UPC General Conference updates
 

Hi Everyone,

I was asked to update all our fellow UPC folks on the happenings at General conference.

I hope this will be okay with the owner.

You are welcome to post anything newsworthy.

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*Update*


Bro Haney said that since Tampa the UPCI has licensed 589 new ministers
and that we've had a record year of growth







.

Re: UPC General Conference updates
 

keep the updates coming, Thanks!

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cool, keep it coming brother, dt

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*Update*

Haney just called for a "closed minister business mtg" tomorrow




.

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Thanks for the info, bro.

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What is the meeting for?

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I think it's about the "emerging church"

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Haney said we need to have a talk as ministers about what we believe....

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It would be interesting to know how many were lost as well to see what the over post Tampa status is as well as the average number of ministers from year to year.

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Details please! lol

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I don't have many details sorry.
What little I know, UPC ministers have been attending seminars put on by the "emerging church".

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:evilglee There is absolutely no way that they will have a closed meeting to discuss the emerging church. The UPC is 180 degrees from the emerging church.

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How wise, fantastic and future ensuring that would be.

I hope there is at least some truth to that... unless they are meeting on how to combat it.

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Magic hair?

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Retreating church? :winkgrin

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Maybe they will do something that formally recognizes a "one-stepper's" right to exist openly WITHIN the organization!

COGIC just doesn't seem like home to me-- not to knock them, I consider them my brothers and sisters in the Lord.

But there is a difference. (Or maybe I'm just plain prejudiced when it comes to this stuff.)

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Are you physically at GC?

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The leaders need to sound the alarm on this. The so called "emerging church" is a very dangerous and perverted teaching that ought to be
dealt with before it takes root in the UPC.

The "emerging church" is heading down the same path as the universalist
and the acceptance of homosexuality.

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There is always an alarm to sound. Always another doctrinal crisis on the horizon. Always someone who is afraid of impurity in the ranks. Fear reigns and people are lost. Hold the fort mentality never takes the frontier.

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Can you explain what the doctrine of the emerging church is? Is there a website that I can go to that will explain their vision and what they believe?

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Ever hear of the "rethink conference" ?

Here's an eyewitness account of it

http://www.understandthetimes.org/co...y/c73_pf.shtml



I'll post more info. on it as I have time

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I'm sure it's seen as a threat.

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I don't know of any church in UPC that is accepting of homosexuality. Every church here in Southern California is fighting to have marriage restored to hetrosexual couples only.

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There is no doctrine of the emerging church, there is no single website that is representative of the emerging church. It's a movement that has all sorts of variant streams of thought contained within it. Generally, the thread that runs through it all is the desire to impact post-modern generations with the gospel as it's generally agreed that current methods will not work in the future. Other than that there is very little agreement even by those w/in the EC movement.

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You need to do some more reading. Sure, there are some within that emerging church that are liberal as you say, but no more or less so than the traditional church. The vast majority of the emerging church is conservative on the issues you name.

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I would be interested in seeing the answer to this portion myself.

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I wasn't referring to the UPC but rather the "emerging church"
and reason why our leaders need to alarm the ministry.

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What on earth leads you to believe that the acceptance of homosexuality in the church is an "emerging church" thing?

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Right, this is what I have experienced. I don't actually see a problem with the concept of the emerging church. There are folks out there who are trying to make it out like there is some group with a doctrinal statement that actually calls themselves "THE EMERGING CHURCH".

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Just more lack of understanding. No one needs to be alarmed about anything. Can we not trust ministers to follow the word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to lead them? Sure there are going to be fringe nuts in every movement but 99% of UPC ministers have virtually no chance of going down this path that you claim the emerging church is going down.

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Indeed...

There are those of the emerging church that preach false doctrine... there are those of the "regular" churches that preach false doctrine.

I would love to see an answer to some of these questions so that I can get some concept of what in the world SW has been told.

