Bishops -- this is for you!

(click on picture to read article)

As a pastor with the United Methodist Church, I was disgusted one year at our annual conference for the church. Here is what happened...

All of the pastors from the churches within a certain area (an example would be from Dallas/Fort Worth and all of the area north of there in Texas would serve in one annual conference. While sitting with some other pastors, an issue came up regarding homosexuality and marriage between two gays. The Bishop decided we needed to have a vote on this matter.

WHAT? A VOTE?? WHY??? The Bible is extremely clear on God's view on homosexuality. He is against it! When one church in particular (an almost all gay church) got up to speak on the matter, the pastor said that they would lose a lot of money if they did not allow gay marriages. MONEY was the issue, not God's Holy Word. The Bishop did not stand boldly on God's Word found in the Bible but instead he stood on the shaky ground of money (the god of this world!) And just like the seminaries who are not properly teaching our pastors (not all seminaries -- there are some excellent ones like "Master's Seminary."), we have Bishops and other hierarchy of church denominations who are compromising God's Word. These are the same people responsible for hiring pastors to fill their pulpits. This is the same denomination that when I went through my training to become a pastor, they were teaching "inclusive" language. You know what I mean -- they were telling us that we needed to be sensitive to women so instead of saying God the Father, it should be God the Father or Mother. It isn't "He said..." it should also be "She said..." I guess you have to forget the fact that God revealed Himself in a male identity, we just have to cave into what ever any special interest groups charge at us.

I left the Methodist Church more because of the hierarchy of the church than anything else. The actual church members are not even aware of a lot of these decisions being made by the leaders. I love the church members but as a Pastor, I cannot and will not cave into temptation to change Gods identity and I will not allow a gay marriage in any church of mine! I do believe that they ultimately voted against the gay marriage. Fine! The problem is that they "actually" voted on it!

My previous post dealt with Seminaries. This one deals with Bishops and leaders. Tomorrow's post will look at Pastor's. Followed by Board Members and Elders. Be sure to check back as I am sure to hit every group of Christians and non christians. I will continue to give small excerpts from my book, "Locked Doors of the American Church."