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

March 24, 2018

Look at this as it is a eye opening shock of cold water on those who are pushing the Willow Creek Model of 'Celebration SDA Churches' with its hidden 'Spiritual Formation':

"My Pilgrimage to U.S.A. Celebration Churches

By the late 1980s, Australian Adventist administrators, evangelists, and pastors were looking for an answer to the challenge of this post-Christian era. They wanted to know how to successfully grow their churches.

It was at this time that the "celebration movement" was introduced to the world church of Seventh-day Adventists. The church’s leading papers heralded the first celebration churches in Milwaukie, a suburb of Portland, Oregon; and Colton, California, U.S.A. This new type of church was believed to be the answer to our church growth problems, as hundreds were flocking to these celebration churches. I was one of the pastors who embarked upon this pilgrimage.

My first opportunity to observe the celebration church movement in detail was in June 1990. I was part of a group of 30 Australian pastors who were taken on a Church Growth Tour through the U.S.A. to learn how to grow churches. Two of the "growing" Adventist churches we visited were Milwaukee and Colton. With glowing enthusiasm their pastors told of the crowds of worshippers who were attending. Their excitement was contagious. We took notes, filed materials, and then attended some of their services.

I was in my 38th year of ministry, having been a departmental director and pastor/evangelist. Observing these celebration churches caused me concern as I saw their sacred worship services accompanied with lights and loud disco-type music of secular, worldly entertainment. The distinctive truths of the three angels’ messages and the Spirit of Prophecy had given way to a message of "love and acceptance." Church standards had suffered a similar fate, as members were encouraged to be "loving" and not "judgmental." However, many of those attracted to these services could not see the dangers. They expressed their joy that this new presentation of the Gospel had brought to them love, understanding, and a liberation from Adventist legalism.

With almost evangelistic zeal the members were urging other Adventists from surrounding churches to join them in this newfound experience. These churches were certainly growing, and rapidly. But it was largely "transfer growth" from other Adventist churches. While they were supposed to attract and convert "unchurched Harrys and Marys," few such "kingdom-growth" baptisms were taking place.

While some of us left those celebration churches with questions in our minds, none of us had any idea that both of these churches would later collapse, with the loss of hundreds of souls. The pastor of the Milwaukee church also would become so antagonistic to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and its teachings that his soul-destroying influence would even extend to Australia. In fact, little did we realize then that one of our fellow ministers on this tour would on his return "plant" a celebration/contemporary church like those he was observing, and he too would suffer a similar fate, with the loss of the church and himself to the Adventist Church....

The Celebration Movement in the South Pacific Division

When the celebration movement was launched in the Seventh-day Adventist Church by the Milwaukie and Colton Adventist churches in America, some pragmatists in Australia and New Zealand were quick to follow them. Five church plants of this nature were attempted in the South Pacific Division, each of which adopted a celebration-type contemporary style of worship. They were: (1) Cherrybrook, Sydney, Greater Sydney Conference; (2) Cornerstone, North New Zealand Conference; (3) Fox Valley, Sydney, Greater Sydney Conference; (4) Riverside, Perth, West Australian Conference; and (5) Southside, Brisbane, South Queensland Conference.2

These five contemporary churches that were "planted" in the South Pacific Division initially experienced transfer growth from other Adventist churches, but had very little success in their style of evangelism in terms of kingdom growth. Tragically, four of these five churches are no longer in the sisterhood of Adventist churches. Like most of their American counterparts, they experienced a tragic loss of members as well as pastors.3

Besides the church "plants," some established Adventist churches also adopted aspects of the celebration church growth methods. The Church Growth leaders of the South Pacific Division specially promoted one such Sydney church (the Mt. Colah church), hoping to demonstrate the success of these pragmatic methods. However, official conference records reveal that this church only had 19 baptisms in its first nine years, and in the next five years only one baptism!4

This "model" pragmatic church now has such a small attendance that it is struggling to exist. In contrast to this celebration-type church, the neighboring "commissionist" (or traditional) church, Waitara, has so experienced real kingdom church growth that it has been asked to care for the "model" church.5 In fact, more of these celebration-type contemporary churches are in trouble, and conference leaders are becoming very embarrassed about them, having in the past enthusiastically promoted them....

