I've been posting a lot at SGM Refuge lately. I attended a Sovereign Grace church for a few years in the nineties with troubling results. My walk of faith darkened as I was taught how truly sinful a person I was. My sweet love for Jesus my Savior, Shepherd, and friend disintegrated as I was taught he went to the cross obediently to satisfy the intense wrath of His father, God. Wrath which I deserved. Week after week, I endured these lectures on my sinfulness until one day something unusual happened. A revival broke out in Toronto at the Airport Vineyard Christian Fellowship and it spread southward to our church in Virginia. People began to worship with abandon, to weep tears of joy, to laugh uproariously at the goodness of God. The more people were freed from bondage to legalistic sin-seeking in both their own lives and the lives of others (through accountability groups and weekly confessional meetings), the more ferociously the pastors clung to their Reformed doctrine and rabid sin-seeking. It began to be quite puritanical.
SGM Refuge is a website where those who have been wounded, lost faith in God, lost their previous true, valid perception of God, were disfellowshipped, or otherwise harmed by a SG church can meet together, receive comfort and healing and provoke repentance on the part of those who injured them. It's tough to forgive people who harm you, but you know, a happier life awaits those who do. I almost think it has to be a divine work of God to forgive certain things -- child molestation or abuse, among others. But when these things happen within the church, it's a deeper work than forgiveness. You have to also warn others not to go to a place that will not only cause them harm but is labeled a place to find shelter. There's a certain obligation to the unknowing public on the part of those of us who have knowledge about the flaws within these churches. If we know, for example, that a 15-year-old boy has molested a preschooler and is still serving as an assistant in the three-year-old class at his church, there is an obligation to protect that I believe precludes that obligation not to talk about others (gossip). These are the sorts of things I've been sorting through at Refuge. I invite your insights and comments on the subject as I'm just now getting a real grasp on what it is that compels me to continue commenting over there. I have not attended one of these churches for ten years, yet I still feel earnestly compelled to warn people. Is this okay to do when I haven't heard for myself any of these pastors for a decade?
What do you think?
6 comments:
Megan, I for one am glad you are there and posting, we need more voices like yours so others see the healing, hope and redemption the Lord has for His children..
I'm glad to "know" you online sister!
That is something you and the Lord have to work through. If you aren't attending there - yet were wounded while attending and have since found freedom and healing - then that is definitely something you have in common with folks who are just now crawling out from under condemnation.
If the Lord is leading you...do it.
If He's not - examine your motives.
Just my thoughts since I struggle with question like that of my own concerning other issues (not that particular church) in my own life.
love,
me
Thanks, guys. I guess I've been feeling a little creepy because someone asked that I pull a comment I made. It had her name in it. Also, we're starting a cottage school and I'm really busy, so sometimes I type something without giving it much thought cuz I'm pressed for time. Then I leave for the school and worry all day that I said something I shouldn't have. And sometimes I do say things I shouldn't! God will work it all out. I know my husband is tired of seeing the back of my head, tho.
I would examine the "why" everyone feels like they need to 'warn' everyone about the evils of SGM.
Ask yourself.
1. Do you believe in the sovereignty of God?
2. If so, do I believe that he will work everything for good for those whom He has called?
You see, if you feel like you need to warn people of SGM, you are feeling compelled to "give a bad report" about a group of churches that are bringing glory to God.
A child gets molested. Thats so horrid. I'm so sorry that happened. Was God asleep when it happened? Does God not care how this situation is handled? When people feel the need to gossip, slander, and "warn" others, what does this say about their view of God? It says, "God, you are not sufficient to handle this situation, you need ME to help change these circumstances." If the people on ANTI-SGM sites really wanted change, why didn't they stick around to see what God was doing and be a part of that? Honestly, the main reason people leave churches is because God's work there doesn't align with their life. And they take it out on the church, and their pastors. I say take it upward and say the hurtful things people have said about SGM, and pray those thoughts right up to God. See how He responds to gossip, slander and put downs. He's ultimately responsible for everything that happens anyway.
Wow, I didn't even see that last comment and now it's September. The logic used in your comment is what keeps child molesters roaming the streets and hanging out in our church nurseries. I have heard it all before, from a brainwashed crowd of well-meaning man-pleasers. Their hearts were in the right place, but they allowed such suffering to continue and all in the name of "not getting in God's way." Do they (you) really believe that God expects nothing from you? No action whatsoever? If, when you pray for that molested child and continue to allow the molester knowingly to serve in the preschool class, you believe you are walking in the will of God, you are sadly mistaken. Jesus commands us to care for the weak, the poor. In fact, if we don't, he says depart from Me, I never knew you. It's a pretty hefty sin issue not to take action when you see something like that.
If you'd like to discuss the matter further without gossip or slander involved, you should take this matter up with the churches in northern Virginia and Maryland where this abuse occurred. And, by the way, once C.J. Mahaney heard about it, he wept. We are not warning people because we enjoy gossiping or slandering people. We share our stories so that people will be brought to repentance for their sin and be able to walk in holiness before their God. If we did not do this, they would have to face judgment for what they are allowing to take place and we would, like it says in the book of Ezekiel, face judgment as well, for not shouting from the watchtower that trouble was in sight.
Thank you for your comment.
"You see, if you feel like you need to warn people of SGM, you are feeling compelled to "give a bad report" about a group of churches that are bringing glory to God."
This was an inaccurate statement. These churches are not necessarily bringing glory to God. That is what we are facing. When pastors are not held accountable for their words and deeds, trouble results. Many of these pastors are fresh out of the pastor's college and inexperienced in the serious matters that can occur within a church. When a wife is being abused, for example, the pastor doesn't know what to do. He can't control the husband, so he focuses on the wife's heart, her sinful attitude toward being beaten up, the fact that she obviously has some unconfessed sin or a sovereign God would not "punish" her by allowing her to be abused. My dear old friend, Sylvia Bell, suffered for thirty years, and yes, God used the circumstances to grow her faith, warm her heart toward only Him, and draw her to His arms. But don't think for a single minute that He WANTED her to be abused. His heart was broken by what her husband did, even though He who stands outside of time already knew it would happen. When we sin and do not yield our hearts wholly to Him, we step outside His sovereign plan for our lives and force God to enact plan B. Read the book of Jonah. And please, focus your attention on the whitewashed tombs within your midst rather than accusing the wounded. And what is all the crap about giving bad reports about. That is just a bunch of hooey and hogwash. If a pastor mishandles a situation, he needs, deserves, and if he's humble should DESIRE to be confronted. That's tenet number one of SGM. You can't have it both ways!
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