Are 'Celebration SDA Churches', new path to God, or away from truth?

[GayatfootofCross]

Looking at my post aboveI ..seem so simplistic.

Oh to be a Wordsmith!

How can I convey the breadth and length and depth and height of God's love that will shown to on another when Jesus fully wins the hearts?

How precious is His thoughts  of us. Psalms 139:17,18

[B/W Photodude]

On 3/31/2018 at 9:29 AM, Kevin H said:

I use to be active on a website where Larry Kirkpatrick was also very active. I would often quote his posts and make comments. While he would respond to others he consistently ignored my comments. He was true to the trend that I have found among the followers of that branch of Adventism: telling us that there are only two choices, their view or Desmond Ford's view. They ignore and want to pretend that all other viewpoints in the church.

No one is obligated to respond to anyone else in a forum. I have no way of know why LK would have "ignored" you posts and perhaps that is the best course of action he saw when reading your posts. I do not think the two of you have much of a common ground and for some, just not worth arguing over.

[Kevin H]

19 minutes ago, B/W Photodude said:

No one is obligated to respond to anyone else in a forum. I have no way of know why LK would have "ignored" you posts and perhaps that is the best course of action he saw when reading your posts. I do not think the two of you have much of a common ground and for some, just not worth arguing over.

That may have been ok for some topics, but this was consistent. A big thing was that he had (which I have seen in other journals such as "Our Firm Foundation" and other writings from the so called "Historic Adventists." It was one of the "You either believe one way or the other way" lists giving two choices. I pointed out how most of the things on the list were half truths being used against the rest of the truth, one where both of the two sides he listed were both simply wrong, and gave different Adventist understandings and quoting different Adventist theologians that would show  more balanced answers, or alternative views that is being taught by Seventh-day Adventists. He would continue to write posts accusing the readers that they either believe one or the other of these two  views constantly ignoring the fact that there more views than the two that he kept insisting were the only two views that existed and that we all held fully to either one or the other of these two views.

[B/W Photodude]

15 hours ago, Kevin H said:

A big thing was that he had (which I have seen in other journals such as "Our Firm Foundation" and other writings from the so called "Historic Adventists." It was one of the "You either believe one way or the other way" lists giving two choices.

He would continue to write posts accusing the readers that they either believe one or the other of these two  views constantly ...

I did not bring up "Our Firm Foundation" and am not sure why Kirkpatrick seems to continue to be associated with them. Unless you can show me where he wrote for them, ...

The Apostle Paul wrote that we who are saved are scarcely saved. I do not think that one can go around with a watered down theology to be more acceptable to the world. If the world loves you, you should be very concerned for your salvation.

[B/W Photodude]

16 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

LK was first mentioned by you in thus topic.

I did not associate him with Our Firm Foundation.

[JoeMo]

"Firm Foundation" was not an organization, it was the publication of Hope International when it was headed up by Ron Spear.  I was closely associated with Ron, John Grosbull, Laymen's Ministry News, and John Osbourne back in the 1980's and 1990's.  All of them super conservative.  I thank God that I finally broke ranks with them and joined the real world.  Knowing a God of life and love is much more satisfying than trying to satisfy a God of judgement and condemnation.  Love is a much better motivator than fear.  Given the celebration movement or TOP vs. the fire and brimstone approach to redemption, I'll take the former any day.

[hobie]

On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 11:25 PM, The Wanderer said:

Thats a matter of opinion and twisted semantics/context. I would hope that the OP at least realizes that not everyone on the forum condones treating new-comers like this. You can use whatever word/s you want for it if you dont like "beat-up." I am sure you can supply something to excuse it.

They key message of danger from the 'eastern mysticism'  and Roman Catholic forms from it, just like the Alpha apostasy of Kellogg is being missed and shunted asied, we need to see if this is the Omega part as it is certainly coming from a most "startling" area, the leadership. The pastors, and conference, and even the Unions seemed to have picked it up, it has reached even to the General Conference, as I have found out it is being pushed from leaders there.

[hobie]

On ‎4‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 1:31 PM, The Wanderer said:

LK was first mentioned by you in thus topic. He seeks to be referred to by people as a counter weight to the liberal (so called) movement in the church. But getting back to celebration church. I dont think one should make a general blanket rule or pronouncement about them. There are many different types and not alk can be labelled as ",watered down"

They vary in their methods, but I recognized it as soon as music changed and the drums brought in and the message of allowing all to come in as they are stay as they are began. The other part of 'spiritual formation' seems to depend on the church members discernment as some churches don't seem to show it at first, but the replacement of anything to do with "Ellen White" with other authors seems to be a primary step. As you say not all show signs of it being "watered down", but I would compare it to the old story of the frog being coxed into the pot and the heat being turned up slowly, I didn't even notice most of the signs of the deception being brought in the first time, but I picked it up the second time, and now can walk into a Adventist Church and recognize it.

