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People Change, Times Change, But The Lord's Church Will Never Change!

February 25 2004 at 4:54 AM
Jerry Pence  (no login)
from IP address 166.90.116.110


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People Change, Times Change, But The Lord's Church Will Never Change!
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THE SEQUENCE OF CHANGE
• THE EFFECTS OF CHANGE
• CHANGES BLESSED BY THE ELDERS IN WORSHIP SERVICES
• CHANGES BLESSED BY THE ELDERS OUTSIDE OF WORSHIP SERVICES
• CHANGES IN TEACHING BLESSED BY THE ELDERS
• ELDERS DENIAL OF KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT THE "UNITY IN DIVERSITY" PHILOSOPHY

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People Change, Times Change, But The Lord's Church Will Never Change!


Jerry Pence



This article is written for members of the Lord's church so they may see how the "Unity In Diversity" philosophy moved into one congregation in North Carolina and how the "Change Agents" behaved during the process.



THE SEQUENCE OF CHANGE


Our family worshipped at a congregation in Durham, North Carolina from May of 1983 until December of 1996. During this time, I served as a deacon for 3 years and as an elder for 6 years. Many times during those thirteen years, even while I served as an elder, our family compromised our faith for the matter of unity in the church. We were wrong! During 1996, the elders made it impossible for us to continue worshipping with the church family that we loved and continue to love. The Scriptures tell us to worship in both spirit and truth (John 4:24). The elders maintained the spirit, but they failed to follow the truth that has been given to all.

In April of 1993, I resigned as an elder due to extensive business travel. About the same time, one of the other more conservative elders, moved to Texas, and one of the most liberal brothers of the congregation joined the already liberal contingent of existing elders. The Sunday that I resigned as an elder, and the day the new elder was appointed, I commented to my wife on the way home from church, "I wonder if we will be able to worship there three years from today." Three years and three months later, we had no choice but to leave.

During the first quarter of 1996, the elders and the elder/minister, began making subtle changes to the worship services. These changes included: changing bulletin weekly, changing the order of worship constantly, adding responsive readings between the minister and the congregation, occasionally deleting closing prayers on occasion and at times not offering an invitation. Some of the faithful members expressed their concerns to the elders about these changes but it had no effect. The elders even provided one family the names of congregations in the area where they might be able to attend in greater comfort.

During the second quarter the elder/minister and some of his supporters, attended the Pepperdine lectures in California. They returned with great enthusiasm to aggressively continue the change process in the coming months. Suggestions were made that we should equip certain members of the congregation with microphones to enhance the singing. Women were given new roles as "ministry leaders," since only males could be called "deacons." Women began co-teaching with men in the adult Bible classes.

In the fourth quarter of 1996, the elders presented a thirteen week series in Sunday morning Bible classes entitled "God's Eternal Kingdom" for the teens and adults. The sermons on Sunday mornings supported the lessons that were taught by the elders. The elders stated that the purpose of their lessons were to encourage everyone to examine their faith and to determine where they were spiritually. That is exactly what occurred. Christians who wanted to believe in diversity of the scriptures were pleased, Christians who were not well grounded in the scriptures were confused, and Christians who knew the scriptures had to leave because the congregation no longer represented the church Jesus established. Many meetings were held with the elders during the closing months of 1996, but nothing could be done to convince them of the error they were teaching and of the souls they were leading astray.

__________________________________
Jerry Pence
722 Duluth Street
Durham, NC 27705
__________________________________

TO BE CONTINUED . . .


    
This message has been edited by ConcernedMembers from IP address 67.32.218.212 on Feb 25, 2004 7:11 AM


 
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kansaschristian
(Login kansaschristian)
64.126.81.91

please continue

February 25 2004, 8:33 AM 

Please continue. I am especially interested in hearing the "testimony" of those affected by the changes. I know it was cleansing to me, for some reason, to tell someone since we did very little talking about it within our church (after all we were forbidden to say anything negative about our church, even if it was the truth). I am interested in the common threads even though the churches are far apart in location, certainly the stories have the same ring to them. Hope some who are early in the process can see how things will, and they will, progress and be alert and aware.

