Just a reminder for everyone that from this point on the Sunday morning sermon will be posted at Light For Dark Times instead of here at Unholy Charade. This is in keeping with our “remodeling” of LFDT’s to make it a, well, “virtual church” of Christ Reformation Church here in Tillamook. You will find a link there which will take you to Sermon Audio where the sermon is posted both in PDF format and Audio. The Audio will not be uploaded until Sunday afternoon PDT.
As we have mentioned, we are making plans to enable us to upload a video recording of the sermon and you will already find our Sunday morning Order of Service at LFDT’s to help you participate with us.
If you consider us your church, which we invite all of you to do (if you are church homeless), please email us and let us know. That way we can keep a (private) roster of our extended fellowship. Feel free to use an alias for anonymity if you wish and no physical address or other identifiers is necessary.
susanbeagood
I will be looking for your sermons each Sunday afternoon. I resigned in November of 2016 from West Cannon Baptist church in Belmont Michigan. That was after 20 years of serving as a children’s Bible teacher and running their summer basketball camp and also developing and serving in the VIP Club for mentally impaired adults. God removed me (a la I Cor. 10:13) from my abusive husband’s grip 8 months later. The church and my entire family now shuns me as if I am dead. Oh but before I “died” they asked me to sign an agreement that I would only separate but not divorce my abuser (who enjoys all the support of an 800 member congregation of hypocrites). We’ve been married 41 years. Just wanted you to know where I’m coming from- S.
Jeff Crippen
susanbeagood- I believe you. Heard that same story over and over and over again. Abuse victim ends up put out of the church, abuser embraced by everyone because he “fought so hard to save the marriage.” Local churches try to exert authority over people that the Lord has not given them. Sure, Christ’s authority is in a biblical church. His Word is authoritative and we are commanded to put a wicked person who claims to be a Christian out from among us (1 Cor 5). But church leaders so often try to pretend they have God’s authority when they absolutely do not. That business of you being required to sign a separate but not divorce agreement is an example. Bottom line – they were duped by the abuser AND they didn’t want to “look bad” because of course, they put on the public image of “everyone is happy and holy here in our church.” Thank you for your story and for joining us.
I almost removed the name of the church from your comment out of security for you. But I decided to leave it. After all, they did this to you.
I went to their website. I notice they are very big into “biblical counseling” and connected with ACBC. That almost always means bad news for abuse victims. This kind of counseling usually just loads sin right back onto the victim.
walkinginlight
Susan, I am so sorry you had to experience something like this at your church. It is hearing of things like this that I understand more and more exactly how narrow the road to life truly is. It will be a huge blessing for us to hear weekly sermons from Pastor Crippen and know that he “gets it”. Pastor Crippen has been a huge blessing to me in helping to clear the fog away and piece together what was happening to me. Now I truly feel I will be with “like minded” believers in this wonderful online church fellowship. Many blessings to everyone here.
MARANATHA!!!!