A mistaken assumption of the contemporary church growth movement is that distinctive Seventh-day Adventist doctrines are a hindrance to church growth and must, therefore, be abandoned. And yet, the churches that have jumped on this bandwagon are not growing!"

March 24, 2018

Two aspects of the above post catch my attention:

1) The writer does not clearly indicate whether he is quoting what another person has written, or whether he is quoting himself. IOW, is he, or is he not a SDA pastor who traveled from Australia to the U.S. to study celebration churches?

2) I am not impressed by a person who while taking a position with which he knows many will disagree, writes under a pen name so that no one will know who he really is. God expects people to stand for the right, not hide under the bed in a darkened room, with the door shut and the electricity turned off so that the light cannot be turned on.

March 24, 2018

the opening post quotes are snippets out of a literary monolith of 770 pages :

HERE WE STAND: Evaluating New Trends in the Church, Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, Editor, published in 2005 by Adventists Affirm.

Pastor E. Bruce Price, Retired church Pastor, Evangelist, and Departmental Director, South Pacific Division wrote Chapter Two, "Are the Churches Really Growing?" from which the OP snippets were taken.

March 24, 2018

Thanks. This is helpful. Basically it tells us that we have little accurate context.

.

March 24, 2018

Kinda wander why the topic was posted, since it has been argued to death for decades! Newcomers might want to check on previous topics or just ask....or is it just trolling?

March 25, 2018

HCH has an agenda and promotes it in any manner possible.

March 25, 2018

My superficial examination of the opening post quote is that the major part of it was written by E. B. Price, with, perhaps, a small part from R.W. O'fill; and that the entire quoted part was taken from a book that had been edited by Samuel Koranting-Pipim.

All of this is important information. The post, as posted by "hobie" was potentially confusing.

NOTE to "hobie:" If you wish to continue posting here, exercise a greater responsibility to inform as to your sources and to properly present them.

March 25, 2018

13 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

Two aspects of the above post catch my attention:

1) The writer does not clearly indicate whether he is quoting what another person has written, or whether he is quoting himself. IOW, is he, or is he not a SDA pastor who traveled from Australia to the U.S. to study celebration churches?

2) I am not impressed by a person who while taking a position with which he knows many will disagree, writes under a pen name so that no one will know who he really is. God expects people to stand for the right, not hide under the bed in a darkened room, with the door shut and the electricity turned off so that the light cannot be turned on.

Lets give you more so you see where I am coming from.

My sister and friends from college were taken to Willow Creek to 'seminars' and 'church growth training' by one of the SDA pastors and they set up a new church based on that model. I had no idea at the time what 'Willow Creek' was or what methods or processes they taught for those who went there. But to make a long story short, I went to the new 'Celebration' SDA church with my family, and they told us, as part of this 'church growth' methods, we would invite people to come, and we would be taking them as they were, not going and sharing any truths from Adventism or SDA doctrines to the newbies, and having breakfast/food to share when they came on Sabbath morning. It was different but I thought it had possibilities to reach many people who had never been to church or had much contact with anything to do with religion much less Adventist, so helped as much as I was able to.

Then we got other changes, we dropped the Sabbath School lesson and began to use things that weren't connected to Adventism, and the song leaders where replaced by musicians with 'director' which soon became a 'rock band' with electric guitars and drums. Then Ellen White became basically 'verboten' and was eased out as a resource so as not to 'estrange' the newbies. So we changed but the newbies somehow stayed how they were, and all things Adventist was phased out till we become known as 'church lite' to many who visited from other SDA churches, lots of sound and fury, but little substance. Well, anyway, it got to the point that we had to leave the 'celebration church', as it basically was no longer a SDA church, more like a non-denominational and this is before I saw any part of the 'Spiritual Formation' which is coming out now. I will go into that next...

March 25, 2018

16 hours ago, rudywoofs (Pam) said:

the opening post quotes are snippets out of a literary monolith of 770 pages :

HERE WE STAND: Evaluating New Trends in the Church, Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, Editor, published in 2005 by Adventists Affirm.