[hobie]

Now the next part was what really shocked me, as we had sent many messages of concern to the conference over what at the least was a total setting aside of church policy at every stage, from the church board to the nomination of new church officers. The conference sent men including one I had worked under, so knew him well, so I talked with him when I saw him at church and he said to email my concerns so he could go over it when he got back to the conference offices. So I prepared a email and sent it and  got a reply that he did not like to go over any issues of the church through email, but preferred to do it person to person, and this is after I had talked to him personally. Then without anyone talking to me,  Then letters were sent out to many of those who were singled out, I cannot say they had talked to the conference as I did,  but certainly had expressed their concern on this or had talked to the pastor. But I was sent a letter of what I would call 'censure' or warning even though I had not talked to anyone other than the one person I knew from the conference. I soon found out the others had also received the same type of letter, and at that point many left or went to other churches or just stayed home on Sabbath  and had their own personal worship.

None could be called 'fanatics' or 'historic' or any of those labels, but young and old, well to do and not so, faithful members, who came every Sabbath, who supported the church, and even those who had started the church decades before. So it was a wide demographics, and then the church board formed a committee and came to find out why so many members had left or were going to other churches. They took their findings back to the church board but as I knew many of them, they made it clear their findings and suggestions were pushed aside or ignored. Then those who had left formed a small group and began to prepare to go through the steps of forming a new church, and the conference sent men to meet with the group and I was in the meeting. They told us the only way for us to become a church is for the leaders of the group to go through the spiritual formation. They said it was required of all new churches and there was no way to get out of it, and there was no exceptions in the path to becoming a church. I will go into that next...

[hobie]

Well at the time it was happening. I had gone over the issues of being transformed into a 'celebration church' we were having with my family, and my sister who had helped found the first 'celebration church' before with her friends, told me what had happened in her church board at that church. The daughter of those leading out had a dream about Ellen White and her teachings, and she told them it had frightened her, and it would be a good idea to remove what might be a obstacle to new converts. So they had been instrumental in having the church board decide to remove or avoid any teachings from Ellen White as one of their foundational stones for their church, ostensibly to help facility bringing in new members into the church. I found it curious, and told her the same thing was being brought to our current church by the pastor himself, to as he put it "to help bring in new members into the church" who may be offended by the teachings of Ellen White.

So this made me more concerned of what was happening at our church, as the church board members had not found a problem with it, and were in the process of incorporating it, in the new steps to 'evangelize' in the community. At this point my wife and I had decided to join the little group that was meeting at their homes, and we grew so quickly that we had to rent a facility, and began plans to start a new church. The group had many of our original elders, teachers and others who had led out in the various departments, or assisted at some level, so we asked the conference to become a church.

They sent down a delegation from the conference, to go over the steps in the formation of a new church, and to our shock told us that a primary step was for the group leaders to go through "spiritual formation" from the conference, which was held at a certain time for all the new churches that were forming. We asked for clarification and the conference insisted there was no other way for us to become a church, so we met and prayed for God to show us what to do as how could we go through the very thing that was tearing apart our original church. Well, one of our group brought out that they had not given any direction as to how many had to go, so he volunteered and as he was very knowledgeable in church issues and doctrines and well spoken members of our group, would take the opportunity to warn them of the danger of what they were teaching. So we agreed to send him, and he did his best to make them understand what were the problems with this form of 'mysticism', and in front of all the other leaders from groups wanting to start new churches in the conference, So it was a witness we felt, to reach many who we would not have had a chance to reach in any other way, and we fulfilled the 'requirement' the conference put before us.

[B/W Photodude]

I was watching a video of a well-known Adventist preacher and they were having a question-answer session. One lady stood up and started her question with, "Pastor, in our church we have no pastor at present." His response was, "Oh, lucky you!" I tend to agree with him. It seems that, especially in small churches, a pastor is a hindrance to the church in more ways than one. And this is especially true now that conferences are trying "to take churches in a different direction." With a pastor, it is too easy for the members to stand back and let the pastor do the work of evangelization. And some pastors even want to micromanage the whole process like they are the only ones capable of giving Bible studies. I was talking to one pastor of a small church and he told me he was giving nine bible studies! And no one in the church was giving any. I could only ask why he was doing that. Sometimes the pastor becomes the gatekeeper for contacts from other ministries such as VOP.

