For context, you might want to follow the link below and read "The Troubler of Israel." http://thechurchinsantamariaca.blogspot.com/2010/08/troubler-of-israel.html Although that post was written fairly recently, the events it chronicles happened over two decades ago. The reason I bring it up now is that I am in almost the exact, same situation 23 years later.
Let me detail for you what you did not read in the linked post. First, you probably need to know that what really set off the chain-of-events leading to me being told to leave, was that I had sent a written, prophetic word to that pastor telling him there was something evil lurking in the church that would ultimately cause many people harm. Some would even leave the church over it. That was the sense of the whole thing. I did not know, and so did not say, what that evil might have been. To this day, I do not know what the cause was.
After we left that church, by the pastor's count, some 250 other people left within the span of the next few months. (Another estimate I heard was the number was closer to 500.) He later told me, I was the cause of all those people leaving. I have often wished for that kind of influence, but there simply is no way any of those people left because of anything I had said or done.
To sum up the last couple paragraphs, the pastor (assigned his position by a man) gathered elders and counselors around him (people of his choosing) to stand against what God wanted to do in that church and what the Holy Spirit was trying to warn them about. They all had titles and positions. Perhaps it is the natural course of events, but to my understanding, of the seven men gathered around the table the night of our "hearing" perhaps two of them are still in that church. One left before he died. Two others moved on to other places and at least one of them does not attend church at all as of this writing. They did not heed what the Holy Spirit was trying to tell them through that prophetic word. They decided to shoot the messenger instead. To be sure they thought they had good, even scriptural, reasons for that.
When this post is published, it will be because the same thing happened, fostered by the same spirit, in a different church, with different principals. At the initial meeting with an elder and his wife, the elder called into question much of the content of this blog and asked if I would take a hiatus and re-read some of it to see if I would change anything. I promised to think about the hiatus. I knew it would not do any good for me to re-read it so I asked a small circle of trusted, spiritual friends to do that. I also posted a plea on my facebook page for anyone who wanted to read a couple of the posts and comment on them to do so.
Although the meeting was congenial and went well, aspects of my theology were called into question because that particular church teaches the questionable doctrine that the local church is God's New Testament storehouse. I had posted an article entitled, "A Newly Radical Old Challenge" which sought to begin to correct that teaching. (At the time, I had no idea I was writing against a sacredly held doctrine of that church. I was simply presenting my position.) At this writing, I have not completed that teaching although I doubt it will matter because the subject of money in the church is an emotionally charged and tenaciously-held concept regardless of which side one is on.
I was told some of the content of this blog was "disturbing" and obliquely called a "scoffer" because I did not agree with everything that church does. I guess I may have been guilty of the second one if a scoffer is one who scoffs at the manifestations of a religious spirit. I think it is good when we as Christians are "disturbed" and use that disturbance as a springboard for growth. I have never overtly or covertly, intentionally done anything to undermine that pastor or the church. In fact, several people are in that church because of my personal recommendations.
My writing style was also called into question. Let me say this about that. If you do not understand something in this blog, consider that it might be either, tongue-in-cheek, or written the way it is for rhetorical affect. (i.e., to get you to think differently than you might have otherwise.) God knew what he was doing when He called me to write this blog.
What initiated that meeting was the pastor felt betrayed by me because I posted comments to the blog, written by other people, that he considered derogatory to him and to the church. If you read that post and those comments, you are aware that neither he nor the church were identified in the post or in the comments. Once again, I post all comments, unedited, regardless of content so you can be the judge.
Perhaps the only thing left to say is that since you are reading this post, the people with position and title in that church decided they wanted to do things their own way, even when confronted with the possibility they might be wrong. They did not want me around, reminding them by my very presence, of what they were doing. For my part, I continue to live in the blessings of God and each day is a new adventure. I suppose it is about time, at age 60, that I figured that out and really gave control of my life over to the Lordship of Jesus. Can I get an "Amen" on that one?
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