Friendly Fires in the Church
 

This is something my husband wrote after the recent passing of his mom. Have you experienced friendly fires?

Friendly Fires in the Church


Friendly fire is a military term meaning accidental shooting or bombing of comrades in battle. There are many reasons for friendly fire. Bad information, inability to recognize friend or foe, the weather, darkness, logistics, and ignorance are but a few of those reasons.

Mark 10:13-14 says “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant.”

Let’s apply friendly fire to the church. Perhaps the church is on autopilot. It has programmed and charted out its destination or business as usual. It appears that everything is clicking like a well-oiled piece of machinery. It could be that the machinery has taken over the ministry.

My mother recently passed away on Mother’s Day 2011. She attended a megachurch in Hampton, Virginia where she and my father were faithful with their attendance and finances for many years.

Mother was very excited when my father became interested in church services and began attending and growing in faith. He enjoyed the music, the preaching, and studying the Word.

My father is a retired chief petty officer with over twenty years of service in the United States Navy and is a Vietnam Veteran. Growing up in the Catholicism, he thought that Mother and I were too emotional about church. As he began to visit services with my mom, he began to change his views and opinions and realized that more than just noise, there was a life-changing experience to be found.

When it became apparent that my mother’s passing was quickly upon us, my father and sister made an appointment to visit the church staff to make arrangements.

The ministry liaisons were very reluctant to commit, e.g., to many policies that no one wanted to cross. My father and sister were very hurt, knowing that Mother’s wish was to have a church service. I personally could not see the problem of a church of this magnitude having the issues that they did.

I am not anti-establishment. People fall through the cracks. But we control the machinery. The machinery should not control us.

When the ministers came to pay respects at the funeral home that my father chose after being shrugged off at church, he was so insulted that he asked them to leave the premises. We memorialized my mother at a funeral home in the city with our own family members conducting the services. My father has since considered returning to his roots of the Catholic Church.

Perhaps this was Friendly Fire……


Written By: Jon Moraga

Re: Friendly Fires in the Church
 

Too busy to do the Lords work. That's a sad story.

Re: Friendly Fires in the Church
 

I would like to hear the other side of the story.

Re: Friendly Fires in the Church
 

Friendly fire is often the deadliest. I had the opposite happen in 07 when my Dad died. GloryLand went out of their way to show me and Mom love, even setting up the funeral and the pastor eulogizing my Dad. Friends either wound tremendously or heal tremendously.

Re: Friendly Fires in the Church
 

"When it became apparent that my mother’s passing was quickly upon us, my father and sister made an appointment to visit the church staff to make arrangements.

The ministry liaisons were very reluctant to commit, e.g., to many policies that no one wanted to cross. My father and sister were very hurt, knowing that Mother’s wish was to have a church service. I personally could not see the problem of a church of this magnitude having the issues that they did."


Tamor - first off, let me say I am sorry for the loss in your family and pray that God's peace will over-ride any hurt and confusion in the family over this situation; however, I guess I'm confused here. The husband and daughter wanted to make arrangements to use the church facility - have the church ministry take care of the service?

What in the world kind of "policies" that no one wanted to cross? Was he asking for anything other than just using the building and the church ministry being a part of the service?

Was your dad asking for a Catholic type service? I guess I would agree with Truthseeker - I would like to know the "policies" they didn't want to cross and exactly if they refused to be of assistance or asked that certain protocol/policies be honored out of respect for the church beliefs.

I've known of churches that allowed their building to be used for weddings and funerals - but still had certain policies in effect regarding dress codes for the bridal party in weddings types of music used etc etc. (and not just UPC or Apostolic churches - lots of Methodists Church of Christ and Baptists have certain policies like this).

I will be the first to agree - there is sometime "friendly fire" - but I think more details are in order to determine exactly what happened here.