But today, when I say I am part of the emerging church, this is what I mean:
There are too many church leaders who lack the integrity to be honest and to practice the very ideals and values they espouse. They suffer from a "me first" attitude of superiority and pride and... well, the rest I'll just leave out.
NOTE: The above paragraph was edited because I was wrong to write some of what I did without first talking to the people I had the problem with. I apologize for not living up to my own expectations of others. Anyway...
That’s the kind of CRAP that I want to emerge from! You know, if you can’t trust church leaders to be genuine then who the heck can you trust? And I don’t want to not trust church leaders. I want church leaders to be t-r-u-s-t-w-o-r-t-h-y!!! IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH HAVING A LITTLE INTEGRITY; WITH BEING HONEST; WITH NOT LYING OR BEING DECEITUFUL?!? It’s stuff like this that makes me not like the church. And it’s stuff like this that drives me to want to emerge and make it different.
11 comments:
At the bottom of the receipt is printed:
Your Bald-Faced Lies have saved you $37.50!
And I thought I was the only one to loose my temper at those guys? Way to go Dan! I with ya!
Sounds like it gave you a headache. Sorry.
It's too bad that you ran into this,and not to minimize your anger and frustration, those feelings are entirely valid - but I think all people are well-meaning at the core.
I mean, I sometimes shop at Wal-mart. In that case, my being frugal (needing to provide for my family in the most effective way possible) prevails over my moral conscience (low wages, overseas sweatshops). Maybe that's evil of me.
Or I think maybe this is what "emerging" is all about, in the end...emerging out of the mentality that "whatever suits me is OK, I'm a Christian, I'm 4givn". Or "My needs are more important than anyone else's". To sum it up, changing selfish to selfless. But we aren't naturally good at it as humans and we mess up, it takes practice.
It seems like these people just made a mistake. The thoughts might have been that if the price is lower, more people can attend? Maybe it was taking advantage of the system, but maybe it was just well-meaning frugality.
But I really know nothing about it other than what you said here, so if I'm out of line, just delete me.
Whenever I make a really good point that Dan can't refute, he just hauls off and deletes it. That's why he seemingly wins all the arguments on here, with the oppression of his censorship.
So anyway, I'm SURE he's going to delete your message, and mine, then he'll work up a "1984" on everything we've touched until nobody remembers we were even here. Because that's the kind of no-nonsense guy he is.
[the above is absurdity taken to the next level]
I was just getting ready to delete all the comments on this post... when Mike added the one previous to this. Darn. Someone has figured me out.
Seriously though... I can appreciate Lily's sentiments - I think most people do mean well. But this is not a one-time thing (Rick knows), and it's the "attitude" that really gets me. The thinking that "the rules are only for everybody else, but not me." Or the whole "us against them" attitude that some church leaders have. They may 'mean well', but I don't want to get tangled up in that web. I want to emerge from it.
And I don't mean to sound like I never make mistakes either. I guess I just have a thing about deceitfulness.
Now I'm off to walmart to pick up a new copy of 1984. :)
I can appreciate how you feel. Especially about church leaders. I was just offering the benefit of the doubt.
Now you're not going to use one of those MIB flashy thingys on me,are you?
What, you mean you can still remember this discussion?? My memory zapper must be on the fritz. Drats.
Hey Dan, could you burn me a copy of your Hendrix CD?
Tom,
How 'bout if I just download the library on my computer for you? :)
I would hate to be a musician trying to earn a living.
Not knowing the context (I read it after you deleted the main section of your post) makes this a very strange conversation to read. :)
Mike C.,
Yeah... it was bad from the beginning. Though I'm sure you would know exactly what I'm talking about.
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