I’m watching the New Life Church service in which Pastor Ted Haggard was dismissed from his church. This is going to take awhile to process.
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I’m watching the New Life Church service in which Pastor Ted Haggard was dismissed from his church. This is going to take awhile to process.
i\'m a fan of postcards 
I am still reading articles about the impact of Ted Haggard’s admission of sexual immorality, and had to make a few comments about it. So, rather than make this one long post, I will address it in segments. In this segment, I want to address the issue of the members. Yahoo! has an article out right now that asks what happens to the members of the fellowship once a pastor falls from grace? Well, if the members are following man rather than God, they will leave. My concern is whether the members of any congregation understand that they do not go to church, they are the church. Unfortunately, we have divided ourselves into so many different groups that we have forgotten that there is only one church, and Christ Jesus is the head of that church. Since Jesus built the church, God can set us as members wherever He feels that we will be best fitted. Yet so many of us decide that we will attend a fellowship because we like the music, the pastor, or any other reason besides submitting to God and being set in a fellowship that He feels is best for us. This is why the true church struggles. We have thousands of people attending megachurches that do not even belong there, so God’s will cannot be accomplished because people are not in their right place. We must understand that as one body, we have created this situation. How do we begin to correct it? Go to the Lord, and find out where He desires for us to be set, and begin carrying out our assignment at that fellowship.
Greetings from the land of Omo, James.
I would like to comment on the comment. Ron said “We have thousands of people attending megachurches that do not even belong there, so God’s will cannot be accomplished because people are not in their right place” and “find out where He desires for us to be set”. This seems to indicate to me that Ron believes in something I used to, that is, this individualized will of God that He wants us to know but is keeping hidden. My question for you as you consider what he has posted is, “How would I be able to determine what my ‘right place’ and ‘where He desires for us to be set’ is?” I don’t think you’re going to find that type of individualized instruction in the Bible. I also don’t think that you’ll find, after careful study, that the Bible teaches we need to search for this “hidden plan”, primarily because the Bible doesn’t teach that it exists. Check out a book called “Decision Making and the Will of God” by Gary Friesen, check STR, or email me for some other resources I found helpful.
Grace and peace.
PS: I fear I haven’t done this topic justice but I’ve got to put the water filter back together before the day begins. Oh, they’re apparently load shedding water for a few days? weeks?
[…] Since my worthless post on Ted Haggard was so popular, it’s time to at least briefly summarize what I have been thinking about the situation. […]