Pastor E. Bruce Price, Retired church Pastor, Evangelist, and Departmental Director, South Pacific Division wrote Chapter Two, "Are the Churches Really Growing?" from which the OP snippets were taken.

No, its from the pastors, check here..https://musicaeadoracao.com.br/recursos/arquivos/ingles/church_growth.htm

March 25, 2018

11 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

My superficial examination of the opening post quote is that the major part of it was written by E. B. Price, with, perhaps, a small part from R.W. O'fill; and that the entire quoted part was taken from a book that had been edited by Samuel Koranting-Pipim.

All of this is important information. The post, as posted by "hobie" was potentially confusing.

NOTE to "hobie:" If you wish to continue posting here, exercise a greater responsibility to inform as to your sources and to properly present them.

There is the source...https://musicaeadoracao.com.br/recursos/arquivos/ingles/church_growth.htm

March 25, 2018

14 hours ago, CoAspen said:

Kinda wander why the topic was posted, since it has been argued to death for decades! Newcomers might want to check on previous topics or just ask....or is it just trolling?

Well I guess this is old hat, but I experienced it, not once but twice and my wife has seen it in her home island as well as here. So this is first hand of what this 'celebration church' experiment is about and give factual information directly from it.

The next thing that happened after we left that church is we searched around for a regular Adventist church and found out many were being changed to this new model or implementing some parts of it, so it was not a easy task, and we found some churches that had not been affected and settled there. Now years later, my wife and I moved and went to a nice SDA church that still had the members that had started and built it, and had several hundred members and was growing, and was looking to expand or build a new church to accommodate the growth. So we raised funds doing bake sales, car washes, matching funds, etc.. and found a piece of land and purchased it and formed a building committee and my wife as a realtor, was with the pastor through the whole process and in the committee, so I followed it very close. So we build a brand new church, and suddenly we are told a new pastor is going to take over, and he came to the church board, and I personally was at the meeting with my wife and many close friends who were members and he kept telling us how he would preach what I would call SDA truths such as the 3 Angels message and use Ellen White, etc...

And he did as long as we were in the old church, then we moved into our brand new church, and suddenly he began preaching of how we had to grow the church, and take people as they are, and I said to my wife, this sounds familiar. So the next thing that happens is the church board notice and called a meeting, preparing to go over the church manual on certain issues, and the next thing the new pastor calls one of the leading members who built the original church and tells him he is no longer need, and not to come to the church board. Then he gets rid of the elders and replaces them with people with what I would say had not held any office before, or just were new. So I went to the church board with my wife to see what was going on, and to what I would say to my great surprise, was thrown out.

They were basically planning 'spiritual formation' and how to implement it and the 'Willow Creek' model to 'make the church truly grow'. They then said they did not have to put the offices to a vote, that it would be 'the pastors choices' and filled the offices with what the pastor and this hand picked board approved of even if they had little or no experience from what we knew, and cleared the church leadership of anyone who opposed them. They then replace the song leaders with what I can only called a 'rock and roll' band as I grew up on Led Zed and Black Sabbath, and now one can lie to me as to what was being played from the pulpit.

I was shocked and the others were stunned, and they railroad these changes, and we sent messages to the Conference of what was happening and to a ever greater shock, someone I knew very close from the Conference came and basically brushed aside our concerns and told me personally to email him, and replied with what I can only call deliberate misdirection and dismissal of the pressing issues.

Now, the church at first attracted members that like coming to hear this type of music, and come as they 'truly' were to say the least and have a church not using Ellen White any longer. But they only showed up for a while and gave little to support the church, so our newly fully paid church went into debt, and by this time most of the regular members had left for other churches, or gave up and stayed home. It was a total meltdown, and soon even the newbies stopped coming, and just a handful showed up on Sabbath, and the few left in the church board called a meeting, but the pastor gave 'last sermon' and resigned.

My wife and I left and with others we have formed a new church, and I am in charge of the building fund, and I am going before the members next Sabbath, to basically start all over and go from scratch to a new church, again. And I have nothing 'good' I can say of the conference or their 'help', except they have not tried to stop us.

I tell all the members that no matter what, SOP tells us the church will not fall, and we must go forward. I never imagined it would be like this...

Sad, very sad is all I can say......