Russell Burrell wrote a number of books on the life cycles of church. In one book he related how a small company, without a pastor and did not want a pastor, was growing. In order for someone to become a member of this church the prospective member needed to state what their mission would be. (Can't just sit there and warm the pew? Where's the love?) My own personal study has led me to conclude that your eternal life is in peril if you are not involved in evangelization. Those are the ones Jesus will say "I don't know you" to. If you cannot see that the thing that Jesus cared for the most (saving souls), then you don't know Him.

One of the problems for a newly planted church is that to have a pastor paid by the denomination, the group must sign over the church property to the conference. So, the local company no longer even owns their own building anymore. This is all fine, except when a church group decides for good or bad to depart from "official" conference guidelines, then the conference comes along and padlocks the doors and the company is without a church. So, I hate to say it, but a new church body has to be circumspect when dealing with their conference. I hate like anything to even have to write something like this, but it is what it is.

Your new company is also going to have name problems, because they could be prohibited from calling themselves a Seventh-day Adventist church. Membership could have its own issues. And lastly, the church is going to have to decide what they will do with funds raised thru offerings and tithes. In some conferences there would be little concern about sending funds to the conference, but in others, I would have a problem paying tithe to the conference and would seriously look for another conference to send my tithes and offerings to. 

[Gregory Matthews]

NOTE:

*  In general the property is owned by the Conference.

*  There are exceptions to the above. 

*  There is no denominational wide requirement that only allows a congregation to have a pastor is it signs over the property to the Conference.   That is up to the Conference.

*  Twice I have been a Conference paid pastor who was assigned to pastor two congregations, located indifferent areas that owned the property on which the church building sat and that property was not owned by the Conference.

[Gregory Matthews]

NOTE:  Any implication that a congregation must own property in order to have a Conference paid pastor is false.

I, as a Conference paid pastor, was once assigned to pastor a congregation the met in a  church that belonged to another denomination.

.

 

[CoAspen]

Well...well... a lot of anecdotal stories, complaints about worship style, criticizing of persons unknown and places, etc, etc. But do we have any real 'truth' posted about a paticular style of worship not being beneficial to anyone but those that don't like it.......nope!

We seem to run in cycles on forums, of topics that people post about 'what is wrong with the church'.

[Gregory Matthews]

As to :just sitting and worming a pew."

I have some agreement with what was posted.  But, I also disagree.   I will suggest that there may be a place for a member to just sit and warm the pew.

Some people are just not ready to do more.

We as a Church, need to meet people spiritually where they are.

Personal disclosure:   I was once told that I could not join a congregation unless I committed to some area of personal ministry in the congregational program.   My circumstances at that time did not allow me to do what the pastor wanted.  So, I joined another congregation that allowed me to fit in as I could, and I did.  NOTE:  That pastor who told me that later to take a leave of absence from denominational employment in order to get his life together.

[B/W Photodude]

4 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

Personal disclosure:   I was once told that I could not join a congregation unless I committed to some area of personal ministry in the congregational program.   MY circumstances at that time did not allow me to do what the pastor wanted.  ... NOTE:  That pastor who told me that later to take a leave of absence from denominational employment in order to get his life together.

There will be times in most peoples lives where being involved in church activities such as evangelism is not possible at that moment. However, many people can fill their lives with an enormous range of activities for their enjoyment and entertainment and can't find a moment for church activities. You can probably apply the Pareto principle (the 80/20 rule) to even churches.  Most of the work will be done by the few. 

Like many situations, some will take advantage of people wherever they can. Even pastors will try to take advantage of other pastors. Even heard of one who was only being a pastor until he was done with school in another field so he could get on to a better life.

[B/W Photodude]

5 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

NOTE:  Any implication that a congregation must own property in order to have a Conference paid pastor is false.

I, as a Conference paid pastor, was once assigned to pastor a congregation the met in a  church that belonged to another denomination.

I wrote with incomplete knowledge. But any congregation that owns a church, the title to the church will usually be held in trust by the conference. Obviously, if a group is renting it will not happen. When a group goes out to buy a church, it usually gets done with the oversight of the conference. Very unusual for a church to have the title to their own church. Conferences fear it will lead to a congregationalism if it so happens.

