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Just because he is a minister, doesn't mean that he is always correct. You are supposed to live by what is in your heart, not by what someone else tells you.
This is very personal and all very sad too . I left my church because some things were said from the pulpit that I did not agree with and I have always leaned toward the philosophy that if you dont like something that is being said then you get up and leave . I had a problem with our minister saying that he did not believe in women being ministers and a few other things . This has been a really hard decision for me and Im not sure I did the right thing and i think I need to talk to another minister . what do you all think ? do you think I should maybe talk this over with another minister ? this is a very hard thing
My wife and I are both Baptist but no longer church attenders. Back in the mid-seventies we attended a Methodist church that had for a minister a young man (with his wife) with whom we had attended college. After two years, as the Methodists at least then were in the habit of doing, he got moved. We intended to start going to a Baptist church as the minister was the real draw for us at the Methodist church.
Then we heard that our little Methodist Church had been assigned a female pastor. Right from the beginning some people said that she would cause the church to lose membership (they hadn't even met her). Her credentials were impeccable. She held a degree in law and had served as a juvenille defendant attorney in criminal court cases. Then she felt a calling into the ministry and spent three years in seminary.
But it was more than that she was a woman. She had a six year old child---and she was divorced---over attending seminary, no less.
My wife and I knew we could not leave at that time. In the course of the next several months, she received a number of snide comments--mostly from other women!! And she came to our house one evening almost in tears because someone had cut from a Bible, the passage of scripture that says "a woman shall keep silent" in the church.
We remained the year with her as pastor, the people in no uncertain terms let the divisional or regional managing pastor (whomever it was) know that they preferred someone else. So she moved on and then we left.
But of the many sermons I have heard over the years she once said something that has stuck in my mind for nearly 40 years now, and it says so much about folks who are religious, maybe even pastors, but who have no sensitivity to people, and clinch their own beliefs tightly in their fingers.
"In our prayers we try to whisper sweet nothings to God in hopes that he will not see the brutality we practice toward one another."
That morning I heard a message direct from God through the lips of a woman.
God will choose whom He will to deliver His message to all of us. Far be it from us to usurp God's authority to select the vessel for His Word.
in a do it yourself internet society anybody telling us how we should think and act is not going to go over well. the wonderful world of work, of which only 45% belong, changes all this. we are forced thru this world of employment to temper our personal opinions and accept the company's way of doing business be it ever so offensive.
Love comes from the heart. And Christ himself taught us the greatest gift we have is love.
You may believe the heart is deceitful. I never will.
Love does not come from the heart. True love comes from Christ. It is laying down one's life for another, which Christ did for everyone. God said the heart is deceitful, not me. I'll go with God.
I belong to a church denomination that believes that both men and women are equal in all things including church leadership.
You simply exercised common sense when you left a bigoted environment.
This sort of archaic and hierarchical belief system can be predominately found in Fundamentalist sects.
Those sects have been aging rapidly over the course of the past twenty years due to not being able to successfully draw new membership from younger generations.
This has resulted in church closings. There was no adaption thus extinction became reality.
Love does not come from the heart. True love comes from Christ. It is laying down one's life for another, which Christ did for everyone. God said the heart is deceitful, not me. I'll go with God.
Since you seem determined that you win this particular argument I'll let you have the last word. Consider it my way of turning the other cheek.
And since I have no desire to pull phonelady's thread (where she asked for help in making a decision - not for a scripture contest) even further off course, I'll leave you with this: Considering how determined you are to tell us that the heart is deceitful.... I'll probably not be sitting in your church. Peace.
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Women ministers
Peace.
