Beloved in Christ:
As the past few days’ water has run under the bridge, some points, facts, and things-to-do have come into focus, to say the least. To use the phraseology from a well-known blog, my “view from the cheap seats” garnered:
1. The keeping of promised (or at least appointed) family meetings at KingsWay is based more on the pride and whimsy of pastors and leaders (and the hedgerows they are frantically erecting around themselves) than any type of serious consideration of the needs of their flock. The lack of honor and regard for the sheep–as in all of their sheep–seems to grow to new heights on a daily basis. “Unproductive”…? I’ll let the saints at KingsWay tell me what unproductive is, thank you very much.
2. See number 1.
3. As the emails and phone calls roll in and I continue to develop relationships with so many of the Beloved-in-Christ out there, my shock and awe at ongoing, unresolved, and adverse issues and situations within the sphere of Sovereign Grace Ministries has almost been overwhelming. Almost. I have a renewed respect for Jim and Carole, and certainly a renewed respect for the suffering saints and sheep trapped in ditches, mudholes, and pits out there. I am fervently praying for you all, and by God’s strength and grace will do my best to help.
Pastors, follow-up with your sheep, and don’t leave them languishing.
I repeat: pastors, follow-up with your sheep, and don’t leave them languishing.
4. See number 1.
5. Senior pastors in SGM can now create new definitions of words, like slander. If SGM wants people to stop throwing the four-letter ”c” word around in reference to their organization, they need to sit up and pay really good attention to this statement:
On encountering a cultist then, always remember that you are dealing with a person who is familiar with Christian terminology, and who has carefully redefined it to fit the system of thought he or she now embraces. –Walter Martin (Kingdom of the Cults, 1985, p.20; Bethany House; Minneapolis, MN)
This re-definition of the English language to suit the purposes of the self-preservation moment is pathetic, and it needs it to stop.
6. See number 1, or read this.
7. Read this again.
8. This coming Friday will be a special day here on the ‘fuge. Check for 9/10/2010′s post at 7am EST, 6am CST, 5am MST, and 4am PST.
-pk
PK and PD, just wanted to say thanks so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
BTW, PD, you’ve been posting more lately and I’ve really been enjoying what you’ve had to say. PK, continuing to pray for your health.
Stunned
Me, too, PK & PD. On all of what Stunned said.
Stunned,
Thank you dear for your kind words of encouragement. Especially for the prayers for the Knight’s health. It means so much.
P.D.
Thank you Stunned and Ellie!
–pk
Dear PK and PD-
I’m a newbie here but I also want to thank you both for your moderation of this site and all your prayers, insights and wisdom.
God bless you both!
Needin hope…
Needin Hope, Ellie, and everyone,
Thanks for your kind words. We are still learning our way around the “back end” of things here. God is gracious!
P.D.
PK and PD– Just want to join in and say a hearty thankyou for all the hard work and prayer as you have taken on this whale of a task!
You are Light Bearers…… Walking in the Light…is good…..(and much safer!)
Thank you, Waters!
–pk
I like #2. That accusation is getting so old it needs a walking cane or a wheel chair. It’s not even fun to knock it down anymore. Just makes me yawn…Oh, and don’t forget the ever popular “you folks are bitter” stone. I feel that one very strongly when it is thrown at the saints who post here. I wonder if Jesus was ever accused of bitterness while telling the Pharisees about their hypocrisy? After blogging here for two years, I’ve come to respect all the wonderful saints who have taken up the cause of truth. So, I don’t like it when someone calls them bitter. It gets my tweety blood boiling…
PK, I add that I like #1 too. “Unproductive”? For whom? Now that is the question…
Regarding #1
“Unproductive” means they are unable to script, rehearse and control every single minute of it! This is why the leaders think these meetings are “unproductive.” Leaders of KW, we are all on the same side here. This is not a pitchfork rebellion, but mature believers in Christ who have followed your leading for years that want to ask you legitimate questions. Stonewalling is NOT helping your case here.
P.D.
Way to go, PK. Praying here, for you all, as you assume that treacherous spot at the tip of the arrow, as Derek Prince used to say. And praying also for all the saints in the Lord’s family.
