Quote:
Originally Posted by Shingledecker
Mirth,
I really appreciate your post. I am a former licensed member that left in the late '80s. In my case it was a cumulative effect. Let's just say it wasn't a good fit for me. While stationed in the military overseas I was baptized with the Holy Ghost. A couple of years later was working for the UPC with a Christian Worker's License and upon ETSing came to the states to go to Bible College. Graduated with a double major and hoped to re-enter the military as a military chaplain. I met Will Brewster overseas before he received his chaplaincy endorsement and it was an exciting time. The bloom soon fell off the rose, so to speak, after coming to the states. There was just SO much organizational politics and backbiting. Paul talked about it:
"But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another" Galatians 5:15
My wife and I were falsely accused by the pastor of "trying to split the church"...with no winessess, just hearsay. Needless to say, we were crushed and given no choice began attending a missions church in a neighboring town, minus the needed pastoral "blessing". When the home mission pastor refused to baptize some new converts because they weren't dressed (by they I mean the mom and the teen-aged daughter) right and in the service following quoted the scriptures together:
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned" Mark 16:16 and
"Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." John 20:23
I thought it was time to "exit, stage right"  |
I left the UPC perplexed as to why things had transpired the way they did and sad that politics had hijacked (at the time) the organization. After I told my pastor how I felt about approach re: water baptism, he told me I was welcome to leave. I took him up on the offer. Mind you, I was his outreach director, taught his Search For Truth studies, taught his adult S.S. He chewed out my wife and me one morning after church saying he had talked to (my previous pastor) and wasn't about to have someone come to his church and split it! His neck veins were bulging, and I'm not exaggerating. It was a bad case of pastoral abuse. Then came the water baptism issue, etc, and I figured "enough is enough". I probably stayed too long. That home mission pastor's last words to me was, "It's mighty COLD out there, Brother .....". It was a lot colder in that church, believe me.
Over the years I've tried to fellowship UPC but with Very Limited exceptions have no response in kind.
Mirth, the best you can do is try to stay sweet, humble, and do what God is telling you to do.
Might does not make right and numbers don't mean they have a "corner" on the truth. In some areas they need to grow (as do we all in some areas). It may mean a long time of limited fellowship (esp if you live in an area where Oneness churches are dominated by UPC). Hold ON to God's unchanging hand and walk with Him. He hasn't left you and just because you left the UPC doesn't mean YOU left HIM! Stay in prayer. Walk WITH your spouse (and I'm only assuming you are walking together) and hold one another UP and encourage one another in the Lord.
I posted a thread asking what it would take for apostolic unity and was serious about the question.
"Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand" Romans 14:4 
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