Deciding to Follow God Is Scary

I have resolutely decided that because I do believe that the leaders have acted unbiblically, that I have two choices:

1. If I continue to comply with them, I will be in direct disobedience to God and that is not good;

or

2. if I follow what God wants, I will be in disobedience to the leaders.

But I have been taught that if the rule of man conflicts with the rule of God that I am ALWAYS supposed to follow the rule of God.

So, in light of what I have been taught, and in light of the fact that continued disobedience to God could mean that God will punish me and His punishment is much worse than any punishment from men, I have decided that I can no longer comply with the leaders as continuing to do so means direct disobedience to God.

This is scary as heck for me because either way I am in defiance of somebody, but I fear God more than I do the leaders and thus I must do what I know God wants even if it means disobeying the leaders.

No Longer to Protect Identities

Bob Flayhart instigated a conflict when he chose to break an agreement with me that I had diligently adhered to. He did it without warning. So I basically called him a grace killer because of it. But I reasonably expected him as a pastor to keep his word so when he broke his end of the agreement that we had made.

Mark Hunter deferred to a counselor as he was resigning then everything got thrown to Tom Patton.

Tom as it turns out has been deliberately blocking any attempt at moving forward toward restoration and resolution. He has been all along.

I tried repeatedly to get things resolved to no avail as BOTH Bob and I made numerous mistakes along the way.

But things escalated in March when Bob decided to do the very thing he swore never to do when we had initially made the agreement.

What was the agreement? It was that I was never to ask why or if he hated me on his wall. I never did. He said that was the ONLY thing that would lead to what he did in March.

I did not know because they never teach new people what to do when a pastor causes the conflict and a member has a grievance against the pastor, so I contacted the presbytery. AFTER Bob sent a text one evening saying if I texted him again that evening that he would have me removed from my activities. Well, I did not text him again but he sent me a text the next morning saying he was doing it anyway.

The next day he sent an e-mail saying that it was because I had tried to seek advisement from an elder. Which according to presbytery was what I was supposed to be doing.

So I wrote a letter after getting advisement with regard to two activities. Sunday school and LIFE group. To paraphrase what I was told: if it is an activity that is open to everyone including non-members then I was permitted to attend them unless I was under biblical discipline.

Instead of resolving anything, the counselor actually mucked things up when she ended up stipulating that in order to see her that Tom and I would have to be in regular communication.

Tom mucked things up when the first activity we agreed to for the summer was whatever was left with VBS. I got that cleared, but then Tom insisted he had to call and make sure but then had to wait to hear back. But then Tom removed from doing anything at all. Because of miscommunication and misunderstanding.

The commission that got appointed crossed some lines as well. I asked for help getting back in activities not with relational matters, but they apparently made some decision regarding that that they never informed me of and then used against me. Instead of clarifying a new communication agreement the counselor made with me and Bob which was not clarified until the next month despite repeated attempts at getting it clarified and only broken for two emergent situations during Tom's absence for a couple of weeks, I did adhere to the clarified terms.

The commission has not been adequate in terms of action. And frankly last time proceeded to destroy every relationship I have at church instead of moving anything toward restoration and resolution.

To make matters worse, they retroactively created an issue out of LIFE group and have essentially done what amounts to excommunication without process.

The biblical process of Matthew 18 stipulates that in terms of conflict, the "offended party," which in this case is Bob (actually me, but he refused to listen, so some others tried to approach him on my behalf), is to go to the person who offended him. Well, Bob, in fact, has failed to do this.

Because LIFE groups are described as the life blood of the church, even non-members can attend them and is where my friends are, all my relationships were in essence destroyed and I, in fact, have been excommunicated without process.

In the past couple of weeks, I did seek forgiveness from Bob who optimistically stated that it might be possible that things can be restored by the end of the year except that since I spoke to both him and Greg Poole last Sunday, they both understood that the first step on rebuilding trust on both sides was LIFE group.

Tom said he cares, yet in conversation, he opposed Bob and Greg and again deliberately blocked any attempt to move toward restoration and resolution.

I know I DESERVE to be brought under discipline YET they, despite continually saying if I don't comply with various demands they have made, I will be subject to church discipline. I do know in my heart that going through the process will in fact have better chance of bringing about restoration and resolution. So I have this challenge: Do it. Bob has to initiate by biblical definition. But clearly, it would be more gracious to start it then to not do it.

And that is my challenge.

In the meantime, I will write to Georgia and seek intervention since the local leadership has not done anything and has now repeatedly refused to even hear my case now.

Oh, and, well, what am I supposed to do? They keep saying I need to maturely state my case but when I do, Tom instigates an argument with me and they refuse to hear me.