 
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Amy
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68.233.183.158

Re: People Change, Times Change, But The Lord's Church Will Never Change!

February 26 2004, 10:06 AM 

I have jsut a simple question to ask. Do you feel that the church that will always remain the same is worshipping the same way the first century church did, or is it just the way it was done in the 1950's?

 
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kansaschristian
(Login kansaschristian)
64.126.81.91

to Amy

February 26 2004, 6:07 PM 

I hope I am not "speaking out of turn" to try to respond to your question. I believe the reference to the "Lord's Church not changing" refers to the church as the Body of Christ. If you read Acts 15 you find references to the assemblied body making group decisions and it is very clear that the decisions are made "up front" with the assembly knowing them. The main concern, as I see it, with the Purpose Driven churches (be they Church of Christ or otherwise) is not so much the music/worship style (although that certainly brings the issues to the forefront for members of that church) but the fact that the decisions are done with great stealth and little concern for the general regard of the Body. This seems to be a recurring theme by people (including myself) who started out enjoying the PDC but ended up disillusioned. Hope that helps.

 
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(no login)
67.25.34.56

“… Is it just the way it was done in the 1950's?” (Amy, February 26 2004, 10:06 AM)

February 27 2004, 3:55 AM 

Amy,

“The way it was done in the 1950’s” is a common expression among the change advocates, and it is used to justify the implementation of all sorts of innovative schemes in the post-modern church culture. Some changes are good and necessary because of the technological advances and so long as the doctrines, beliefs and practices of the church remain true to the Scripture. And these are the types of changes that are not in question.

In reality, every generation is contemporary during and within its own time. For example, the 1920’s era was modern and contemporary according to the standards and the norm of that particular era. So was the 1950’s generation. Now, I would tend to agree that, generally, the farther we are from the first century, the more complex our environment settings become. I think you and I know that the first century church accomplished what it needed to when the saints gathered and assembled to feast on God’s word or message and to commemorate Christ’s suffering and death on the cross and to teach and admonish one another through the avenue of singing. I believe that nothing that the early church did in the assembly was compounded by this “WORSHIP LEADER” concept or by the complexity of the musical pieces performed by an elite group of MUSICIANS (Praise [?] Teams) to/for the listening congregation! I envision that when the saints assembled as a school of God’s Word or for worship, things were done in a simple way. I sincerely believe God cares more for the simple, not fanciful and complex; He cares more for the reverence in the worship that we offer, not from the entertainment and enjoyment derived from the “love feast” in fellowship.To go beyond God’s requirements is totally unnecessary and to do things unauthorized by or against the Scriptures is wrong.

The question regarding change is not change itself, unless it goes against or improves upon God’s will for the church; the question regarding change is not in the methodologies used, unless the methodologies cause the change to deviate from or go against God’s will.

Donnie


    
This message has been edited by ConcernedMembers from IP address 216.76.145.112 on Feb 27, 2004 8:33 AM


 
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What Happened At the Madison Church of Christ?


There are thousands of churches being taken over across America.

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Madison Church of Christ was a 60 year old church. At one time it was one of the largest churches in the US, and the largest Church of Christ.

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At the heart of the plan was the fact that old members were going to be driven off so new techniques could be used to go out and reach the unchurched through new "Contemporary Holy Entertainment" methods developed by the "Community Church Movement"

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5 Godly Elders
10 Not so Godly Elders
120 "Deacons" (allegiance unknown)
2,800 - 4,000 church "members"
2 "teners" (people who have publicly confessed to have broken all ten commandments)
Unknown number of "sinners" (This is what the 10 elders call us.)
Unknown number of "demons" (Flying everywhere, to many to count)
 

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