[hobie]

15 hours ago, B/W Photodude said:

I was watching a video of a well-known Adventist preacher and they were having a question-answer session. One lady stood up and started her question with, "Pastor, in our church we have no pastor at present." His response was, "Oh, lucky you!" I tend to agree with him. It seems that, especially in small churches, a pastor is a hindrance to the church in more ways than one. And this is especially true now that conferences are trying "to take churches in a different direction." With a pastor, it is too easy for the members to stand back and let the pastor do the work of evangelization. And some pastors even want to micromanage the whole process like they are the only ones capable of giving Bible studies. I was talking to one pastor of a small church and he told me he was giving nine bible studies! And no one in the church was giving any. I could only ask why he was doing that. Sometimes the pastor becomes the gatekeeper for contacts from other ministries such as VOP.

Russell Burrell wrote a number of books on the life cycles of church. In one book he related how a small company, without a pastor and did not want a pastor, was growing. In order for someone to become a member of this church the prospective member needed to state what their mission would be. (Can't just sit there and warm the pew? Where's the love?) My own personal study has led me to conclude that your eternal life is in peril if you are not involved in evangelization. Those are the ones Jesus will say "I don't know you" to. If you cannot see that the thing that Jesus cared for the most (saving souls), then you don't know Him.

One of the problems for a newly planted church is that to have a pastor paid by the denomination, the group must sign over the church property to the conference. So, the local company no longer even owns their own building anymore. This is all fine, except when a church group decides for good or bad to depart from "official" conference guidelines, then the conference comes along and padlocks the doors and the company is without a church. So, I hate to say it, but a new church body has to be circumspect when dealing with their conference. I hate like anything to even have to write something like this, but it is what it is.

Your new company is also going to have name problems, because they could be prohibited from calling themselves a Seventh-day Adventist church. Membership could have its own issues. And lastly, the church is going to have to decide what they will do with funds raised thru offerings and tithes. In some conferences there would be little concern about sending funds to the conference, but in others, I would have a problem paying tithe to the conference and would seriously look for another conference to send my tithes and offerings to. 

Well my wife is a realtor so she helped the Spanish group who was starting a church to buy the land to build the church, and the conference said the property had to be put in their name. They inspected the land and title as well as the county codes and ability to build or any encumbrances before it was bought. So they check the legal aspect as well as area as you are not allowed to build a SDA church within a certain number of miles of another SDA church, and then they had the title put in their name and you can build.

Well the Caribbean group knew all this, so they raised funds and had one of the members buy the property and built their church the way they wanted at the location they desired, and are raising funds for a even bigger one. They then turned it over to the conference and were made a 'official' Seventh-day Adventist church, so you can make/build a Seventh-day Adventist church without any interference from the conference.

[B/W Photodude]

3 hours ago, hobie said:

Well the Caribbean group knew all this, so they raised funds and had one of the members buy the property and built their church the way they wanted at the location they desired, and are raising funds for a even bigger one. They then turned it over to the conference and were made a 'official' Seventh-day Adventist church, so you can make/build a Seventh-day Adventist church without any interference from the conference.

I noticed you wrote, "They then turned it over to the conference and were made a "official" Seventh-day Adventist church." It is certainly possible to go out and build your own church where you want it, but as you noted, it got turned over to the conference to become "official." And it is very possible that somewhere there is a church where the title is not in conference trust, but it is unusual from what I have found out thru inquiries.

[hobie]

15 hours ago, B/W Photodude said:

I noticed you wrote, "They then turned it over to the conference and were made a "official" Seventh-day Adventist church." It is certainly possible to go out and build your own church where you want it, but as you noted, it got turned over to the conference to become "official." And it is very possible that somewhere there is a church where the title is not in conference trust, but it is unusual from what I have found out thru inquiries.

Well in South and Central America and in some parts of the Caribbean, they build as they baptize members or meet in rented halls or auditoriums, so they have small buildings used as churches everywhere that are not turned over. In Cuba, it is not possible to make a church, so the members get together and bring the materials and just put together a building themselves. I was at a large concrete church there a few months ago, and was looking at how well built it was, and to my surprise found out a member of our church came down with Maranatha and directed the building of it over the wood frame of the old church. There was no asphalt roads or highways to the church, it could only be reached by tractor or 4WD vehicle over a awful path of dirt, so I don't know how they got the materials there.

Now there is a danger in forming a group or setting up outside of the conference as you can imagine. We went to one local church that had a SDA pastor and Sabbath service, and was baptizing members. But we quickly found out the pastor had some issues with the conference and had left and started this church by himself, and was outside any conference or church sanctions. So it appeared for all intents and purposes as a SDA church but the pastor was basically in the process of loosing his credentials. 

[hobie]

On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 10:06 PM, B/W Photodude said:

A church that I belonged to once was the oldest SDA church in the area and one that Ellen White had preached at. There were many older members who had been in that church for many many years and had invested much of their time and resources into the church.

