Comments of the Week August 11-18
Welcome to a new feature, where we select the best comments of the week, and invite you to revisit the essays where they were made. —Editors
Leaders, Misleaders, and Renewal, Part 2
For Part 1, Click Here
“I feel like our local church is the only place we can advance change. It’s the only place we have any real input of decision-making ability. Beyond that, I think it’s a done deal and the conferences will do what they’re expected to do. They rarely deviate from what comes down from the top.
Even at a constituency meeting when delegates have voted, it gets upended and it’s already been settled. We go through the motions because it looks good, but no meaningful change happens! It’s so disheartening for our young adults and young families. It’s disappointing for me, a lifelong believer edging towards 70! I want real meaningful change, inclusivity, joyful worship, and and a real hope!”
-Julie Estrella
Leaders, Misleaders, and Renewal, Part 1
For Part 2, Click Here
“I long for association with a warm, close, non-judgmental, unconditionally accepting group of followers of Jesus who seek to know Him better and act as His hands and heart on this Earth, a true small group fellowship. The formality and rigidity of liturgy and tradition have ceased to have any meaning or power in my life; and during the past year my heart has been so stomped on and my character so maligned by empty religionists who dare to call themselves Christians that I do not know whether I will ever recover. But I hold on to Jesus and I know that He is holding me.”
-Don Drury
In Search of the Perfect Adventist Family
“One of the problems is the church’s expectation that we have perfect families. I still remember when I had two young children, and one Sabbath an “elder” in the church commended me on what a nice, godly family we were.
That only raised the pressure on me to continue presenting the perfect picture each Sabbath. Which made the shock to those church members almost unimaginable when I eventually had the courage to seek help to disengage from my husband, who was guilty of the worst kind of abuse. Since he was the other half of that “nice godly family,” some refused to believe that any other story could be truth. There are plenty of broken families in our pews. The reason they show up with smiles is that any other presentation is an indicator that if they want to be worthy for heaven, they need to fix the problem. The family messages from the pulpit are often detrimental to those who are truly suffering.”
-Ruth Kent Stewart
“Terrific article! I can’t think of any perfect families. I’m a former pastor—and mine wasn’t. If only we could look at everyone with glasses of grace.”
-Steve Tatum
“I tend to interpret adultery as a breaking of the marriage vows. There is much more to adultery than only sexual infidelity. In all the marriages I am familiar with, the couple promised to love, honor, cherish, and respect one another. As sinners we all have broken our vows at times by failing to respect one another, etc. We as sinners have all committed adultery against God and yet we haven’t been sexually involved with or sexually unfaithful to God. When a marriage falls apart it is because we have committed adultery by being unfaithful to our marriage vows. It is not for me to judge another person when I am the chiefist of sinners. I have been invited to love all (both the tares and the wheat) and not to try and figure out which ones are wheat and which ones are tares. Jesus Himself said it is for the angels to determine which ones are tares and wheat. I am absolutely amazed that we are still wrestling with all this. It demonstrates how very little the denomination and congregations have grown in the last 180 years.“
-Eric Schilt
“To tell people, ‘You can’t have love, you can’t remarry, and if you do, your church will not support you,’ is appalling. It is cruel, in fact! Thankfully, most churches have simply decided not to enforce this. Think how many people might still be in the church who were chased out because they got divorced!”
-Loren Seibold
