"Friends who shame you, friends who harbor grudges against, friends who
expect or demand certain performance from you, friends who are
disappointed in you as a person, friends who won't forgive you, friends
who don't/won't/can't give you freedom, friends who get angry with you
and close off emotionally from you, and friends who expect/need
certain things from you are saying, "I have placed you on a platform
of performance expectations, and if you don't meet my expectations, I
want nothing to do with you."
This is so very true. It is one thing for those who don't know you to judge you and blame you and treat you as an enemy and the cause of their problems, but when it comes from within your own family and circle of long-time friends, it is especially hurtful. I know, I've been there. We all have.
But on the other hand, when those who differ with you, or even might be disappointed in you or think you're off your proverbial rocker and a heretic of sorts - or those you've mistreated yourself - still express love and patience and kindness toward you, that is when you see what Christianity should be about. I know this too, and have experienced it recently.
Sad thing is when we shame our friends and family members and hold grudges and expect performance and adherence to their doctrinal views in exchange for their acceptance - we are showing that we don't believe the bible, and we are denying the basic tenants of the faith we profess.
Readers: Below is a re-posting of my 2011 Mother's Day post. Enjoy!
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Happy Mother's Day to all of you WD-reading Mothers! I hope your day is filled with love and joy!
I want to take this Mother's Day as an opportunity to encourage all men who read this blog - for the good of your mothers, wives, daughters, and granddaughters - to consider that you just might be wrong about what the scriptures say about women and their subordinate role they must play in the church.
I know that the prevailing thought based on scriptures such as 1 Timothy 2 and the account of the fall in Genesis 3 is that women should be subservient to men, and that men should have authority over women, and that women are forbidden from teaching men, or holding certain offices in church.
I know, because I was taught that in Southern Baptist Churches my entire Christian life. I've been taught it by people in my family and by my baptist pastors for over two decades. It was when I heard of the firing of Dr. Sheri Klouda by Paige Patterson that I first considered that perhaps this doctrine that led to this tragic action taken by Patterson was wrong. I read a good portion of Patterson's deposition in the Klouda case a couple of years ago, and the absurdity of statements made by Patterson under questioning of Klouda's lawyer, Gary Richardson, further led me to believe that this doctrine of male authority in the church is counter to scripture and the will of God and required my further investigation.
And I have to say one of the turning points that caused me to dig even deeper, is last year when I came across Ergun Caner's "joke" at the 2007 Ohio Free Will Baptists Men's Retreat when he said that he believed women should be behind the pulpit...how else could they get back there to vacuum....and his jokes about "mutant granddaughters" barking like dogs. It made me sick that this sort of thing came from one of the most popular baptist preaching-circuit personalities.
So after much reading and research I have come to the conclusion that I was wrong, that in fact the bible does NOT teach that God's plan is for men to have authority over women, and that the Bible does NOT teach women are exempted from having leadership positions over men in the church. I may explore this topic in future posts as to the particular arguments for what I believe, but I want to in this post simply implore men to consider an alternative view by a conservative teacher that can be trusted in this area. His name is Jon Zens.
Jon Zens is a preacher and author that has spoken around the world, but mostly outside the institutional church which is why many Southern Baptists have not heard of him. He is a pastor of a church, but does not draw a salary. He has taught and lived out for years a different model of pastor, not of a pastor having authority over people, but of serving and being amongst the congregation as a servant. You can read Jon's bio here. Jon is a good friend of author Frank Viola ("Pagan Christianity"), and also of Cal Thomas who uses Jon as a reviewer and editor of his work. Jon and his wife Dottie are sweet Christians who in recent years have been involved in traveling to the Philippines to help women and children get out of the sex-slave trade.
I had the privilege of meeting Jon for lunch last September when he was in Jacksonville to do some teaching at a home church group here in Jacksonville, after which he traveled down to Gainesville to meet his friend Frank Viola and minister in that city. We talked over lunch about my family's experience at First Baptist, the journey I have traveled through my blog, and my views on tithing which Jon has written about for quite some time. Jon graciously shared with me a bag full of books and other materials related to topics I was writing about on my blog that he had written about.