Frankly, I am tired of this conflict and Bob made a promise he has yet to be able to keep but will keep when things get resolved and settled, but in the meantime, I am now forced into a position where I can no longer comply.

So, I'm challenging them now. Please if you want to demonstrate grace to me, to the church, please bring under the process.

When a Church Goes Wrong

What do you call cutting a member off from community, fellowship, and the very thing they call the life blood of the church? What do you call it when they retroactively create an issue that never should have been an issue and in defiance of prior advisement from higher authority forbid a member from doing something that even NON-members are allowed to do? Merriam-Webster calls it excommunication. But what do you do when a church that teaches that they follow a biblical process of church discipline essentially excommunicates a person without following the process? You fight back. Well, now I have to write to Atlanta.

The thing that hurts the most is that they say it's about rebuilding trust and we started to move forward again, but they threw me this hurdle.

And now I hurt for him more than I do for me because when we talked Sunday, he was optimistic that things could be worked out and restored before the end of the year. Yet how can they be when there's GIANT obstacle?

Because of this, I am faced with having to quit church altogether. After all, there's no more reason for me to stay where I am being treated as less than a non-member.

So it is with heavy heart that I write this post. Heavy because I may have lost one of the most valuable friendships I could have because of hurt that he started and my reactiveness did not help.

I have made my apologies and asked forgiveness, but it is the inaction and the wrongful actions on the part of the leadership that have destroyed everything. I'm sorry.

Letter to Gomer in Hosea

Dear Gomer,

You know something? I get it. I really do. Probably more than most people.

Gomer, who hurt you? Who abused you or molested you? Who promised to never abandon you but still did? Was it your father? Was it a friend? It doesn't really matter who though.

I know you're hurting. I know you're desperate. I feel your pain. Because you and I are a lot alike. Well, except for the prostitute lifestyle you chose.

You see, Gomer, I have been hurt. I have been abused. I don't know for certain, but I may have molested. I have been abandoned. Several times. My "father." Friends.

I feel pretty helpless. Hopeless. Frustrated. Scared. Desperate.

Gomer, I started cutting because of it. Like you, I don't know what else to do. But unlike you, I don't think prostitution is the answer.

Gomer, I have been hearing about a God who supposedly loves those He chooses. And I have been hearing that this God also pursues those He loves and chooses. Like Hosea does with you.

Gomer, I say supposedly because I don't really know because I don't have that God in my life. You see, I have been hurt and abused and abandoned by those who say they love me and promise not to abandon me that I am skeptical about this God I have heard about.

But I am curious about that God. Because what I have is no different than the people who did all those things. And what I have heard says that what I have is not God.

But I want to know more about this God. Because I can see that this God is pursuing me like Hosea pursued you. And I need that God.

Gomer, maybe we should both stop trying so hard to run away. Maybe we should both stop running and let ourselves be caught by these pursuers.

I know it's scary, but maybe we need to do that.

Of course, it might help if some of the people in our lives could help us out a little bit and take our hands and help us with it. Sometimes we can't do it on our own because we have been wounded so much that we are literally paralyzed with fear. So if someone came along to take our hands and to go with us, maybe we can at least meet our pursuers in the middle.

Do you have someone who can do that? Or like me, do you need and want someone who can and will do that?

Anyway, Gomer, I just wanted to write you this letter to help you know that you are not alone. And even though I know that you will never reply to this letter because you lived a very long time ago, I wanted you to know that I get it. That I understand.

Sincerely,

SE Spann

Even Churches and Church Leaders Make Mistakes

Well, duh, even churches and church leaders make mistakes. They are flawed human beings with all the bad qualities from the fall intertwined with the good qualities. It's what they do after making the mistakes that is important. There are two sides to every conflict that will arise as a result of a church being made up of flawed people, but the solution is not to sweep things under a rug and pretend they are not there. A writer writes what they know, what they experience, and that is what I do. How people choose to interpret things is out of my control. But I have never once NOT admitted my role. However, I am tired of the fact that I am not the only one at fault yet I am the only one being punished. And I look up the meaning of excommunication and essentially, the church has ALREADY done exactly that WITHOUT having exercised the biblical process of church discipline FIRST with the FIRST step being the original "offended party" directly going to his/her brother/sister. So my decision was to escalate the matter up. And ask for an appointed mediator because in all honest, this problem CAN be settled through mediation and be settled nicely and fairly if a proper mediator handles it. In truth, I have tried for months to get them to follow through with what they teach people that they practice, and they have not done so yet. And now, there have been a few false accusations on their part with regard to me and a threat. But the worst is that they have already violated the process.

