Comments on: A church-sponsored butt kicking?

By: Andrea

Andrea — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:31:00 +0000

Amen to that John! This is the response I think is best.

By: Sam's Dad

Sam's Dad — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:04:08 +0000

What would his response sound like if he DIDN’T forgive the guy?

By: John

John — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:10:35 +0000

Christianity’s Scoreboard…

Butt-kicking preacher: –1 point

This preacher: +2 points
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL-LU0pxBhU

By: kristin

kristin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:09:24 +0000

…than a butt-kicking would be for whoever stole the trailer.

*Sorry. Hit ‘Submit’ too soon.

By: kristin

kristin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:07:58 +0000

Wow. Hmmm…really? Get over it. Sheesh.

He doesn’t give grace and thats a much bigger problem for him.

By: Brooklynne

Brooklynne — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:05:19 +0000

Sounds to me like they have a child running the Children’s Ministry.

By: Emily

Emily — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:53:18 +0000

I had sort of the same reaction when I read Gary's post. But if you've been following him for any amount of time I think you'll find that most of his words are motivated by a shock factor. He likes to shock people. I don't agree with that...I think you can engage people without shocking them just to shock them. I'm all for cool stuff if it has a point, but just doing something for shock value ultimately ends up leaving people feeling empty. Either way I chalk it up to bad leadership. You can't just say whatever you want because you have a blog. Especially when you're a lead pastor. It's nothing personal, and it's not fair, but that's how it is. I'm in church leadership and I censor myself all of the time. We are held to a higher standard.

By: erin

erin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:40:37 +0000

I think it’s a shame that he is so angry. All that stuff being stolen would be terrible and cost a lot of money to replace, but that boy is angry. Too angry. And not at all funny, either. I also pray that the Spirit will help those 800 people who come and listen to his sermons every week to hear only the God-inspired truth that is flowing thru him, and not the angry and hate-filled language that is coming out on his blog.

By: Carl Cravens

Carl Cravens — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:35:28 +0000

Wow. I agree with Chris here... this mixture of "forgiveness" and letting his emotions and desire to do violence _run free_, and _encouraging_ his congregation to violence is just messed up. When I was with a small church, much smaller than his 1000, we had our only trailer stolen... not children's ministry supplies, but our entire sound system, drum kit, and everything. We didn't react in this way. "We" reacted by deciding that this was God's way of blessing us at the expense of the insurance company. Doing things like claiming several hundred dollars worth of drums that had belonged to an individual (not the church), buying new drums with the insurance money, and then refusing to give those drums to the individual that had owned the stolen ones, because insurance only paid for what belonged to the church. So God blessed the church by way of insurance fraud and "theft" from a member of the congregation. I say "we"... but this was one of the little events that caused me to leave that church and really soured me on "church" and "church people" for a couple of years.

By: Chris Kirk

Chris Kirk — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:35:59 +0000

I don’t have a problem with him being angry and wanting to punch him. That’s a pretty natural reaction. What is odd is the mixture with the idea of forgiveness. It’s as if you can say, “I forgive you”, then do whatever you’d like. If he had written honestly about his anger and violent fantasies as part of the process of working towards forgivness, I think that would be great. But, to try and claim his angry reaction as righteous consequence post-forgiveness is a joke and distortion of the concept.

Speaking of angry Christians, I ran across this video on youtube last week. How’s this for distortion of the Christian message?