What I would recommend for men (and women!) who are willing to just possibly consider they have been taught wrongly what the bible say about women is to listen to Jon Zens' 8-part teaching series he delivered at Wade Burleson's church last September. Click here to go to Emmanuel Baptist Church's video archive, and scroll down to September 2010 to see this teaching series. Also, Jon has written a book entitled "What's With Paul and Women", and another one out this year entitled "No Will of My Own - How Patriarchy Smothers Female Dignity and Personhood". Read Wade Burleson's forward to this latest book here at Wade's blog.
Let me give you a quote from Wade Burleson's foreward he wrote for Jon's book "What's With Paul and Women":
"The viper known as 'the doctrine of male authority' has bitten the church. the toxin emitted by this errant teaching affects the females within our assemblies. It debilitates their God-given gifts, denigrates their Spirit-led ministry, and downplays their role as new Covenant priests. Those of us who have seen the church bitten need assistance, and help has arrived. This book will help you suck out the venom of male-only authority within the church. It will do so by helping you be able to articulate Jesus' view of the equality of women and then revealing for you how Paul's words in 1 Timothy 2 are consistent with Jesus' own teaching and ministry. You will be able to point out to others how the modern institutional church has misconstrued and misinterpreted Paul's writings on the subject, while at the same time ignoring Jesus' words and life on the same subject."
So I hope this Mother's Day you will commit to at least consider the possibility that you have learned wrongly what the Bible says about women, and do further investigation starting with Jon Zens' bible teachings in this area. I believe this is so very, very important. I believe this wrong teaching that has infected our churches for so long is why we are reading about so much sexual abuse and cover-ups in our churches as Christa Brown has chronicled for years. I also firmly believe that the absence of women from any serious positions of leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention or in our churches is why there is no movement at all toward reaching out at a denominational level to victims of pastoral abuse or establishing a database of credibly accused ministers to keep predator pastors from freely moving from church to church. Many of the problems we see in the SBC, I believe, are related to having women on the outside of the leadership circle.
So Happy Mother's Day...and please, men....as a gift to the women in your life, be open to what God might speak to you in this important area.
"This will be our final comment on the matter."Celebration Church's response to citizens' complaints about excessive noise levels coming from the church.
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Looks like Celebration Church has NOT made their final comment on the matter of their noisy worship services bothering the neighbors.
Stovall Weems and Celebration Church can no longer simply ignore the concerns of the residents of the Sweetwater subdivision over the noise pollution coming from their church.
This week Celebration Church received a "Notice to Correct" citation from the City of Jacksonville's Environmental Quality Division, for being in violation of the "Noise Polllution Control" regulations. The story here from First Coast News says that this past Sunday the city took noise level measurements and found "octave band violations" - meaning for certain sound frequencies the church exceeded the decibel levels allowed by the city. The church has until May 13th to correct these violations.
How sad - a church is in violation of the Noise Pollution ordinance of their city - and they refused to take action at the request of their neighbors, requiring the city resources to have to be spent to force them to take real corrective action.
I want to say congratulations to the citizens of Sweetwater. They did the right thing. They tried to handle this directly with the church over a span of about 6 months. They wrote letters requesting action by the church, and received little response or action from the church. The church's written reply to the citizens - prior to the city's EQD becoming involved - said in part:
"We are sincerely sorry if our services or events have disturbed any of our neighbors. At Celebration Church, we seek to serve and add value to our community. We have worked hard to incorporate exterior noise reduction into the design of our campus on RG Skinner Parkway. With these efforts, even the highest volume levels inside the sanctuary are minimized to a level that is barely audible outside the building.....This will be our final comment on this matter. Thank you so much for your inquiry."
How arrogant. "This will be our final comment on this matter." they said. Not so fast, Stovall and Celebration Church. It absolutely will not be your final comment. You might be able to ignore the citizens' complaints and say that your music is "barely audible", but the city doesn't agree, and they are dealing with engineering measurements, not your opinion. In fact they found you in violation of the Noise Pollution ordinance of the city.
Stovall and CC, we hope you are more responsive to the City of Jacksonville officials than you were to either the citizens of Sweetwater, or to First Coast News, who you refused to grant an interview to discuss the citizens' concerns. You could have answered this question months ago: did you hire an engineering company to take octave decibel readings at the perimeter of your property during services to prove you were in compliance? If so, you could have provided that to the citizens, or to First Coast News.
