Friday, January 29, 2010

Strange Events

Okay, here I am at a Men's conference and I noticed a few things that strike me as odd.

Ok, it is a big church, but that is to be expected. They have a good music group with a nice rocking beat. However, did I need to be blinded by whirling colored spots in some kind of light show that was crappier than the ones I used to see in bars a couple of decades ago? What was this need to produce "smoke" to drift over the pulpit area around the band, again a crappier effect than the one I saw in bars a couple of decades ago? Not a problem that they were bad, but this is a church! The praise and worship was great, except the cheap rock concert effects were distracting and annoying to me. Of course, the advances in video technology had produced a much sharper image of the breakout solos of the various instruments with the preening of the soloists. I'd have gotten by that until the music minister decides to announce that Jesus is in this place (Well, DUH!), then he (music minister) says that "Because I brought Him!", waits a few beats and then segues into the "where two or three are gathered..." (like I said, Well, DUH!).

Of course, then there was the special message from the pastor and his wife, pitching some weird kind of life insurance....

Now, the message we got was good. In fact, the biggest problem was that even though it ran over, the pastor could spend our two sessions tomorrow with him simply unpacking that one message. I was enjoying that message, but that life insurance pitch...

Maybe I just don't understand "big city" churches and the stresses of a pastor who deals with thousands of people in his pews, but a life insurance pitch? That was just too much. You know, when a Sunday school class gets too big, it should be split or break out another teacher or two and IMO, most megachurches and the wannabe lower echelon probably should have a rock thrown in them. I doubt the efficiency of anything they do over several small churches (except at maybe selling life insurance that not only keeps "tithing" for you after you are dead, but also sends a little check to the grandkids too) since it is much easier in a bigger church to go to sleep and "let George do it".

The problem I'd have: Does the pastor know about this issue with the music ministry playing failed rock concert guys? Does the pastor simply trust his music minister to keep things straight or what?

Gee, you wonder why some SBC members worry about whether or not the GCRTF will do anything worth the time and effort, don't you? After all, some of the leadership now were young Turks and players fifteen years ago when with either the blissful ignorance of (or active abetting of) the then CR leadership of the SBC accepted the tales of proven liars and their false witnessing over the contrary testimony of respected members. Of course, disappearing reports, thousands of documents going missing and changes in policy exceeding the mandate of the messengers by bureaucratic means have nothing to do with it. No, not at all.

In the meantime, there is much bruhaha about discernment and education of the Church. True, it is needed and I was calling for it before these bigwigs stepped in. Of course, there is my "little problem" which prevents me from being an official front line teacher. The sad thing is that my pastor is a busy man, earnestly working and striving, doing a great job of teaching the Word when he can. I'm still enjoying learning from him. Yet, my "little problem" which might be "offensive" or "questionable" to "some" in the church and could be a "stumbling block" to "some" remains totally 100% based on false witness, open lies, twisted Scripture, forgeries and shoddy scholarship. So, we could remove this "little problem" by actually doing some education in doctrines and discernment, but.....there is only one readily available teacher who is familiar and motivated with the subject matter and he.....has a "little problem".

This seems to be coming to a head, or I'm just needing to vent a little, because truthfully, the time and effort to actually educate people to that level of discernment would be wasteful even if I turned out to be the teacher from heaven, especially since there are some who would still believe what they heard from their brother's sister's mother's cousin was true. So they would just keep "viewing with alarm". That it makes my pastor look like something I don't believe he is (one of the "stealth" antimasons, who never says Freemasonry is wrong, but simply denies any Mason any responsible position) evidently just cannot be helped.

It is a small thing, but it would be a stand for truth instead of false witness, but in end results, this way is most expedient. There would be a price to be paid, because I know one person who has bought the lies hook, line and sinker. I feel it was my error not to directly confront and correct that brother on the spot, but I had work to do in the fellowship hall to finish setting up for a fund raiser and it was more expedient to let it go with my comment that it was bogus and an assurance that I would "watch out" for that pagan stuff that "trusted preachers" had said was in Freemasonry. So, I cannot very well go around talking about the mote in someone else's eye with the beam sticking out of mine.