March 25, 2018

Hobie, as I react to your recent posts:

Thank you for your openness in your recent posts. That does you very well. My overall feeling is sadness for what you have experienced. I commend you for your attempt to remain true to what you believe to be the call of God for your life and your struggle to remain within the SDA community. I would hope that the SDA Church could continue to be a place where people like you could remain, feel welcomed and be spiritually nurtured. May the Lord continue to be with you and to guide you in your spiritual life.

At this point, I will simply say that people with whom you disagree are as committed as are you to doing the will of God and the mission of Christ in this last day. That may be true regardless of how you understand that and notwithstanding that I do not believe that you are always correct in how you describe them.

I will suggest two important issues for the times in which we live today:

1) The SDA Church today is not reaching many people groups to the extent that God would want us to reach them. People who recognize that are attempting to discover the methods that are effective in reaching them and are consistent with God's plan for reaching them (regardless of what you might think). God will give success to those that are godly. Others will fail. Let us give God time to demonstrate which ones are of God and which are not.

2) We live today in a time much different from that of the time of Ellen White. In her time, it could be assumed that people had a basic knowledge of Christian faith and doctrine. Many did not need to be converted to Christ, rather then only needed to be informed as to certain doctrinal issues. This is no longer the case today. One can no longer assume that people have a basic knowledge. There is a place for some to teach basics and for others to expand on that foundation and teach to more detailed and less basic issues. One should not criticize those who attempt to build a foundation that needs more work by others.

Expansion:

I will give you and example of what I am talking about. Let us look at what had been called The One Project (TOP). For a number of years it held meetings that ranged from one to three days. Those meeting focused on making Christ the center of our lives. Those meetings did not focus on what some critics considered to be the basis of Adventism and the 3-angels of Revelation 14. There was not time to do so in a short meeting of one to three days. Japhet, a founder of TOP certainly preached on distinctive SDA doctrines, with Christ as the center in his preaching in the Boulder SDA congregation. That is where it should have been done.

Hobie: I encourage you to work, as you believe God has called you, to build the SDA Church and to strengthen and nurture the people with whom you work to build a relationship with Christ.

I encourage you not to spend your time in criticizing others, to include those whom you do not fully understand. God will lead and sometimes I believe that we spend too much time in attempting to correct others. Let God be God and do what God will do.

NOTE: People may be allowed to post under a penname. In a few cases such may be justified. Most of the time it is not. I wish you could post under you true name. Ultimately that is a decision that you will make.

March 25, 2018

10 hours ago, hobie said:

No, its from the pastors, check here..https://musicaeadoracao.com.br/recursos/arquivos/ingles/church_growth.htm

actually, I *am* correct. The link you posted uploads an unsourced copy of the [copyrighted] 2nd chapter of Section One of "Here We Stand" http://mediaset.sdasofia.org/MEDIA SET/LASTNEWS/BOOKS/Here_we_stand.pdf

whoever owns the webpage, https://musicaeadoracao.com.br/ would do well to document from whence the cited articles and documents were taken...

March 26, 2018

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.

March 26, 2018

2 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

The people behind the web site can be contacted here Contact Site Owners & Contributors Trying to catch Hobie in some sort of source rukus seems a little over the top. Although specific references are not always given, and extensive list of sources, (Bibliography) was given and no claims of original authorship were on any parts of the site in question. I dont see anything wrong there on that point. Maybe some here do not want to discuss the original OP content. Fine. But dont beat up somebody on the guise of "not documenting," as Hobie quoted in good faith and no obvious intentions to be so "wrong" here.

who was beating up Hobie? Nobody... that's who.

There's nothing wrong with pointing out issues of documentation... smh

March 26, 2018

**off topic**

Chill out, Wanderer. Hobie isn't a delicate little flower. He is a veteran of other forums discussing Adventism, and is quite adept at defending himself (as well as dishing it out) if he sees the need.

**back to topic**

March 26, 2018

18 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

Hobie, as I react to your recent posts:

Thank you for your openness in your recent posts. That does you very well. My overall feeling is sadness for what you have experienced. I commend you   for your attempt to remain true to what you believe to be the call of God for your life and your struggle to remain within the SDA community. I would hope that the SDA Church could continue to be a place where people like you could remain, feel welcomed and be spiritually nurtured.  May the Lord continue to be with you and to guide you in your spiritual life.

