1. Neither Tom nor I are subject to the document presented last year IF they truly removed my name from membership. At this point, because I never received any written notification that it was done, I honestly do not know. But if that is the case, and if they did, then neither Tom nor I are subject to any of the restrictions. Now it's a matter of Tom doing the RIGHT thing and engaging in II Corinthians 13:11 with me so we can restore a friendship that NEVER should have suffered from the corruption.
2. Tom and I can have restricted friendship (FB only) AND I can attend Sunday worship as per the document they threw back up. Again, I have NOTHING else in writing saying I cannot do that.
3. The church session MUST enact official church discipline. When church discipline is done correctly in accordance with scripture and the BCO, it is a VERY REDEMPTIVE process.
ANYTHING outside of these three parameters is supposed to be delivered via an action of the session and followed by official written notification.
Tom's incorrect actions have made him as corrupt as the rest of the leadership. And a corrupt leadership makes for a corrupt church. A corrupt church is NOT something God can tolerate. Look at how he handled those corrupt churches in scripture. He was NOT very kind to them or their members.
Because of Tom's actions, unless he opens his eyes and his heart and does the RIGHT thing, I have to seek justice by the world's view of how one goes about getting the justice he/she deserves.
But it is my heart' sprayer and desire to not need to resort to that.
Here's another reality:
Member or not, the BCO defines my current situation as being still under the jurisdiction of the session on which Tom sits. That means that the above scenarios are the ONLY correct scenarios that can truly exist.
Sadly, also according to the BCO, in chapter 34, the presbytery is responsible for handling complaints against ministers.
This week's agenda in effort to restore peace and purity to an already very corrupted church includes e-mailing the elder who was asked to HELP, and was in fact, the ONLY person who I OFFICIALLY asked for help from. Asking for help or intervention in a volatile situation is NOT dragging them into something. Oh, how Tom's eyes need to opened to how incorrect his perceptions have become. After knowing me well for 10 months, he should KNOW better than he has evidenced with all the lies and untruths that have surfaced lately.
It baffles me how they can be so corrupt and how he could just join in the corruption after the past ten months. And it hurts.
ALL he had to do was talk with me, talk to me, and we would NOT be where we are today.
A corrupt leadership makes a corrupt church and I have experienced the corruption and inequality of scriptural application firsthand.
Inequality? Yes. After all, the Bible is clear about church discipline and it applies to EVERYONE EQUALLY. Yet the church failed miserably.
I have made an offer and I now make it publicly so that anyone reading this can not only hold me to it, but also convict them to hold to it.
IF Tom will talk with me either before Thanksgiving or at least schedule something by Thanksgiving for immediately after Thanksgiving holidays AND reinstate me fully on Facebook, THEN I am willing to retract and remove any and all posts that I have made, regardless of the truthfulness of them, from wherever I have posted them. Furthermore, IF the church will uphold the very document that they threw back at me and allow me to attend church worship OR place me under church discipline, I will write a letter of retraction to the outside sources as well.
If not, then I will pursue justice against a select few of the men with whom I have experienced the corruption, now including Tom, in the way the world permits justice to be served.
But I make this offer because I would much rather see the REALITY of the "peace and purity of the church," something they falsely accused me of violating once because I asked for help resolving a conflict at one point and the person it was with chose to exacerbate things more just like Tom did this time.
I have identified within the leadership FIVE specific bullies who became more corrupt after I was diagnosed with autism. And we know what Jesus says about the way you treat the least of these. They have bullied Jesus as well.
I am prayerfully engaging this week though as something needs to be done to stop them from destroying the church even more than they have already.
I'm sad that such a level of corruption exists at all, especially in a church.
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