point was any consideration given to a study of the issues prior to making a decision. Loyalty to the denomination won out over searching the scriptures.
I turned in my resignation after the vote.
