Church Leadership


steven8166
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Wow, I've really enjoyed this thread. As someone who struggles to convey her opinion in ways that are more neutral and less personal/offensive, I really appreciate people who take the time to explain nicely. so thank you, everyone :)

yes, this is one of the reasons why I have struggled with so much of organized religion. it's always 'this is the right way' and the 'right way' rarely focuses on teaching you how to determine what is right for yourself, rather than following what someone else says to do.

on the other hand, how much more difficult is it to teach people to honor their own divine truth when leaders do not know how to do this for themselves? It's kind of an endless cycle... we humans are very good at repeating what we see, even though it might seem wrong, because someone else is doing it for a good reason. Reminds me of a controlled study I read about in high school that was designed to test the effectiveness of a stranger's instruction to inflict pain on others. The way they set this up was to look like the volunteer participant was helping a researcher evaluate the effect of pain on a person's ability to answer questions correctly. The volunteer participant could not see this other person, but as they read the questions and the other participant answered, they were instructed to give the unseen person a shock every time the question was answered incorrectly. A scientist in the room kept track of the record; if the volunteer ever hesitated or questioned what they were doing, the 'scientist' encouraged the volunteer to keep shocking the other participant. Phrases like 'they knew what this would entail when they signed up' or 'please continue to fulfill your obligation' were used.

What ended up happening was, as long as an instructor in the room kept instructing the volunteer to continue, most participants kept applying shock to the 'victim'. They concluded that the power of an authority figure to convince humans to keep harming humans was quite strong.

Very interesting, I think...

Who said anything about a more neutral less personal/offensive approach? If God's word says one thing, that is what I preach.

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Who said anything about a more neutral less personal/offensive approach?

Oh please...if no one has "beat me too it",

ALLOW ME to be the first one who says

We should ALL adopt a More Neutral and Less Personally Offensive approach.

The Golden Rule demands nothing less of us ! :smile3:

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here here, I agree, but it is possible to correct some one in love.

I wonder...

Would you allow a Jew or a Muslim, a Hindu or an Atheist, TO CORRECT YOU "in love" ??

The thing about "correcting others" (lovingly or otherwise)

is the implicit message that

"you are RIGHT and they are NOT".

Edited by Bro. Hex
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here here, I agree, but it is possible to correct some one in love.

Absolutely.

I wonder... would you allow a Jew or a Muslim TO CORRECT YOU "in love" ??

The thing about "correcting others" (lovingly or otherwise)

is the implicit message that

"you are RIGHT and they are NOT".

Hex, Im not understanding you. In love is in quotes, so does that mean the correcting is not really in love, or because it is a different faith.

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No RR,

doing so "in love" is "the qualifier" that Steven suggests is what "makes it okay" to correct someone else.

My quotation marks are merely pointing out that the "speaker" (the one doing the correcting) may well see

his own behavior "as something loving", but that is no guarantee that the hearer will interpret said speech as such.

(nor does it guarantee what the "true motivation" of the speaker actually is).

Edited by Bro. Hex
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I wonder...

Would you allow a Jew or a Muslim, a Hindu or an Atheist, TO CORRECT YOU "in love" ??

The thing about "correcting others" (lovingly or otherwise)

is the implicit message that

"you are RIGHT and they are NOT".

two out of four ain't bad, other two NO

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two out of four ain't bad...

Neither is it good:

"Do unto 50% of others as you would have them do unto you" :jest:

It just doesn't fulfill the spirit of Jesus' positive injunction, now does it?

Edited by Bro. Hex
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Who said anything about a more neutral less personal/offensive approach? If God's word says one thing, that is what I preach.

uh... I did? Dude have you ever had a discussion with someone who had a different opinion and made you feel like crap because he was convinced his position was right and you were stupid for being wrong? Sometimes people do this intentionally, sometimes they do it unintentionally. My comment was acknowledging that this thread was a great example of articulating their views without coming off as complete asses :P

I have seen churches where the pastor is the leader, I have seen others where the membership elects a board of directors who then selects a pastor, I have seen some churches where the pastor is selected by majority vote of the whole membership.

Some have the pastor handle all operations of the the church, others have the appointed and/or elected members handle the "business" side with the pastor focused on the religious side. Even some really small churches where there is no one "incharge". I want to say that is the same model as the Quaker church.

Yes, I've seen those, too, and I quite like how they run things. It gives everyone a chance to take on a leadership role rather than being stuck with leaders no one cares for.

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dear constantine319, I happen to be strong in my faith and have not had an occation where I felt like crap, I am sorry that you have had to go through that. If I am at fault, then plz forgive me.

I have a feeling you are missing my point entirely. My original comment was appreciation for the way participants had handled this thread - nothing more, nothing less :) you are not at fault :)

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I'm with you Steve, all that science stuff is bunk. Ever since they said that triceratops wasn't real and Pluto wasn't a planet, I've been on to their scam. I'm back to believing in elfshot and a flat earth.

You speak of science is such general disregard I would be surprised if you were not using outhouses for sanitation and pig lard for lighting. Science has done many wonderful things and whether you are ready to admit to it or not, you would be hard pressed (any of you who science as a shotgun term rather than define which science) to have to live without those things science has discovered to make your life better.

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You speak of science is such general disregard I would be surprised if you were not using outhouses for sanitation and pig lard for lighting. Science has done many wonderful things and whether you are ready to admit to it or not, you would be hard pressed (any of you who science as a shotgun term rather than define which science) to have to live without those things science has discovered to make your life better.

Personally, I believe in Practical, Hard, science like light bulbs, Cars, Space travel, and Space Colonization. It is the theoretical science that I have a problem.

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Personally, I believe in Practical, Hard, science like light bulbs, Cars, Space travel, and Space Colonization. It is the theoretical science that I have a problem.

The theoretical stuff are really the "giant leaps for mankind" that do great things like gets us to infinity and beyond'

Do you have any problems with the theoretical concept of a God and Theo(retical)logy :)

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Personally, I believe in Practical, Hard, science like light bulbs, Cars, Space travel, and Space Colonization. It is the theoretical science that I have a problem.

Just because the light bulb lights when fed appropriate electrical current does not lessen the fact that the Theory of electro magnetism remains a Theory. We can see the effects of the electro magnetism but we cannot see electricity or touch the magnetic fields. We can, with mathematics, determine the probability that it exists but that does not mean any of it exists in the manner we believe it does.

I can reach inside my self and pull the magic out from within and make my life work for me and there is no math at this time to prove that it works but it does not mean there never will be.

Edited by Brother Kaman
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The theoretical stuff are really the "giant leaps for mankind" that do great things like gets us to infinity and beyond'

Do you have any problems with the theoretical concept of a God and Theo(retical)logy :)

fawnzi, God is not a theory.

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