It is quite sad that a church couldn't handle this themselves, without the city having to spend its resources to discover octave band violations. The church could have detected these violations - or just heard the neighbors concerns and they could've tone down the music accordingly. I've been in the church before, and it is the loudest noise I have ever heard as it actually vibrated by innards - and I've been to my share of indoor rock concerts. There is plenty of room for their music levels to be reduced.
Last night the Twitter account of Celebration Church posted this Tweet:
Yes, the Watchdog and the citizens of Sweetwater have a prayer request, Celebration Church pastors and prayer teams. We hope your pastors will pray that your noise levels will be in compliance with city code next Sunday during worship.
Here is the prayer that you can pray, Celebration:
"Dear Heavenly Father, we pray that this Sunday when the EQD takes more sound measurements, that we will be below 75 decibel levels on the octave ranges of 31.5 Hz, 63 Hz, and 125 Hz, and 250 Hz, when our cool bass player and drummer is the loudest - so that we don't have to pay any fines for our violations."
Or better yet - don't pray. Just turn down the dang amplifiers. God can hear your praise just fine at 50 dB.
Here in Jacksonville one of the largest, fastest growing churches is Celebration Church, pastored by Stovall Weems.They recently completed construction on a new main campus facility, what they call "Celebration Arena", shown at left.They are a multi-campus site, with videos of Stovall transmitted to several satellite locations in Jacksonville. This church is our city's version of Elevation Church, and Fellowship Church. Good looking, hip pastor, with loud rock-style music. In fact, Stovall has preached at Fellowship, and Steven Furtick has preached here at Celebration.
As reported by TV-12 News last night, the noise levels coming from the church during their services are so loud as to be a nuisance to the adjoining neighborhood, described by the homeowners as a "retirement"community.
However, from the TV-12 report last night, it seems that the church is not very concerned, and would not even talk to the reporter for her story. Here is an excerpt from the TV report last night:
"Since October, Dave and his wife along with his neighbors say they have sent letters, emails and have made calls to Celebration Church asking for assistance with the noise, but have received only one response that referenced a few pine trees planted as buffers....I [the reporter] called Celebration Church and asked for an interview but was told they would need two weeks notice and passed along contact information."
I visited the church a few Sundays ago to hear Tim Tebow speak at the new Celebration Arena, and I can understand the neighbors' concerns. As I told many people about my visit, the one word I used to describe that church is LOUD. I have never, ever heard music and bass levels as high as in that church. The music was so loud, I felt like my inner organs were vibrating! I've been to my share of rock concerts back in the day, and nothing was as loud and deep as the music being played at the church. As I walked in, I noticed the "fog" in the air to give the arena a nightclub feel. The "arena" is beautiful - huge back screen, HD side screens, comfortable chairs - and one heckuva sound system.
Hopefully Celebration Church will do more than just point to the pine trees, and will do something real to alleviate the concerns of Dave and his neighbors. In the TV piece last night, Dave says he is a man of faith and he felt guilty about raising the issue given that the noise is coming from a church, but he and his neighbors believe their quality of life is diminished by the noise levels on Sunday and Wednesdays. Celebration certainly CAN turn the music down, or provide some other engineering modifications to reduce the noise emanating from the property.
It is quite interesting that while this issue is going on, our city council is addressing citizens' complaints about noise coming from Metro Park rock concerts downtown. So Celebration, please be proactive and address this. If our city council is concerned about noise coming from city-owned property on a few weekends a year, certainly YOU can address the noise concerns from your own church every Sunday and Wednesday.
And for goodness sake, Celebration Church, please talk to the reporter. Why do you need two weeks to prepare to speak to a news reporter working for our largest TV news station in Jacksonville?
"I acknowledge that my breach of any of the restrictive covenants in this Agreement will result in irreparable damage to the Church. Therefore, in the event of any breach or threatened breach by me, I agree that the Church shall be entitled to an injunction from a court of competent jurisdiction enjoining me from committing any violation or threatened violation of this Agreement. I further agree that the Church shall not be required to post a bond to obtain such an injunction. All remedies available to the Church by reason of a breach by me of this Agreement are cumulative, none is exclusive, and all remedies may be exercised concurrently or consecutively at the Church’s option." Concluding paragraph of contract volunteers must sign at Steven Furtick's church.