I like the way you have distilled so much into those 9 points. Have you listened to the D.Harvey message from Sunday? Or does anyone intend to? Someday I gotta get me an ipod thingy to be able to listen away from my desk.
Canary the bitterness thing got me going on Kingsway Way. See what you think here: http://sgmrefuge.com/2010/08/1.....ment-21296
Not a pitchfork rebellion?! Dang, now I have to go find another farm implement… was really wanting to be part of a mob. Maybe some day.
Without a doubt, one of the most effective purveyors of carefully-constructed propaganda in modern times was the Communist Party of various Eastern European countries. This propaganda was the bovine fertilizer that initially supported the multi-decade growth of the Party. Eventually, the blood, sweat and tears of the people washed away the obscuring substances and revealed the rotten structure for what it was.
Some excerpts from a book entitled “Literature and Propaganda” . . . apropos of nothing but simply some interesting reading; maybe you will encounter a situation, (although not political and certainly not communist,) that brings these twisted principles to mind.
. . . As already mentioned, the propagandists’ dream was to create a new man, a fanatic worshipper of the communist ideal. Having such intentions, propaganda could not avoid walking in the steps of faith, sketching a ritual using belief-enhancing techniques, and eventually maintaining a cult of the Communist founding fathers, the protective Party and its heros. The Christian model was at hand, but only in its external appearances. Since all that our nation ever embraced from the Oriental Christian faith were the ceremony and some rudiments of doctrine babbled by half-learned, corrupt priests, this surrogate “religion” would appear familiar. However, it did provide a recognizable framework that merely changes celebrations, replaced hairy saints by bearded ones, sacred place of worship by party meeting halls, the administrative hierarchy of the unique church by the strictly hierarchical organization of the unique Party, religious canon by party rules, and so on.
The communist need for order and ritual was fulfilled through a godless religion ruled by the demon of enmity, founded not on love, but on hatred. More precisely, hatred for those who were not “with us”, who weren’t “ours”. . .
This political religion behaved as any other religion in its fundamentalist stage. It recommended ritual humiliation, penitence, bonding with the “ones below”, – with the crowd. Thus it encouraged reports about and research in, “factories and farms”, where “the paper simmers under the pencil” as poet Nichita Stanescu himself once wrote.
The zeal of the beginning, stronger than is usually believed, was then replaced by enforcement from the top for themes which those appointed to think, thought could, with endless repetition bring back something of the lost momentum.
. . . Gradually, propaganda institutions switched their concern from the strengthening of the communist ideal to the strengthening of the protective institution that is the party, at first represented, and then from a certain moment replaced by its leader.
However even at the stylistic level, an explanation may be found for the penetrating force of propagandist texts; in the work of the fundamentalist period of this political religion everything was given familiar dimensions and tone. Everything including an anathema for the rich from all over the world was cunningly translated into a language that went “straight to the heart” and satisfied the darkest human impulses. They were the impulses of men gathered around the cave fire, fearing those from outside the clan, those who weren’t “their kind”.
Stunned,
LOL, Here’s your new farm implement: calling a spade a spade.
P.D.
PD. ha ha h aha. Girl, what didn’t you come around here more often in the past? You crack me up.
Defended, well said about the bitterness issue.
Stunned, off with their heads! Oh, maybe that wasn’t very nice. Just that you reminded me of the French Revolution when you mentioned the “pitch fork rebellion”. Uh oh, now someone is going to accuse me of bitterness.
Friday is coming, Beloved.
A friend I haven’t heard from in a while (and I am resolving to change that…we need to correspond a LOT more often) sent me an email this morning with the following message:
“Folks only tolerate suffocating legalism for so long…it has its end point and, in a strange and wonderful way, God uses it to burn us good and make us flee to Christ and to Him only. K. and I appreciate Paul’s white hot jealousy for the gospel and his blistering rebuke of legalism in Galatians. Wow! He really meant what he said, and the weight of his argument as a former Pharisee just floors me.”
This makes me want to go shout God’s glory from the mountain top on my way to fleeing to our precious Christ.
Thank you, friend!
–pk