Two posts ago in ‘Oy Vey’, I linked to the former worship leader at my old church’s new blog. He’d previously told me that he was planning on bouncin’ from our collective old church and that he felt God put a burden on his heart to church plant.
Darren’s a NICE guy. He’s not being narcissitic on his blog when he describes himself as:
To know me is to love me! Just joking… sorta! I’m the consummate “people person”, and I love to laugh and make people laugh. But, above all, I’m passionate about Jesus and seeing as many people come to personally know Him as possible.
He’s the type of guy that, if you’re feeling depressed, he’ll pull you aside, take time out of his day no matter how busy his schedule, and pray with you and talk with you. He’s an encourager.
He’s also a conversationalist and he likes interaction.
So seeing his blog and seeing it open for comments, I dropped off a few regarding the previous two posts on the church supposedly existing for non-Christians. Don’t worry folk, I was nice. I simply said that I felt he was confusing ONE of the missions of the church (evangelism) with the nature and purpose of the church (to show forth the glory of Christ in the world – Titus 2:11-14).
As such, the Church doesn’t exist for non-believers, but for Christ and He willed it to be so. The local church is the vehicle by which believers are equipped, encourage one another, love one another and carry out all of the ‘one another’ commands in scripture. These commands are spoken to believers and it’s something they ‘do’ to each other.
I hardly think this is ‘catering to ourselves’, so much as it is building up others in the body so we can function correctly.
I just popped into Mosaic Land a few minutes ago to find…. comments turned off. I’m guessing he’s simply hid them and turned off the feature rather than deleted everything wholesale.
Needless to say, I’m a bit disappointed. I see (from the second post) that Darren may have gotten a few phone calls and e-mails, which is why he went into detail on clarifying what he meant.
I’m wondering….. with a blog (and a large part of the blogsphere is based off of the notion of conversation and interactivity) – do you want conversation (which involves an interaction and exchange of ideas, some of which may contradict your own) or do you simply want to broadcast your thoughts and never have them challenged ?
If everyone’s thinking the same, everyone’s not thinking.
SDG
Kerry
PS – comments are open. 
eternal [Visitor]
I agree with your assesment of the purpose of the church. It does exist for Christ, and the entire scope of His mission is embodied within it. Reconciliation exists on many different levels, not just a strict engagment of non believers into the faith. Person to person relationships and personal bondages of sin (be they physical acts, belief systems, etc) too need liberation, and find it in Christ.
So kudos on your recognition of this, and reminding those who emphasize an imbalance, unintentionaly or not. Amen!
But I do wonder about the sentiment of your post. Reason being, my (non inflamatory) comments on this site were once deleted, and then actually CHANGED by the moderator to be something else, and even slanderous. I was very dissapointed, but now I see you hearalding openess and conversation as a cornerstone of the blogosphere. Have you changed your opinion since those days?
peace.
BlackCalvinist [Member]
There’s a difference in debate for the sake of debate and discussion for the sake of truth.
eternal [Visitor]
I love the truth with my entire life. Jesus Christ is the Truth, and I am deeply saddened and motivated to be corrected any time I find myself outside of its scope.
Thanks for making that distinction for me. I shot you a PM for futher clarity so I wouldn’t have to soak up the comments section on sorting out the answer to my question. I look forward to your response homey!
peace.
BlackCalvinist [Member]
I appreciate your consideration here and respect you for that.
Take care.
Darren Plummer [Visitor]
Thanks for being “nice”, Kerry. 🙂 However, please allow me to set the record straight: I turned disable my comments for no other reason than that YOU were being your same old opinionated self… and I’m pretty new to the whole “blogging” deal. Be assured that the only negative press I received from that post was from you and my good friend Leon Greene (whom I love with my whole heart, even though we disagree on some matters). Anyway, they weren’t off for long… glad it got your attention, though.
I don’t mind you DIALOGUING on my posts… but you still haven’t learned, in my opinion, to agree to disagree. Your response didn’t seem to be inviting dialogue, but trying to simply put your point out there. Ask questions… make sure you understand what a person is saying and WHY he/she is saying it before you reply: “NOPE… you’re wrong!”
Not only that… your mug is on the comments, too! Not exactly something I want my peeps seeing from my blog site 🙂
Anyway… I haven’t even heard from you in months, and then I open up my comments section to find you were commenting. Funny…
So, I hope all is well… be cool… and DIALOGUE, instead of simply disagreeing.
DP
BlackCalvinist [Member]
Well, I’m glad to see you poppin’ in man. 🙂
Let’s dialogue a bit.
(By the way, in your control panel, you can disable pictures from showing up with folk who comment on your blog….)
Agreeing to disagree doesn’t mean a person has to have a low opinion of their opinion, Darren.
I understand why Leon would disagree with you. 🙂 It really doesn’t matter to me if 2 or 20 folk disagreed with you or gave you bad press. Mass acceptance or disagreement doesn’t equal truth. 🙂
Anyway, I simply interacted with your material. I’m sorry you simply took it as ‘NOPE… YOU’RE WRONG!’ because that wasn’t my intent. In fact, since you have comments open again, a simple read of both of my comments on your blog reveal nothing of the sort. I think you’re doing a little bit of hyperbole here, friend. Don’t make it personal when it’s not.
The point with comments in a blog is the interaction. I never post as though my views aren’t open to question. I *do* believe what I post. 🙂 So I post with conviction. There’s a difference. Perhaps you need to learn that when you put a viewpoint out there, it’s open to criticism and everyone’s not going to agree with you, either. And even with an ‘agree to disagree’, that doesn’t mean a person must back off of their ‘hard stance’ on their position. It simply means ‘I think you’re wrong, we disagree here… and that’s fine’.
You make a few other assumptions…. but those can be addressed privately. Hit me up on e-mail.