At this point, I will simply say that people with whom you disagree are as committed as are you to doing the will of God and the mission of Christ in this last day. That may be true regardless of how you understand that and notwithstanding that I do not believe that you are always correct in how you describe them.

I will suggest two important issues for the times in which we live today:

1) The SDA Church today is not reaching many people groups to the extent that God would want us to reach them. People who recognize that are attempting to discover the methods that are effective in reaching them and are consistent with God's plan for reaching them (regardless of what you might think).   God will give success to those that are godly. Others will fail.   Let us give God time to demonstrate which ones are of God and which are not.

2) We live today in a time much different from that of the time of Ellen White. In her time, it could be assumed that people had a basic knowledge of Christian faith and doctrine.   Many did not need to be converted to Christ, rather then only needed to be informed as to certain doctrinal issues. This is no longer the case today.   One can no longer assume that people have a basic knowledge. There is a place for some to teach basics and for others to expand on that foundation and teach to more detailed and less basic issues. One should not criticize those who attempt to build a foundation that needs more work by others.

Expansion:

I will give you and example of what I am talking about. Let us look at what had been called The One Project (TOP). For a number of years it held meetings   that ranged from one to three days. Those meeting focused on making Christ the center of our lives.    Those meetings did not focus on what some critics considered to be the basis of Adventism and the 3-angels of Revelation 14.  There was not time to do so in a short meeting of one to three days. Japhet, a founder of TOP certainly preached on distinctive SDA doctrines, with Christ as the center in his preaching in the Boulder SDA congregation. That is where it should have been done.

Hobie: I encourage you to work, as you believe God has called you, to build the SDA Church and to strengthen and nurture the people with whom you work to build a relationship with Christ.

I encourage you not to spend your time in criticizing others, to include those whom you do not fully understand. God will lead and sometimes I believe that we spend too much time in attempting to correct others. Let God be God and do what God will do.

NOTE: People may be allowed to post under a penname. In a few cases such may be justified. Most of the time it is not. I wish you could post under you true name. Ultimately that is a decision that you will make.

I understand what you are saying, but I disagree. The characteristic are not of a sanctified path but more of another and secular one which I have seen repeated:

1. Come as they truly are with all the things of the world, as immediately all of these characteristics begins to show up in the members of the church, not the newbies, including all the jewelry and baubles associated with it, and business and other work of the week is done openly in church, its just another day with no reverence or holiness and its fine to go shopping or to restaurants and they make it a point to tell others and show them, so its clear what they are doing.

2. Another characteristic which appears is no respect for the Sabbath program, as to being there on time for them, whether the Sabbath School or regular service. They treat it as a social club just to come and see acquaintances and dress and act accordingly, to say nothing of what they display from the pulpit for when they go up as the 'praise team' or with the 'band'.

3. A third characteristic is their financial support or lack thereof when these member come attracted to 'music' and 'Willow Creek' model, as these are not the newbies as I said. The church soon starts to have financial issues, as the offerings die off, and as seen in our fully paid off church within a few months they had gone into debt and had to rent our new church to a Sunday keeping group to keep afloat. Not another Adventist group or such, but completely outside denomination holding services in our new church on Sunday, with doctrines and beliefs contrary to ours in the SDA church.

This is confusing to the newbies to say nothing of visiting SDA members who expressed misgivings and questioned if we were still a denominational church, to say nothing of the 'music' or what was being shown from the pulpit or given by the pastor in his sermons. Well as I said, he quit on a Sabbath and left on Monday, and the conference has sent a similar replacement who consequently tried to cancel church one Sabbath as he couldn't make it for some reason. Not call any of the new elders or leaders to fill in, just cancel, and this is a established church of decades that had over 200 members. So what can I say except the 'celebration model' is not a path to grow or even continuation, but of destruction and at least what I can personally say first hand, a strange different path...

March 26, 2018

Hobie, I will reflect on your recent post:

* Again, I appreciate your oppeness in sharing.

* You come across to me as having a real struggle with being judgmental of others. I believe that God can help you as you work on this issue in your life. But, I wonder how judgmental you would be of me if you knew me personally?

