:lol

I love what steadfast had to say. H

Shhh!!! I am hoping with so many new visitors lurking and viewing these threads I can motivate some to actually sign up and post out of vitriolic anger at my posts.:toofunny

LOL....okay, just trying to keep things simple.

He sounds like a good shepherd. It's like when you're a parent and try to teach your children right and protect them.

I was raised in a very conservative church and I loved it! Our church was powerful. It's sad to see churches that have begun to head left.

There is one in the district I was raised in that recently built a 15 million dollar complex and then started losing people. So the pastor did what he felt he had to and had meetings with his leadership and said....you can start going to the movies now. sad.

They feel financial pressure and cave thinking that will bring more people.

Mother says she has the book by MB somewhere, called "Shadow of the Bramble."

Great book.

I'm glad you had that experience.

I'm looking back and seeing so much wrong on each side - liberal and conservative. I tend to have leanings on both sides, as many do, on various issues.

All of this "they never bashed the UPC at all" stuff is a little sick. They didn't have to. They had already delivered a crushing and painful blow by their divisive actions.
Anyone ever hear of rhetoric? Or duplicity? They are saying one thing, while something totally different is taking place. For the life of me I cannot understand this fixation some have upon what is said. They are not "bashing" the UPC, they are just carving it up, or carving out a slice for them to control. Not bashing?

Additionally, what about the flyer sent to thousands of preachers citing a "preferred" apostolic future? Preferred over whom or what? Does that not knote a certain "we are taking the right way while the others are off the path"?

We who have remained with the certainly flawed UPC certainly have a right to take affront at such statements.

Again, watch what happens, don't listen only to what is said.

I have news for Steadfast. When I was a UPC teenager I saw just as many girls from "conservative" churches who "shouted" their uncut hair down in service in the back seat of cars with guys as girls from the so called liberal churches.

I have NEVER seen strict standards translate to moral behaviour in teenagers. If anything it allows them to compartmentalize what is right and wrong since they have that long laundry list of do's and don'ts. They seem to justify in their mind that if they don't cut their hair, wear makeup, go to movies, etc, etc that they can then commit sexual sin and still come out okay on the balance ledger. Not all by any measure but enough that it proves that enforced legalistic standards have squat to do with a persons morality.

We obviously are not UPC but my kids have been raised around it and spent entire summers at UPC relaitves homes and attending UPC churches. My two boys assessment is that old time Pentecostal girls are wild. Much wilder than the baptist and charismatic girls they date.