Church doctrine a.k.a. Hoops one must jump through

[pmpope68Participant]

http://www.buildingchurchleaders.com/multimedia/cartoons/15019.html

• This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  pmpope68.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  David Hayward.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  David Hayward.

[David HaywardKeymaster]

ha! good one!

[A Different MichelleParticipant]

Wow! The situation depicted in that cartoon is sadly refreshing! It’s a shame that many churches have so many rules they don’t tell you at the outset…or a year or three in, even: You just have to pick up on them. So one could have invested serious time and energy before realizing they just don’t fit in. That situation could be completely avoided if every church were as willing to teach newcomers about ALL the rules of the church.

 

That’s assuming the church(es) in questions recognizes all of its rules…

[pmpope68Participant]

Right, Michelle.  It goes well with the cartoon David posted today of a church giving a potential member a huge stack of reading to be done by the following week of the all the rules.  Sadly, most people don’t find out what gets them excluded from churches until they’ve become attached and feel like they want to be a member.  Often, churches have things written in their bylaws, doctrine, membership material, etc. that kind of is a tipoff, but you don’t know exactly how it will get acted upon.  For instance, I served a church where part of the doctrine stated that homosexuality was a sin. Well, a woman and her husband who were interested in joining went through the membership class, filled out the application and she felt she was doing the right thing by being honest when she said she could not affirm that homosexuality was a sin.  Unfortunately, the church would not accept her into membership because of her stance.  So, you see, there was a statement on the church’s stance.  There just wasn’t one saying how the church would deal with those who didn’t agree.  Needless to say, this woman was very hurt by this and I’m pretty sure stopped coming to the church altogether.

For the churches, I don’t think they always know how they will deal with certain situations.  Sure. they have doctrinal statements, but they may not get engaged often enough, if ever.  People join, they’re in agreement with what they know of the church’s stance but the doctrine is not engaged often.  Or the church so insulates itself from the world and real issues, they’re almost caught short when confronted with issues that force them to think through what they believe.  Unfortunately, their actions are not always very gracious and in the end, people get hurt.

[David HaywardKeymaster]

Stories like that abound.

[Author]

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