* SDA congregations do differ. Most cannot nurture every person. It seems to me that you have mostly experienced congregations in which you are not likely to grow spiritually. I hope that you can find one in which you can grow.

* Music: I suspect that you would be surprised at the multiple issues that people raise about music. In a seminary class IS too a million year ago I learned that many well known Christian hymns traced their tunes back to drinking songs sung in bars. Also, in the Seminary I learned of a well-known elected General Conference official who, when traveling to certain countries would be asked not to bring a specific musical instrument with him, as SDA members in that country did not allow that instrument to be played in a SDA church. I learned of musical instruments that were not considered appropriate in U.S. SDA congregations that were an important part of SDA worship in other countries. Keep in mind that we are an immigrant nation and the worship practices in other countries has entered services in the U.S. Hobie, I could go on and list more. But, I should stop at some place. The bottom line is that as far as the tune itself is concerned, the SDA Church has not been able to develop a standard that can be applied in all nations of the world.

* The SDA denomination is divided today over whether membership should be restricted to people who have reached a specific level of adherence to doctrine and life practice; or whether it should be open to most people who commit to being on spiritual journey of learning and growing. I am reminded of my first Sabbath worshiping in another country. I had considered that country to be quite conservative in their approach to Adventism. In truth, I was correct. But, on that day, I was astounded by a baptism that I witnessed that day. It was clear that this adult couple had not journeyed far into the Adventist experience and culture. [NOTE: The Conference President was the pastor of that congregation.] But, there was a factor that I had not understood that Sabbath day. The congregation continued to nurture and grow that couple over the months that followed. They were not left on their own. Within the time that I worshiped in that congregation, the couple made many changes in their lies.

Well, at some point I must stop in reflecting on your post. It troubles me and on that I will stop for now.

March 26, 2018

Of course we come as we are.

How can we not?

Unless a good sturdy mask is tightly bolted on.

God is all about authenticity and non condemnation. and The Body of Christ heals and grows in this.

The masks wont be saved.

:love:

March 26, 2018

12 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

I wouldnt go to that web site for a definition of anything. What is your definition of "Celebration Church?"

Actually, ... I will go to any website I want! There seems to be a major divide in the church along with a lot of little ones. I tend to agree with the side of the divide that Kirkpatrick's website falls on (or used to). As I have noted before here, even ChristianForums <https://www.christianforums.com> divides Adventists up into two groups, progressive and traditional. They even move posts that ended up on the wrong forum back to where it belongs. Never shall the two come together! And on that forum as well as the church in real life, that seems to be the case. However, the Bible clearly advocates unity. You cannot have the mind of Christ and also have the wide spread dissension and divide that we have. So, somewhere, sometime it is going to get even more divisive than it already is. As one person says, "Where there is no love, hatred will soon follow."

None (or very few) of the authors of books I read could be considered a progressive. I find many of the things being done by progressives to be very unsettling. For instance, I know of one church which has a pastor that tells his congregation that he and the conference want to move the church in a different direction. Members of the church are being kicked out by him and are now driving ~50 miles to another church. He usually has something critical to say about the way Adventists are. And when you have conference officials pushing the progressive agenda, deny churches the right to have someone from the more traditional background come to their church to speak, seems to me that Satan is getting his way. (Doug Batcheler was denied the ability to have a series of meetings in the Florida Conference and lately Stephen Bohr has been denied a speaking engagement in South Caroline. The "snowflakes" and their safe spaces!)

March 26, 2018

4 minutes ago, B/W Photodude said:

––– editing error!–––

March 26, 2018

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

Just because CF does that "divide" thing doesnt mean thats what its like. They are a non SDA entity and they only work with what we give them.

Actually, I believe the SDA forum is staffed by an Adventist who even posts here from time to time. And I believe he is involved with the Maritime Adventist online forum.

March 28, 2018

On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 9:23 AM, Gregory Matthews said:

Hobie, as I react to your recent posts:

Thank you for your openness in your recent posts. That does you very well. My overall feeling is sadness for what you have experienced. I commend you   for your attempt to remain true to what you believe to be the call of God for your life and your struggle to remain within the SDA community. I would hope that the SDA Church could continue to be a place where people like you could remain, feel welcomed and be spiritually nurtured.  May the Lord continue to be with you and to guide you in your spiritual life.

