HELP - need EGW comments on renting our churches to Sunday keepers

[abelisle]

We have a very vocal minority in my church who insist that we should not rent to any Sunday keeping church since that would be a sacrilege and it would desecrate our sanctuary. I believe EGW was in favor of this? And are there any Biblical principles for or against this issue?

Thanks

Alex

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

what about SDA congregations who don't have a church of their own and rent from a Sunday-keeping denomination? That happens a lot if a church gets burned down or otherwise destroyed. I know my church rented from the Episcopalian church while the Adventist church was being built.

If the tables were turned, wouldn't your congregation be grateful to another church for letting them use their facilities on Sabbath?

[Guest]

When we were building our church in Winston-Salem, the Lutherans let us use their church on Sabbath, since they weren't using it. I'm sure we paid them rent. I was just a little boy then.

[karl]

"The church is rented to the Presbyterians for services on Sunday. This makes it a little inconvenient for us at times, but as their meetinghouse was destroyed, they feel very grateful for the privilege of using ours." Selected Messages Book 3, page 323, paragraph 1

[Gerr]

Years ago, our church was approached by a Sunday-keeping group to rent ours since they did not have a building to meet in. The majority of the church board (myself included) approved it, but there was a very vocal minority that was deadset against it. The argument was - truth and error should not be preached from the same pulpit. They raised such a stink we decided against renting it. I thought it would have been a wonderful opportunity to rub shoulders with others and an opportunity to let them know what we believe. I think that church is almost moribund today.

I was in another church years ago. This one was big and had a smaller chapel separate from the main sanctuary. A small Hispanic SDA!!! congregation asked to use the chapel but were rebuffed. I was among the few that approved but was over-ruled by the majority. The comments made at the board sounded to me like they had hints of racism. So I left that church. The congregation that had over 600 members at one time had dwindled over the years to less than 200. That was many years ago. I wonder if they ever recovered.

Before I left for NC, my wife and I were members of a church that rented to a Sunday-keeping church that did not have their own building to worship in. It was a win-win situation, IMO. That group has since ceased to rent and scattered to other places, but the church that we left is today much stronger and bigger.

Our current SS Lessons are about the fruit of the Spirit. I can't imagine having the fruit and rebuffing an opportunity to have others taste that fruit.

[karl]

Alex, here is the only quote I can find which goes the direction you would like. There are many quotes about SDA's renting other denomination churches. And what's good for one ought to be good for the other (golden rule.)

"The church is rented to the Presbyterians for services on Sunday. This makes it a little inconvenient for us at times, but as their meetinghouse was destroyed, they feel very grateful for the privilege of using ours." Selected Messages Book 3, page 323, paragraph 1

[Woody]

Alex. No matter what your church does ... this small group that is in opposition to it need our prayers and also an offer of Bible study. I do worry about someone who would have such a belief. I would want to go specifically over each point and concern that they would have ... with the use of scripture.

These are scary people.

[phkrause]

what about SDA congregations who don't have a church of their own and rent from a Sunday-keeping denomination? That happens a lot if a church gets burned down or otherwise destroyed. I know my church rented from the Episcopalian church while the Adventist church was being built.

If the tables were turned, wouldn't your congregation be grateful to another church for letting them use their facilities on Sabbath?

Very good points rudywoofs.

pk

[Kevin H]

I was hoping that someone would bring up the quote about renting the church to Presbyterians, Thank you Karl.

Let's not forget that the problem that the Pharicees who opposed Jesus (and Jesus had friends as well as enemies among the Pharicees) had with him was that he did not become completely deticated to only one school of thought but freely quoted from Pharicees from different schools of thought (and without footnoting his quoting).

Abraham went to the priest king of Jerusalem, who the Bible does not call a priest of the Lord, but of "God Most High" or the god who was seen as the king of the gods. A king-priest who's decendents and the decendents of his congragation would have to one day be victims of the attack of Joshua and later conqured by David.

Althought a lot of English translations says according to the sons of Israel; the table of the nations in Deuteronomy says that the world was divided among the sons of God, and since ancient mythology has 70 lesser gods, Deuteronomy has 70 nations and they were responsible to their gods as long as they remained moral. Israel was to be rulled by the Most High God, who happens to be Yahweh, directly and therefore it was sin for Israel to worship the lesser gods who had their own nations assigned to them. Later this is developed into Yahweh having created the other gods, then by the time we get to Isaiah it developes from henotheism to monotheism, that since Yahweh created the other gods, that they are not gods but only the self existant Yahweh is God.