And I have to say, that in the midst of this, something lifechanging is happening. This past Sunday, as the God of Hosea was described as being a God who pursues those He chooses and loves those who He chooses, I heard for the FIRST time EVER loudly and clearly that there is a God who cares. And He has been pursuing me. Hard. In the strangest of ways. And I want THAT God. I NEED THAT God. I don't have THAT God. I need help getting to THAT God.

At this juncture the church is either going to make another mistake that could cause a pretty serious loss of the potential to bring someone to the God I heard about Sunday and push that person FURTHER AWAY FROM that God or they could slow down considering the recent revelation has occurred and lead someone CLOSER TO that God described Sunday.

But being the nature that flawed human beings are, yes, even churches and church leaders make mistakes. It's how they handle those mistakes that can make or break things.

As to my own mistakes, I have apologized and will apologize even now thus making my apology as public as whoever reads this post. I am asking forgiveness of those who are directly involved and those who have been vicariously (not sure if that's the right word) involved. I ask forgiveness of those who have put their neck on the line in their effort to help me resolve the conflict that he caused. I ask forgiveness of those who have stood behind me, with me, and beside me and have not given up on me and have been my rocks, encouragers, and Switzerlands. This should never have been allowed to escalate to this point, but this is a matter of leaders make mistakes too. And, it is the duty of any human being when they see a potentially devastating mistake occurring with a leader to point that out. My method may not be the best, but it is the only one I have since they refuse to hear me out or to acknowledge me. And for that, I apologize only for my chosen method of airing things out with regard to my grievances about these mistakes. I have asked for the time and the opportunity to be able to air them in a more appropriate manner and they have repeatedly refused. So here it is, hopefully for the last time because hopefully they have finally gotten their wake up call. I know I have, and that was the fact that I NEED the God that was described Sunday because THAT is the God that has been pursuing me.

Mr. Popper's Penguins on Redemption

Mr. Popper's Penguins is a delightful family film about a businessman whose father has been away in Antarctica for most of his life. He is separated from his wife and has weekend custody of his two children, a precocious boy and a pubescent daughter who has her own share of drama. It is as he is in the middle of trying to make an acquisition for his company on an old restaurant that he learns that his father passed away and ends up inheriting a penguin which due to a language gap ends up quickly turning into him acquiring six penguins!

His children end up coming over for a birthday celebration with him and his son falls in love with the penguins. As time passes, Mr. Popper becomes attached to the penguins and they to him. Named after characteristics they show, they become like part of the family for him, his wife and his children. He even goes so far as to allow some of the snow into his apartment so they can have a cold environment in which to live. The problem with his attachment becomes evident when three of the penguins lay eggs and after a few more weeks, all but one of the eggs hatches. He then does everything he can to try to get that egg to hatch.

He is in such despair over the egg situation he calls the zoo guard who insists on taking the penguins. What Mr. Popper does not realize is that the zoo guard did not intend to keep the penguins but to ship them off to another zoo. So he and his family ensue on an adventure to rescue the penguins from the zoo. They realize as they are about to leave that one penguin is missing and then see him on the roof. The penguin has been trying to fly and has his one moment of flight due in part to the kite that got stuck to him as they were escaping through the gift shop.

At the end, the whole family takes the penguins and their two babies back to Antarctica where one of the penguins ends up laying a new egg. They vow to make frequent return visits to see the penguins.

This film is rated PG and is one that is sure to be enjoyable to young and old.

Knowing Your Time Is Up in a World That Often Lacks Grace

First of all, I am going to be very open and honest in this post because it may be one of my last across all of my blogs. And second, I no longer can care what anyone thinks of me or anyone else because of this post because not like it really matters in the grand scheme of things anyway.

I will apologize to the person who initiated what has turned into the biggest and longest conflict ever. But only for what I said out of retaliation for what he did. But to be honest, the reason why what he did hurt so much is because it honestly does feel like that he did not consider what all he and I had been through for the vast majority of a year to get to the good point where we were before he just up and decided that he was going to arbitrarily break his end of an agreement that he and I had made that only had term to it at the time we had made it - I was not to ask him why he hated me on his Facebook page. And I didn't. I never would and I never did. But he still chose to act adversely against me without warning and cut me off.

When we finally started to discuss anything, he admitted that he was wrong to do things the way he did and that he should have talked with me first. Yet he didn't.

The road to trying to come up with reasonable boundaries that are needed was a long one and filled with many mistakes on both sides. But then he did the worst thing he ever could have done. I have been wrestling over a decision I really don't want to have to make, one that I need to make sure is not based on me trying to just run away from a conflict, but could hurt everyone I know - friends and others. Me, even. We had gotten in a bit of an argument in text messages and then he said if I sent another that he was going to talk to the staff and have me pulled from my volunteer positions at church. That's exactly what he had said. So no further text messages went out. The next morning he texted me and said he was going to talk to them anyway. That's when he arbitrarily changed the terms again and extended them as not only being him but others. It wasn't until the day after he did it that he ended up sending me a message and basically told me I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone about anything except for him and that reinstatement in the activities would be contingent on several terms - which I have in fact actually met.

But I asked for help - for intervention- in order to get back in the activities. And instead of that, I got a boot. Literally. Apparently some of the leaders decided to cut off communication altogether and didn't tell me about this decision. And all over the fact that I had tried to clear up a murky point from a meeting that he and I and one other had with the counselor that was supposed to be working on helping me get reinstated and helping to resolve the conflict.

He said some things and made some promises in that meeting. 1. He promised when the time was right and I started showing some restraint that he would restore Facebook privileges. 2. He said that he felt like for whatever the reason God put me in his life as one of the people he was to be a pastor to outside of the leaders and his family. Knowing him, he doesn't ever make promises and assertions that he doesn't mean and doesn't intend to keep.

I finally got the murky point cleared and then we gave it a shot and even though I did show a lot of restraint during the weeks that followed getting it clarified though not perfectly, some of the leaders used the prior decision that I was not made aware of to start with against me. And now not only have they destroyed the one relationship that was already hurting, but they have destroyed all of my other relationships there.

I was told to trust them. I did. I trusted them to help get me reinstated into activities, not destroy every relationship I even have. They have now jeopardized the only church I have encountered that refuses to stigmatize past victims of abuse. Or well, used to refuse. I'm not sure that's true anymore in light of what they have done.

Here's the deal though. I don't know that I really have a relationship with God. I've been wrestling with that for a while now. They throw at me about the peace and purity of the church. I didn't understand that until now but not only is slander and gossip something that can hurt that, but so is what they did. You see, they began to go down a slippery slope of entering into church discipline over the situation, but it's one that jeopardizes the whole church because they skipped two important steps in doing so and as a result have acted unbiblically. Utilizing EVERYTHING that I have been taught, in order to engage in the disciplinary process biblically, the offended party MUST go to his brother/sister individually. If at that point, things get resolved, yay! No need to proceed any further. If not, then that offended party takes another. Repeat. If things don't get resolved at that point, THEN it goes to the whole or can go to the whole. But here's the thing: Step one has NOT, in fact, occurred.

This is why I said the world often lacks grace. Because when you have a process to protect an organization you have to follow it to the letter. One step out of that process is where grace falls apart. And the thing is, there are NO exceptions to this rule. It applies to EVERYONE EQUALLY EVERY TIME. So, now I am at a critical juncture of having to write a letter that I don't want to have to write and in that letter having to acknowledge that the original "offended party" basically brought this on himself when he basically dared me to do exactly this.

You see, based on EVERYTHING that I have been taught about grace, grace would have considered the progress made and maybe tried to pare down the communications but not cut them off altogether. And grace would NEVER destroy EVERY relationship a person has. But because of their actions, I was put in a place of disobedience to God since God also requires that His people use their gifts to serve their local body and that can't happen when some of the leaders act unbiblically and head down a slippery path into a disciplinary process that has skipped steps in the process that is outlined for them to help protect the organization.

I will not apologize for sharing my perspective so openly and honestly. This is my perspective.

And before anyone goes "oh! such slander!," I do know what slander is. And in the effort to prevent that, I do have this blog open to the person or persons who this relates to for them to post their side if they so choose. This is just my side, one side, and even though some of the most sensitive details have been left out, including names of people and places so random people cannot know or deduce what this is actually about, it is still my side, and I do have the right and the obligation to share it, no matter the cost.

I, like everyone else, am tired of the facades we too often put on and the pretending that everything is fine when it really isn't.

If the person or persons who this relates to wish(es) to do so, they may counter with their side in a comment or a post.

As to the part of my title that says knowing your time is up. Well, the reason I said this may be one of my last posts across all blogs is because my immune deficiency is rapidly catching up to me faster than we would like. I have been sick basically the entire time since the tornadoes of April 27 disrupted the environment and I don't know that I will see my birthday in November. The next appointment with the immunologist isn't until October. At which point we will be discussing the efficacy of IVIG infusions to help boost the immune function that I am severely lacking. Those infusions may be what can safe my life. But in the meantime, I don't know how much life I have left. It's not looking very positive though. So I have to transition into being ready for the end of life stage. And for that, I do need a pastor. Only apparently I don't have one because of the unbiblical actions of some of the leaders which have now jeopardized an entire church. Ugh!