A few weeks ago a pastor preached a sermon entitled “Safe Church.” With the recent church shootings in the national news, he wanted to share his thoughts about what a “safe church” should look like.
He started with explaining how this church now has a security team to guard the locked doors once the service has started. After facility security, he commented on the online Adventist Screening Verification where all church volunteers who work with Children’s Ministries must go through a background screening and training every three years.
He then went on to describe other types of security such as settings with the Church’s social media site and then spoke of emotional security. He spent quite a bit of time talking about how church members shouldn’t bully one another or talk behind someone’s back. However, it went deeper than that.
He was insinuating that anyone who spoke against the pastors or church leaders was in fact “bullying.” Many felt that this comment was aimed directly at those who guard the proceedings of the church as sacred and hold those accountable who want to deliberately “do their own thing” in church.
Ellen White states this in Christian Service:
“It is evident that all the sermons that have been preached have not developed a large class of self-denying workers. This subject is to be considered as involving the most serious results. Our future for eternity is at stake. The churches are withering up because they have failed to use their talents in diffusing light. Careful instruction should be given which will be as lessons from the Master, that all may put their light to practical use” (ChS 58.6).
I sat there listening and wondered how he had entirely missed the point. What about “spiritual” safety. How will members (many unaware) be confronted this week? Will it be:
The Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) CD loudly playing the syncopated drum beat in the background for special music?
Non-Adventist women speakers who are allowed to preach from the pulpit?
A plug for Women’s Ordination with a slide slipped in at the end of the sermon?
A drama that sets the sanctuary up as a stage for applause and not a place of reverence?
Watered-down sermons or cotton candy ones which cause “tooth decay” or in a spiritual sense “Truth decay.” These are messages that could be heard at any protestant church. Sermons which pet the sheep but don’t feed them!
Encouragement to come to Sabbath School on Thursday nights because it really is so difficult to get to church that early on a Sabbath morning?
The call to deaconesses to give communion to shut-ins with the okay that the bread and juice have already been prayed over by the pastors?
How many of us long for a sermon that delves into end time events, the sanctuary, the cross and the three angels’ messages? We need sermons that will wake us up and instruct the Laodicea remnant to put our light to practical use.
Many of us study on our own. That is our only spiritual safety. I started a women’s bible study group twelve years ago. We have study books such as the “Cross and It’s Shadow” by Stephen Haskell, “Unveiling Daniel and Revelation” by Roy Allan Anderson, “Ransom and Reunion through the Sanctuary” by W.D. Frazee, and many other great books. Our current study by Ivor Myers is called, “The Coming Oil Crisis.” What a blessing these resources have been! Some of us have even started our own independent ministries to finish the end time work.
My concern is for the flock that is being lead astray. There are people’s eternal lives at stake! The pastor is preaching peace and safety when the crisis of the ages is upon us!
Counsel from Ellen White reveals:
“The greatest help that can be given our people is to teach them to work for God, and to depend on Him, not on the ministers” (ChS 58.5).
“If each member of the church felt an interest to bless and benefit the church, he would have a keen anxiety to see it prosper. It is simple mismanagement that demoralizes our churches. It is because the members of the church do not act their part with fidelity that the cause of truth is not further advanced. Development and discipline are essential if we would see growth and prosperity in every church. There must be concerted action, and the members of the church must move together like a band of well-trained soldiers. The mind requires constant discipline in order to be trained to do acceptable work for Jesus. The mental faculties must be constantly expanded by exercise, that their highest usefulness may be developed. If church members are educated to be silent and useless members, instead of benefiting the church, they will be a hindrance to its advancement and growth. If they are educated to lean upon the minister, they will become only in-efficient and demoralized members, and the church will be powerless, instead of active and efficient” (R&H October 22, 1889).
We are soldiers in God’s army. Who is providing the development and discipline of the church members? How can their mental faculties be expanded by exercise when all they receive is infant’s milk? When will the Straight Testimony be preached again in our churches? How can this message be preached when our leaders are in direct rebellion with the GC and the World Church? Where is our hope for a “safe church?”
I saw a FaceBook post commenting on John the Baptist. If he preached today to the lukewarm church, what would be said to him as he is preaching, “Oh, Generation of Vipers! Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
The comments would be:
John, you’re a legalist!
John, you’re pushing people away from Jesus.
John, you need to show more love, love, love!
Just tell people how much God loves them.
You’re not very Christ-like, John.
John, stop judging everyone!!!
You need to build a relationship with them first.
John, you’re being a stumbling block!
I don’t want to be a squeaky wheel. I know I am a sinner in need of a Savior. But I am also willing to be a watchman on the wall.
How can I sit idle when these things are happening? I want the church to be a “safe church” where members can go each Sabbath to listen to a well-grounded, remnant preaching sermon and fellowship with fellow Adventists. Is that too much to ask?
I realize Satan is working very hard to divide the church and plant his tares in our congregations. A clear division is taking place. Ellen White writes in Early Writings, p., 270:
“I asked the meaning of the shaking I had seen, and was shown that it would be caused by the straight testimony called forth by the counsel of the True Witness to the Laodiceans. This will have its effect upon the heart of the receiver, and will lead him to exalt the standard and pour forth the straight truth. Some will not bear this straight testimony. They will rise up against it, and this is what will cause a shaking among God’s people.”
Let us be those who accept the straight testimony and settle for nothing less. Let us commit to praying for our leaders. May we never stay silent when the Truth is threatened or watered down. Then we can be a “safe church” in the arms of Jesus.
I will end with this Scripture:
“A time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:23, 24).
****
Karen M. Phillips is happily married to her husband, John, and enjoys spending time with her children and grandchildren. She is a Human Resources Manager, an ASI Mid-America Officer, and a Bible teacher. Together they support their world-wide ministry – HeReturns. She writes from Omaha, Nebraska, USA.