At this point, I will simply say that people with whom you disagree are as committed as are you to doing the will of God and the mission of Christ in this last day. That may be true regardless of how you understand that and notwithstanding that I do not believe that you are always correct in how you describe them.

I will suggest two important issues for the times in which we live today:

1) The SDA Church today is not reaching many people groups to the extent that God would want us to reach them. People who recognize that are attempting to discover the methods that are effective in reaching them and are consistent with God's plan for reaching them (regardless of what you might think).   God will give success to those that are godly. Others will fail.   Let us give God time to demonstrate which ones are of God and which are not.

2) We live today in a time much different from that of the time of Ellen White. In her time, it could be assumed that people had a basic knowledge of Christian faith and doctrine.   Many did not need to be converted to Christ, rather then only needed to be informed as to certain doctrinal issues. This is no longer the case today.   One can no longer assume that people have a basic knowledge. There is a place for some to teach basics and for others to expand on that foundation and teach to more detailed and less basic issues. One should not criticize those who attempt to build a foundation that needs more work by others.

Expansion:

I will give you and example of what I am talking about. Let us look at what had been called The One Project (TOP). For a number of years it held meetings   that ranged from one to three days. Those meeting focused on making Christ the center of our lives.    Those meetings did not focus on what some critics considered to be the basis of Adventism and the 3-angels of Revelation 14.  There was not time to do so in a short meeting of one to three days. Japhet, a founder of TOP certainly preached on distinctive SDA doctrines, with Christ as the center in his preaching in the Boulder SDA congregation. That is where it should have been done.

Hobie: I encourage you to work, as you believe God has called you, to build the SDA Church and to strengthen and nurture the people with whom you work to build a relationship with Christ.

I encourage you not to spend your time in criticizing others, to include those whom you do not fully understand. God will lead and sometimes I believe that we spend too much time in attempting to correct others. Let God be God and do what God will do.

NOTE: People may be allowed to post under a penname. In a few cases such may be justified. Most of the time it is not. I wish you could post under you true name. Ultimately that is a decision that you will make.

Thank you for your thoughts, but we have to stand up when we see apostasy creeping into the church, and this was the 'spiritual formation' which must be shown for what it is, and stopped. I had not gotten into this aspect of the 'Willow Creek' model in my first church so didn't know what is was when the pastor started talking of some type of training that everyone in the church must be put through. They had brought it into the church board and the new members all seemed to know about it and how it was implemented and they prepared to set up 'spiritual formation' groups and have everyone in the church join a group, and go through the education of it. I was the teacher of the main sanctuary and coordinated the other teachers so heard what was going on from feedback from members on the board and others, and they were setting up leaders for the groups and wanted me to join. But the groups were to meet on Wednesday night which conflicted with the regular prayer meeting which I went to, so I declined. Well the pressure was put on me to quit going to prayer meeting and join, and they had one of the new church board members who was a retired pastor, invite me one Sabbath afternoon for lunch, so I thought it was a social invite and went with my wife. Well it was nothing but a open try to recruit us to come to one of the 'spiritual formation' groups, as they were training the leaders, and I don't know if they wanted me as one of them, but we politely declined.

They then made a presentation right in the middle of the sermon, literally of the 'groups' and that everyone needed to join and go through the training. But it was not a resounding success in getting those in the church to join, so they continued pushing for everyone to join the groups, and came out with a ban against 'negative rumors' of 'spiritual formation' straight from the new church board. Many of the members began to find out what this 'spiritual formation' was about and it was soon seen for what it was, 'eastern mysticism' mixed in with Roman Catholic flavor of beliefs and doctrines and most members didn't want any of it. The pastor stopped his sermon and brought up the 'leaders' of each group and urged everyone to join one of the groups, the small groups and classes on Spiritual Formation/Willow Creek training program, but only a few classes actually met.