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Note from the WD: I don't ordinarily write such long posts, but I wanted to write this post for the benefit of Elevation Church members so they know what great peril they are in if they sign the document about which this article is written.
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Hey Haters!!! Steven "Hey Haters" Furtick and his Elevation Church have taken us to a new low in church manipulation: Furtick's church volunteers must agree not to disclose any information about the church pertaining to finances, member contact information, and "church research and development activities" (church "R and D"? Are you kidding me?) - or the church may seek a restraining order issued by a judge to prevent you from talking about the church.
Thanks to the Wartburg Watch post last night, this brazen attempt at manipulation of their members by
Elevation Church is now out in the open for all to see - click here to take a gander at the actual agreement. This document's exposure on the blogosphere hopefully will be another
example of a church thinking they will abusively squelch dissent behind
the scenes with no one knowing; not realizing their attempts may backfire when light is shone on their scheme (by us "haters"), giving people a glimpse of just how rotten and full of themselves the leadership is.
This goes well beyond just manipulation of members. By asking volunteers to sign this document puts well-meaning members of Elevation Church at great legal peril. If the church perceives a member is violating any terms of this document by publicly criticizing the church over finances - or even publicly disclosing abuse within the walls of the church - the church will consider them to have done "irreparable damage" to "the Church", and the church will seek a court injunction against the member.
Members of Elevation Church who might sign this or have already signed this agreement, I cannot urge you strongly enough: do NOT sign this, and if you have, send in writing a request rescinding your agreement to all terms of the agreement.
Members, do you know what this means when you sign this document and thereby agree that Furtick's church "shall be entitled to an injunction" against you? This means if Furtick and Friends believe you've talked bad about the church, or shared financial information about the church - or even raised allegations of abuse in the church rightly or wrongly - you have agreed that the church is entitled to have a judge issue a restraining order against you to silence you. And if you breach this restraining order and don't comply, you will be held in contempt of court.
The church can go to a judge with this document, and will show it and say that this member agreed NOT to release "confidential information", and make the case to the judge that you AGREED to have the judge issue a restraining order against you. Then if you violate it, you can be arrested for being in contempt of court.
Below are three arguments explaining why this is dangerous for you to sign this document, and how signing this document may require you at some point to violate your own Christian teachings and principles or be in great legal jeopardy - and how this is all designed to silence the "haters" - that is people who publicly criticize pastors like Steven Furtick.:
Getting an Injunction from a Judge Against You
This document is basically saying if the church believes you are disclosing information that THEY think is harmful to the church, that YOU agree to have a judge issue an injunction - which really is a temporary restraining order to stop you from doing what they perceive to be harmful to them. And it is not just that you HAVE disclosed information harmful to them, but if they BELIEVE YOU WILL IN THE FUTURE.
For example, if you are found to criticize the church publicly, say on a blog or Facebook like Chris Tynes did at Prestonwood - for any reason you deem worthy of criticism - Furtick and friends they may then believe you will disclose other "confidential information" like financial information such as salaries or budgets or future plans of the church. They may also assume that you will use your contacts at the church to spread your "gossip". They will then go to the judge and show the judge that you agreed to have the restraining order issued against you to silence you against further spread of "confidential information".
Notice the agreement does define what is "confidential information" that you are not to share, but their definition includes the "...but is not limited to" phase - so basically confidential information would mean any non-publicly available information they think would be harmful. This could be information at a business meeting, a personal conversation you have with another member or pastor, etc.
If you contest this restraining order because you don't want to have a judge order you to be silent, then you will have to hire a lawyer and go to a hearing in a court to argue your side.
If you lose and the restraining order is issued and you don't comply with the judge's restraining order as a matter of conscience, you may be held in contempt of court and arrested and imprisoned.
Sounds so much like the New Testament church in Acts, doesn't it? This is a complete reversal of New Testament church activity: instead of Christians being persecuted for speaking the truth, the church (Furtick's church) is now attempting to be the persecutor of believers who may in the future dare to speak the truth about their church.