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Guys, research it. There is a tremendous amount of information on this topic and the vast majority of it points to teachings that are completely damnable.

I also want to highlight the warnings are coming from evangelicals and not anyone from the oneness camps.

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You'll never guess what.

I have done some research and your standard type "non emerging" church has bookoodles of false doctrines. We need to sound the alarm because church with big buildings and steeples are teaching false doctrine.

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just because i can find a bunch of stuff out there about a flat earth or that the moon landing was a hoax doesn't make it true and doesn't make it representative of the mainline thought.

And there is just as much misinformation about EC in the evangelical camp as there is in the oneness camp. D.A. Carson, one of the fiercest evangelical opponents recently actually attended an emerging church conference and after actually TALKING to them and SEEING them he said something to the affect that 'this isn't what i thought it was." Geez, one of the leading evangelical theologians 'studies' an issue and publishes polmics against it and he hadn't even checked it out first hand? Puhleeze!

That's the problem. Just as Pentecostals are often put in the category of snake handling wack jobs so do most emerging church folk get put in the same category of the somewhat liberal side of the movement. It's not accurate or fair to do that when the vast majority of emerging folk are conservative in orthodoxy.

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To bad the constituents of the UPC...where most of the money comes from....are treated as outsiders in the process in at least NOT being allowed to hear things pertaining to these great issues.

It's for this reason I always say I attend a UPC but I am not "UPC", because it's really a paid members club

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That kind of attitude has led a lot of groups who started out one way to end up another.

Look at the Lutherans how they started out and where they are now

Look at the Methodists who started out red hot and now they are dead.

Look at the first church and how eventually baptism in Jesus name was changed, fewer and fewer historical references to people receiving the Spirit and tongues and gifts etc etc.

The bible actually takes a very alarmist view. It's this sort of complacency that makes churches watered down and dead.

2Ti 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2Ti 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
2Ti 4:4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
2Ti 4:5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

Tit 1:9 He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
Tit 1:10 For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.
Tit 1:11 They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
Tit 1:12 One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons."
Tit 1:13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,
Tit 1:14 not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.
Tit 1:15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
Tit 1:16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

2Pe 2:1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
2Pe 2:2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
2Pe 2:3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
2Pe 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;
2Pe 2:5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
2Pe 2:6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
2Pe 2:7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked
2Pe 2:8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);
2Pe 2:9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,
2Pe 2:10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones,
2Pe 2:11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord.
2Pe 2:12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction,
2Pe 2:13 suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you.
2Pe 2:14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!
2Pe 2:15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing,
2Pe 2:16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.
2Pe 2:17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.
2Pe 2:18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.
2Pe 2:19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
2Pe 2:20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
2Pe 2:21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
2Pe 2:22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: "The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire."
2Pe 3:1 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder,
2Pe 3:2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles,
2Pe 3:3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
2Pe 3:4 They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation."
2Pe 3:5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,
2Pe 3:6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
2Pe 3:7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
2Pe 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2Pe 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
2Pe 3:11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
2Pe 3:12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
2Pe 3:13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
2Pe 3:14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
2Pe 3:15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
2Pe 3:16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
2Pe 3:17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.

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I have to admit.........I don't know anything about the "emerging church". But I don't like the very sound of it.

Emerging from what? The church has been here for two thousand years. We just need to be a part of the book of Acts church........and be very careful about falling into false doctrine.

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it's just a term used to describe the church's response to post-modernism and as such will be distinctive from the modern church and thus is emerging from the modern church to engage a new culture that is emerging from a old culture. the idea is that culturally we are in a time of transition from one age to another and these 'new' forms will be distinctive and as we are in the transition stage we are 'emerging'.

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What you say is true and there certainly is no shortage of scripture combatting false doctrine. But it seems to me the UPC has bigger fish to fry than the 'emerging church'.

Of course this assumes that the closed session is indeed about the EC. Has anyone confirmed this?