Then as it was time to vote in new department leaders, and they had trained many of leaders of these groups they now brought in the presentation before the church for the 'candidates' for leadership for the coming year, and only those who had gone through the 'spiritual formation' training were included. Well they brought it to a vote in front of the whole church, and the members discerned what was being done, and voted NO! The members stood up and told those up front at the pulpit including the pastor, pushing the 'candidates' that what they were doing was wrong and they would let the conference know what they were trying to do.

But then they tried to find a way to get by the nomination and voting process clearly laid out in the church manual and impose these 'candidates' without any nomination, without any vote by the church, and without any approval by the church board. I didn't think it was possible but they put in these new leaders, I think they said the leaders would be put in charge of the various departments by the pastor, as the leaders had been vetted by the pastor and new members at the church board, but no vote. The attendance dropped to a handful for Sabbath School, and they went into debt as offerings dwindled and this was even though the church was fully paid off. We found out they gave the 'rock band' members a stipend each month, a substantial sum even though they didn't have monies to pay for essentials in the church.

This went on for the year and the next year they could not get people to accept office as by this time their agenda to force the 'celebration church/Willow Creek' model was clearly seen, so they just 'rolled over' whoever was in office. It is a terrible mess, with a backlash as the members unquestionably clearly began to grasp what had been happening, and basically the church was left in shambles with just a few members of a once thriving church.

The new church board finally turned on the new pastor and pastor was finally asked to leave, and instead he 'retired' and left Monday morning after Sabbath and a 'interim pastor' was sent by the conference. Well the remaining members had a business meeting and they were split straight down the middle on the 'style' of church they wanted, and it appears this 'interim pastor' was brought in is still trying to continue the Spiritual Formation/Willow Creek model and he tried to bring up the idea to go on with the model by having 2 services. A morning service with no "rock/roll" and regular program for most of the members and a noon service with the 'fast paced' program and music for the 'non traditional' crowd and newbies they want to bring in according the model.

From what we last heard, it is mostly empty on Sabbath morning, and they were having Sunday morning breakfast to attract people....

March 28, 2018

Well, the tale that you tell is sad.

Unfortunately, no one can engage you in a civil discussion on the issues your raise, and I see several that I believe would be worth-while to discuss. This is due to the fact that you have chosen to state your case while writing under a pen-name. Thus no one can challenge your statement of the facts. No one can bring to light any additional information as to the facts that you have not provided. In the U.S. we live in a society where we expect that people charged with wrong doing will: 1) Be informed of the facts of the charges. 2) Be informed of the identity of those who make the charges. 3) Be given an opportunity to defend against the charges. 4) Not be considered guilty of the charges until all of the preceding has taken place and objective, unbiased consideration of the facts has been given.

In contract to this, you have asked us to consider yourself truthful and knowledgeable based upon that fact that you do not wish to identify yourself.

While who you are is not known, there is information about you that is available to anyone who does an Internet search. Yesterday I did a quick search and quickly I found two other websites where you regularly post. I have some reason to believe that you regularly post on other websites, but I have not taken the time to search for them. In any case, I find your postings on the two websites to be interesting. My view of your postings was superficial and I may need to do a more in-depth search. So any comments that I make are only tentative.
But, it looks to me as if you like to challenge the status-quo. You like to put people in their place and tell them how wrong they are. In doing so with people with whom you have not developed a positive relationship, you appear to me to have developed a lot of anger in people reading your posts. Let us face it, if someone thinks, even if they are wrong, that you have suggested that they are followers of Satan, it is unlikely that they will give you the thoughtful consideration that some of your comments may deserve.

In those forums, your are seen as a defender of Adventism. I have wondered what would happen if I were to post there and tell them that in this forum you are a critic of Adventism, at least as you believe Adventism is practiced today in many places. Well, I have not decided at this point in time to do so. But it is likely that I will do a more in-depth search in an attempt to see what additional forums are places where you post, and how you may post there. I do find you to be an interesting person.

In some ways I am reminded of some people who criticized The One Project: Attempts were made to meet with some of the major critics to discuss their objections to TOP. It turned out that some simply were not interested in such and refused to meet and talk.

March 28, 2018

As I read this thread, I see a debate on how SDA's should conduct their services. I hope this isn't off topic; but is salvation about being the right kind of Adventist, or having a right relationship with Christ?

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