Know what I long for?!
 

Today I was thinking about the Will Love Prevail thread and got a longing for the days gone by...

Anyone ever get a hankering feeling...not indigestion, ;) but just a feeling deep within for how things used to be?!

I sure have...I am Apostolic Church born and bred, but have NEVER seen a day like today. Maybe I was never 'in the know' or lived in a cave, :roseglasses but I don't recall seeing a time where brethren were at such odds over issues like they are in this day.

What happened to us?!

The United Pentecostal Church International was built on diversity...they banked EVERYTHING on not contending for their different views to the disunity of the Body.

What happened to us?!

How did we get to this place that 62 years after The Merger some on both sides of this are thinking of separating/breaking fellowship, and over what...the right to advertise?!

I do not understand...

I don't know about you, but my heart longs to bring back the day of walking together in unity, for the sake of unity.

I don't know...perhaps I am just whistling in the graveyard and no one is listening, but is it all worth heated words and bitter hearts?!

Those who leave...will they be better off for having done so?! I'm not saying there isn't life after the UPCI...heavens no, but I am asking if leaving under these conditions will benefit anyone...can they not find the common ground on which to build?!

I just don't know... :angelsad

Believe God, there is nothing impossible for Him. Be encouraged that God is in control.

Don't listen to the negative voices. Prayer changes things.

Miz, it's the voices on both sides...

I am prayerful...I have a brother who is a UPCI pastor, but this thing still gives me pause.

My Daddy would say: "Too many chiefs, not enough Indians." Or maybe..."Big egos, small minds." Perhaps..."Lords over God's heritage?"

But then...my Daddy was never really in love with the organization...he loved God a whole lot though....

He preached about love a lot. I do remember some fellow ministers accusing him of being "soft." I think a lot of ministers could use some "softness", and I don't mean in the head.

I know, but DB's post spoke of two different voices that spoke of toleration and love (via pm's). I think it is possible to have something unexpectedly good come out of Tampa, but not without prayer. :roseglasses

Your daddy is a wise man.

You seem to have a lot of your daddy in you, MissB...

Your posts almost always bring a smile...thank you, girl...

Barb, be of good cheer and let it be known that nothing has really changed. Nothing except the advent of the information age the past 100 years. People always held thoughts but throughout history it was far easier to hold them to oneself then to voice them lest it turn out that your the only one who feels that way. The internet and mass media has left countless know that they are NOT the only ones with a particular viewpoint.
What information technology has done is help to wipe away the illusion that there ever WAS total unity.....

I am praying for that...

Now you've really gone and done it...and made my day. *sniff*

Perhaps you are right, RW, but where there may have not been total unity, there was workability, and they were successul.

:kittyhug

I think of threads here that are often started in the morning and by the afternoon it is 6-10 pages long already. Do you realize that such a conversation in the "olden days" between the same number of people would have taken several weeks to several months?

Information and communication is the ULTIMATE Pandora's box. For instance, we are not to covet what are neighbors have, yet until the information age, we didn't KNOW what most of our neighbors had. Now we know how the rich & famous live, what Britney buys on her shopping binges, what Leona Helmsly left her dog, how big of a yacht Paul Alan (MS co-founder) and Larry Ellison (or Oracle) have and how they are competing against each other to have the biggest.
It also lets one church in Wisconsin know what another Church in CA is doing. And it puts people who have similar beliefs, misgivings, visions together where before they though they were, to quote the Highlander, "The only one!".

But just like Pandora's box had HOPE in it, the information age also promises that thoughts (no matter how ludicrous OR good) will never die out. AND anyone can potentially capture the same number of ears and eyes as the President of the United States!