Merging the COG's

[ImaPK]

PastorP said

I am far from wrong when I state that if someone has left the COGOP or any other denomination for that matter, they need to leave it alone.

Let me get this straight, I don't have the right to criticize when something was wrong? I should have just been a "sheep" and not warn others? The time frame that this thread was originally covering WAS a bad time for COGOP when it came to being wrong. The proof is in the changes that have taken place in the last 20-25 years. If I leave a job where I have worked for 15-20 years and someone asks me why I left, you can bet I'm gonna tell them if it was because of the way things were run. To be honest is much more preferable then being quiet. I admire you for defending COGOP PastorP, but if COGOP today would have been the COGOP of my youth who knows where I would be today. I might have grown up to be a minister. I've never wanted an apology from COGOP. I've never wanted someone to get up in the pulpit and say that COGOP was wrong back then. All I EVER wanted was a "second chance" from some of those that "wrote me off" back then and I've yet to get even one. I don't criticize COGOP for where they are today. But I do have the right to criticize the past. Growing up in it gives me that right, the same as being a native born Californian, now living in Tennessee since 1971, the right to criticize California.

[PastorP]

PastorP said

I am far from wrong when I state that if someone has left the COGOP or any other denomination for that matter, they need to leave it alone.

Let me get this straight, I don't have the right to criticize when something was wrong? I should have just been a "sheep" and not warn others? The time frame that this thread was originally covering WAS a bad time for COGOP when it came to being wrong. The proof is in the changes that have taken place in the last 20-25 years. If I leave a job where I have worked for 15-20 years and someone asks me why I left, you can bet I'm gonna tell them if it was because of the way things were run. To be honest is much more preferable then being quiet. I admire you for defending COGOP PastorP, but if COGOP today would have been the COGOP of my youth who knows where I would be today. I might have grown up to be a minister. I've never wanted an apology from COGOP. I've never wanted someone to get up in the pulpit and say that COGOP was wrong back then. All I EVER wanted was a "second chance" from some of those that "wrote me off" back then and I've yet to get even one. I don't criticize COGOP for where they are today. But I do have the right to criticize the past. Growing up in it gives me that right, the same as being a native born Californian, now living in Tennessee since 1971, the right to criticize California.

You did not quote what I said about the right you have and that I hope we never lose that right. Here is a quote that I made: [i]"I respect anyone's "right" to post on a public forum. I hope that our right to do so is never lost, but if you leave, don't try to direct what you left for whatever reason you left.[/i] I wish you would quote all that I said and not just what you want use in a misguiding post. I still and always will feel that if you leave any place you should be gracious enough to leave it alone!

[Mike Vande]

Duplication of effort, dilution of influence, and waste of resources by the existence of numerous sects, denominations, old boy's club's, cliques, Sunday morning handshaking societies, and other such Christian assemblages have all been bemoaned for centuries.
But it's not gonna change anytime soon, if ever. Of all the groups that have an actual doctrinal basis for existing that identify themselves as Christian sects, none are willing to give up enough of their doctrinal foundations to make One United Church, possible. Everybody wants the other the guys to change THEIR views. It's all either "You guys repent and come back to the True Way and quit grieving the Holy Spirit with the deceptions you've adopted" or "You guys need to repent of these dark-age doctrines that are holding you and the Holy Spirit back,and come into the same understanding we have". Meanwhile, the unsaved world looks at us, quite correctly thinks we're all idiots, and wants nothing to do with us.

God is aware of all the fleshly attitudes, turf wars, and angry divisiveness that infest and deface the Body Of Christ like warts and tumors on the skin of a once beautiful person. I know He's sicker of all of it than me, but I may be catching up...

[ImaPK]

And that's why I like Mike Vande!!! Cut right to the chase.