Then we got a new pastor and some of the newer members went off to Oregon to get schooled in the celebration movement that was going on there. When they came back, many changes were forced on the church that were not well accepted by many long time members.

There was enough chaos that many of the members left and went to different churches in the area. It finally reached a point one Sabbath when the pastor gathered up his family and walked out of the church right during the church service and he was never seen again in that church.

Along the way, programs were held in the church during the worship hour that were to me pretty much an abomination. I wrote out a lengthly description of that service and for sometime after it was posted on Larry Kirkpatrick's website. Kirkpatrick's site has been down for remodeling for sometime and also at the last time I checked.

With membership declining, then some of the older members passed away, the church fell into financial distress and it was decided to sell the church which was accomplished by selling it to a bursting at the seams Hispanic  church. The church for awhile rented a Sunday church and bought a building that was more a worship center than a church and still seems to hobble along today. So, another fairly complete church destruction accomplished.

Wow, that is what happened here although they have not sold our brand new building as of yet. We also began finding out that many other churches in our conference were being taken over in a similar fashion. My original church that I grew up in, has now spilt the services in two, and not because of overflow. The early service is the regular Adventist sermon and Sabbath School, then they have a late service on the Willow Creek Model of 'Celebration SDA Churches' with the accompanying "rock and roll". The churches that are new, are being built with stages for the performers and massive sound systems and banks of controls, with all indications of religious beliefs or doctrines kept out.

[hobie]

On ‎4‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 1:28 PM, CoAspen said:

Well...well... a lot of anecdotal stories, complaints about worship style, criticizing of persons unknown and places, etc, etc. But do we have any real 'truth' posted about a paticular style of worship not being beneficial to anyone but those that don't like it.......nope!

We seem to run in cycles on forums, of topics that people post about 'what is wrong with the church'.

Well, lets get into more specifics to flesh out what is happening. One of our retired pastor told us about these group of pastors and others who are pushing this 'One Project' which seems aimed at the young people. Many churches seem to have been affected, and they are not saying good things about it and those who have come across it don't find much in it that is positive as it appears to be part of these changes.

https://support.amazingdiscoveries.org/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/GetAttachment/385/223.

http://advindicate.com/articles/2014/3/4/one-project-present-or-emergent-truth

And from another perspective:

https://spectrummagazine.org/article/marcos-torres/2014/08/25/one-project-danger-or-blessing

 

[Gregory Matthews]

A number of you have posted stories as to how the local Conference has placed specific requirements on a congregation that wanted to establish a congregation and/or purchase property/build a building.  I will not argue any of those stories.   They simply illustrate the power of the Conference to make individual decisions.  But, they do not illustrate general rules that apply everywhere.

E.G.  there is no rule as to how far apart local congregations need to be.  I have lived  (more than once) in places where SDA congregations were located two (2)  miles or less from each other.  Yes, in each case those congregations were in the same Conference.    

[B/W Photodude]

9 minutes ago, Gregory Matthews said:

E.G.  there is no rule as to how far apart local congregations need to be.  I have lived  (more than once) in places where SDA congregations were located two (2)  miles or less from each other.  Yes, in each case those congregations were in the same Conference.    

Proximity type rules probably more come into play when the conference gets involved in the planning stage. But I do not know this for a fact and it can become subject to correction!

I am sure the proximity rule gets waved in certain cases. For instance, the Campus Hill church at Loma Linda sits on a hill over the University church about a quarter mile away. But they have the numbers needed to have those two churches that close. You also are only a couple miles away from Azure Hills church and quite a number of churches within about ten minutes driving time. Of course, Loma Linda is so Adventist that they have Sunday mail instead of Saturday mail. Problems are when restaurants are busy on Sabbath from all the Adventist going to a restaurant for meals!

[B/W Photodude]

8 hours ago, hobie said:

Now there is a danger in forming a group or setting up outside of the conference as you can imagine. We went to one local church that had a SDA pastor and Sabbath service, and was baptizing members. But we quickly found out the pastor had some issues with the conference and had left and started this church by himself, and was outside any conference or church sanctions. So it appeared for all intents and purposes as a SDA church but the pastor was basically in the process of loosing his credentials. 

As Peter wrote, "And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" 1 Peter 4:18 (I think I have given Paul credit for this in the past!)

There seems to be problems (sin) inside and outside the church and one must be wise as serpents. Funny thing is, I have never thought of snakes as wise! But I get His point. Those who would be like the Serpent (Devil), and would deceive, may be very crafty at deception, but we must be even wiser than those who would deceive. "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Matthew 10:16