We see this thinking in Jonah, where the sailors were more familiar with the religion of Israel and he converted them into worshiping Yahweh, but to Ninivah he got them worshiping God, and history does not show them becoming Yahwhests but it does show around this time the Assyrian Empire worshiping only one god, the god they saw at the king of the gods. So it was still truth mixed with error.

We also find this in many nations who preach against other nations for becoming moral, but then preaching against Edom, Ammom, and Moab, nations who knew the truth but rejected it, holding them to a higher standard, then preaching against Judah and Israel holding them to a higher standard still, thus showing that God works with people as they were and where they are.

The one or two demoniacs where the pigs rushed into the sea were pagans living in Greek City States and knew little to nothing about the Bible or Judaism. They became the first missionaries to the Gentiles. I have a sneeking suspicition that we would feel very uncomfortable if we were to attend their worship services, however they were sent out by Jesus himself, only knowing that some guy from the other side of the sea healed us.

One of the most important passages in the Bible is Exodus 19:5,6 where we learn the consept of the remanant church. Something that God wanted the Hebrews to have clear before he would give them the 10 commandaments. We are God's choosen and special BECAUSE ALL THE WORLD BELONGS TO YAHWEH and the Hebrews were to be priests ministering to Yahweh's world. Not necessarly converting them to Yahweh, but to help them to understand God better in their own framework. When the Hebrews became just like the other nations they went into exile, when they sepperated too much from the other nations and was looking only for converts then to seclude themselves from the others, then they were no longer working as God's choosen people.

So with us, while there was the period of the shut door to help us develop our doctrine and to deliver us from preterism and futurism (and to attemt to deliver us from modernism and fundamentalism) if we are not fullfilling Exodus 19:5,6 we are not fulfilling the role of the Remanant church.

Let's not forget, Mrs. White came to picture us as having a prophetic and pastoral role as a church to the others. What good is a pastor who says to his congragation "Either you become pastors too or else get out of my church."

Mrs. White wrote Steps to Christ not necessarly for Adventists but for the world a large and published it by a popular Sundaykeeping publishing house. And Mrs. White became a very popular preacher among Sundaykeeping churches. The older Mrs. White was in our churches on Sabbath and in the pulpit of Sundaykeeping churches on Sunday. And her sermons to these Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists etc. who kept inviting Mrs. White to preach on Sunday after Sunday was not the mark of the beast or trying to convince them to become Seventh-day Adventists, but she preached the health message and the love of God for them. Mrs. White would pack food and bring to visit the poor, often Mexicans who were picking the fruit in the different orchards on the different farms near where she lived. Many of these people were Catholics, and did not try to convert them but just gave them some food to bring to their families and talk about how much God loved them. When she died many of them, and many of her non-Adventist neighbors kept going into line to view her body saying that they wanted to see just one more time the woman who was always kind to them and told them how much Jesus loved them.

I forgot her real name, but the original Aunt Sue from "Your Story Hour" when she died, her funeral was a multi-denomination service for her works of cherity to the city of Medina Ohio. Pastors of many churches wanted to attend and speak at her funeral for this Seventh-day Adventist woman who ministered to the community.

Let's not forget Felix Loranze who spent his retirement years pastoring churches who were too poor to afford a pastor.

Let's not forget that the Jewish Synogogue in Benton Harbor MI, in the mid 1980s, when they were between Rabbis asked a doctoral student at the Seminary (who was the conference President of the Israeli Mission before he left to get his doctorate) to cover the preaching on their Sabbath services until the new Rabbi could arrive and get settled. (and while I am not aware of the details, but was told by my pastor that one of our professors who was of Jewish heritage, had become not only a Seventh-day Adventist minister but then went on to become a Rabbi to minister to the Jewish communities around Andrews)

Let's not forget our Religious Liberty department and how we fight for religious freedom for all, not just for us.

Let's not forget that the military and hospitals loves Adventist Chaplains because we believe in helping people where they are in their faith and not necessarly pushing our own aggenda. We need to maintain the ballance between not becoming like God's two remanant churches of the past. First we are not to become like the old Yahwest religion which became too much like the religions around them, and not becoming like the Jews, too different and speperate from those around them.

Those who want to not share our building with the others are in direct rejection of not only Mrs. White's Selected Messages quote, but also in direct rejection of two of the most important verses in the Bible, Exodus 19:5,6, the verses that tell us why we exist. If we reject the reason for God choosing us, then where are we?