Church Disagreements or Church Abuse
Suppose you believe the church is acting abusively toward someone and you have made every attempt to raise the issue with church leadership privately to no avail- or if you fear going to them privately - and you attempt to blog about what is going on in the church to warn others. Or maybe you just have a disagreement over how money is spent or even a theological disagreement.
If the information you share is "confidential" as in not publicly available - then they can go to the court and argue for an injunction that you agreed to when you signed the agreement.
Notice that the agreement states about the injunction:
"I further agree that the Church shall not be required to post a bond to obtain such an injunction."
Under normal circumstances a party seeking a judge to issue an injunction or restraining order to have someone stop doing something deemed harmful to the plaintiff, the plaintiff must put up a "bond" of some value in case the injunction is found to have been wrongly issued and brings harms to the defendant! Makes perfect sense to keep organizations from seeking injunctions left and right. But the church is attempting to make this so one-sided that they don't want to have to put up their precious money to back up their claim that you are harming them. Who does such crap, and ask people who are offering to volunteer their time to agree to it?
Has any employer - let alone a non-profit for which you are trying to volunteer your time - asked you to sign such one-sided legal nonsense? What are they afraid of? What is so precious and secret over at Elevation Church that they must ask all employees and volunteers to sign this?
I can tell you: this is the sign of a cult. They are trying to silence you and intimidate you from publicly criticizing them. It is no secret how much Furtick and friends despise the "haters" who criticize their God-anointed efforts to save the world.
Give as Little Information as Possible
Elevation members, this might be the worst part, where they do tell you that you are allowed to disclose information about the church if required by law.
"However, this provision shall not preclude me...from any disclosure required by law or court order, so long as I provide the Church immediate written notice of any potential disclosure pursuant to this subsection and take all reasonable and lawful steps to limit the extent of such disclosure."
"Gee, thanks Steven, I'm glad you are allowing me the freedom to tell the truth to the police and other law authorities if I'm questioned about the church!!"
But look at that statement. They are requiring employees and volunteers to provide written notification of any "potential disclosure" when required by law or court order! Are you kidding? I have to FIRST tell the church before I talk to the authorities? What rubbish!!
And why must I take "all reasonable and lawful steps to limit the extent of such disclosure?"
That is just crazy. Imagine there is an investigation of child abuse at the church, and a detective wants to interview you about it. By law, you must tell the truth to the detective. But are you first to notify Steven and friends before disclosing confidential information? And why must you limit the extent of the disclosure?
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Anyways, this story is just another example of how these mega churches are too big for their britches. They want total devotion by the members, they want 10% minimum of your income (or God will curse you), and they want you to limit the disclosure of any information that might cast the organization in a negative light. They want you to sign a document forfeiting your legal rights to publicly criticize them. They want you to believe they are the single most important organization on the face of the earth, the one that is truly doing God's will. They require the head man to be viewed as being "the man of God" sent by God, appointed by God, and anointed by God, to tell you what the holy book says. They require you to admit that disclosure of information about what is going on within the organization regarding finances and strategy plans is to cause irreparable damage to the organization.
That my friends, is the stuff cults are made out of.....but even David Koresh and James Jones weren't so stupid as to put it all in writing and make people sign it. This is not a Confidentiality Agreement - it is more of a "Drink the Kool Aid Commitment" that I hope no volunteer will ever sign.
I've talked to a lawyer about this agreement, and he says it wouldn't likely stand up in court anyways. It is just an attempt to chill free speech. The church wants its members to know they have given their rights to talk freely over to their church, plain and simple.
So Elevation members, throw put this confidentiality agreement where it belongs - in the trash can. Tell them to run their background check on you, but that you will sign no such confidentiality agreement. You are signing up to volunteer your precious hours to your church, not guard America's nuclear launch codes. And Elevation employees who must sign this as a condition to maintain your employment, I feel sorry for you. In the real world, no one would ever ask you to sign something so one-sided as a condition for employment.
And watch Steven's "Hey Hater's" performance one more time, and you'll see the heart from which such a document is spawned:
