{"id":297,"date":"2005-03-31T22:28:56","date_gmt":"2005-03-31T22:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/03\/two_things_that.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:46:51","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:46:51","slug":"two_things_that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/03\/two_things_that.shtml","title":{"rendered":"Two Things That Make Me Sad"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been reading a string of items on two subjects lately that have saddened me.
\nThe first is a series of posts by Kristen at Walking Circumspectly<\/a> (Three of them: here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.). I only know her from her blog and I only found my way there from one of my readers. Kristen’s been writing about her experiences in the ICOC in college back in the early 90’s. She was a part of the Atlanta ICOC church <\/a>for around a month. She calls the ICOC a cult, and frankly I don’t blame her (though I don’t agree). In the month she was a part of the campus ministry there, she was exposed to the worst of the ICOC of those days. The performance mindset, judgementalism, high evangelism expectations, warnings about spending any time with, or even contact, her family and more. I can remember the warnings about my family when I was in campus, and they were in fact scary and intimidating. I too had strong a strong family which saved our relationship (in ways I would only learn of in the past couple of years.)
\nHer story saddens me for a couple of reasons. First, of course, is the sadness that anyone should come to a church looking for God and be told that to find Him means to abandon the most important folks in your life. All too many over the years have found elitism, arrogance and high expectations instead of grace and forgiveness. To be told that the ICOC was the only church and everyone else was not. She says that the month long experience over 10 years ago still impacts her today.
\nThe other thing that saddens me about it is how one sided it is. I don’t fault Kristen for that, it’s what she knows. After she left, as was common, those who she had thought were her friends didn’t want to talk to her anymore. She was a ‘fall away’, a casualty of the war to save souls. She had made her choice and they had more souls to find. That’s the result of the lopsided, evangelism focused ministry the ICOC practiced. (I am not saying that evangelism isn’t important, just that it is not the most important thing.) She still wanted to know what the ICOC was and to learn more. With no one from the ICOC talking to her to keep her informed, she got her news on the ICOC from anti-ICOC organizations like Reveal<\/a>. (Frankly, I am speculating here a bit, making assumptions from her posts. Kristen, if you’re reading, please correct me if I’m wrong.)
\nIn contrast, my 17 year experience with the ICOC has been overwhelmingly positive. I have seen much of the things she talks about in her posts, even (shamefully) participated in some. But they did not have the negative impact on me they did on her. Over the years I was able to have an amazing and pure dating life in college (how many guys have a date nearly every week with a variety of wonderful women?), to meet the woman of my dreams, court her and marry her, to have relationships that would help me to become the husband I wanted to be, to help my marriage shine, to help me learn to not stop questioning things, to take sin seriously and seriously pursue repentance and more. My point is not to say, “See Kristen, you’ve got it all wrong.” Rather, I’m saying that my perspective without hers or hers without mine is an incomplete picture of the ICOC. We’ve had our faults and we’ve had our successes. We should look at both.
\nThe second thing that has saddened me lately is both unrelated and completely related. Pinakidion<\/a> has been writing about the teachings coming from the Portland ICOC church<\/a>. Portland is where Kip McKean, the former leader of the ICOC, is currently leading. Pinakidion has been chronicling some of the things said and comparing them to things said years ago (Have a read: here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.) The talk out of the NW (and there’s been a lot) sounds familiar. There’s lots of talk about how many great things they’re doing<\/em> there in Portland, how folks have been coming from miles around to see how they’re doing it, how they’ve heard the other churches aren’t discipling anymore and have forgotten the mission to evangelize and grow and there’s even been talk of how they’re targeting cities where churches have abandoned discipling and evangelism. Pinakidion points out, and I agree, that it sounds a lot like 1979 all over again.
\nIt makes me sad because I thought, hoped, that we had learned something in the past couple of years of re-evaluating and reconsidering our practices. Perhaps not. Now certainly, Portland does not speak for the whole of the ICOC, but not many are speaking against what is being taught there. I may disagree with Mr. McKean’s teachings and priorities in his message, but I will give him credit for knowing what he believes and speaking passionately about it. He’s an amazing man, with amazing passion and charisma. Where are the charismatic, passionate and outspoken men to make a difference teaching the radical grace and love that Jesus taught rather than works, performance and growth?
\nIt’s sad to see so many papers and apologies written, so many relationships strained or broken, so many churches split and so much hurting over the last couple of years to perhaps end up, collectively, right back where we were. If we do, it will not be because that’s where we decided to go, but instead because we didn’t really decide to go anywhere else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been reading a string of items on two subjects lately that have saddened me. The first is a series of posts by Kristen at Walking Circumspectly (Three of them:Read More Two Things That Make Me Sad<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nTwo Things That Make Me Sad - salguod.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/03\/two_things_that.shtml\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Things That Make Me Sad - salguod.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’ve been reading a string of items on two subjects lately that have saddened me. 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Every now and then a new blog pops up and as I check them out, I add them to my list. It's time to do that again, and I have a bunch.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Salguod.net stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Salguod.net stuff","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/salguod-net-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":225,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/11\/new_linkage.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":297,"position":1},"title":"New linkage","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"November 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I've added a couple of new links to the right side menu. I've come to treat this as my 'favorites' in my daily walk through the web. These are the sites I visit every day or nearly so. So when I start to check a site frequently, it's time to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Salguod.net stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Salguod.net stuff","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/salguod-net-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":491,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/05\/time_to_grow_up.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":297,"position":2},"title":"Time to Grow Up","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"May 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I came across this at Mike Cope's blog the other day:I've mentioned before the three views one can have of parents: a child's view (my parents are perfect and have no faults); an adolescent's view (my parents are embarrassing imbeciles); and a mature adult's view (my parents have strengths and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":353,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/07\/what_a_tangled.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":297,"position":3},"title":"What a Tangled Web We Weave","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"July 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Virusdoc's blog is one of the reasons I'm blogging. I 'met' Virusdoc at Odyclub. Through Virusdoc I met Soup. Soup is a friend of Virusdoc's. They're both linked at left. Kelcy is an ICOC member. Kelcy runs ICOCinfo, a site with regular news tidbits from ICOC churches. I don't remember\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Goofiness"","block_context":{"text":"Goofiness","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/goofiness"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":391,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/10\/disconnect.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":297,"position":4},"title":"Disconnect","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"October 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's pretend a minute, OK? Pretend that you are the leader of a moderate sized church. Pretend that you are well known in your fellowship of churches. In fact you were once the leader of said fellowship and are largely credited with being its founder. 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