I wrote this in response to what has been happening in the news regarding our church. Many people have said that the church should have made it more clear about what happened recently. Maybe in response, the church should do a mass mailing to the city of Indianapolis, something like this:
Welcome to the
- Avoid talking to Jane, because she loves herself more than God and will possibly do selfish things and lead you away from our God or hurt you and leave a bad taste in your mouth of church. Those hypocrites.
- Avoid John, because he has too many worldly toys that could distract you from truly worshiping and lead you into his idol worship.
- Don’t hang around Bubba because he cusses like a sailor and will corrupt your kids.
- Then there’s the issue regarding the Smiths, Martins, and Jacobsons…. They only attend Easter and Christmas. If you associate with them, you may learn their lazy ways and begin sleeping in yourselves.
- In the youthgroup, there is a group of kids in the back that talk-back to their parents. All members must avoid them at all costs because of the disease that might spread to the rest. We must use them as examples.
- Mr. Johnson hates his brother for previous bad business deals. Jesus said that was murder, so I’d watch out. Once anger has settled in, who knows what will happen. For the sake of your lives and the lives of your families, do not associate with him.
- And then there is Sarah, who left her husband for another man. They are now married and attending our church, which we cannot stop, but avoid her because she might seduce your own husband and do her despicable thing again.
- Josh Carter had been in jail for car theft. Sit on the other side of the room as him, and keep an eye on your purses and wallets – please! We are not responsible for lost or STOLEN articles!
- Word has it that Sam Sailor cheated on his taxes and reported less income than he made. That is an outright lie, and we will not stand for it. Once you’ve lied once, you’re going to lie over and over… never ever trust anything he says to you.
- Don’t talk about your home and cars around the Jameseson family and don’t invite them over to see them because they live in a small house and might start secretly wanting yours. Likewise, his wife is not very pretty, so he might want your wife as well, and then we have the same problem as with Sarah.
Overall, there are some really bad people here, unlike us who are perfect of course, and although these people have been in counseling and are trying to change, we still think it’s best if you stay away. Hopefully they will stop coming to church and we’ll finally have a clean place where we can worship our God.
It is incredibly sad to see you making light of such a serious situation; taking an innocent child’s suffering and turning it into satire.
By your church’s own admission this past Sunday, they should have informed at least the parental parties of the congregation of Terry VanGorp’s crime. They had an admitted, un-convicted, un-sentenced, un-registered child molester walking around in their church, and they knew it. That is hardly the same as a liar, a thief, even an adulteress.
These other sinners you so wittingly point out, they should have their sins pointed out to them. The Bible is clear within the body of Christ we are to judge, confront, confess, and repent to one another. These other sinners would benefit from some confronting by those that love them. (I ofcourse don’t just mean ‘them’, but ‘all of us’ should be confronted, and listen to our brother/sister and search our hearts and repent. That’s what the Bible says anyway).
Your church leadership was obviously confronted, and willing to admit fault where they were wrong. Maybe you will learn something from that. I hope for that poor child’s sake that she (or her family) never reads this; someone writing something so incredibly insensitive to the seriousness and criminality of what she has gone through. I hope you will see your error, and follow in your leadership’s steps by deleting this before you cause more damage to an already horrid situation.
Lindsay
Oh Lindsay, I couldn’t agree more about the seriousness of the crime, but what I was pointing out was that we have all broken the ten commandments (notice the order). The “people” in my illustration, as seen at the end, were being counseled and changing – confrontation had happened.
Major problems occur when Christians think they are too good to be around other sinners – we are all in the same boat here, saved by Grace only by the blood of Jesus. I thank Him for cleansing me and others.
Oh, and also I meant to say that maybe my church should have come right out and said it from the get-go, or maybe not, but I’m glad for the way they handled it. They took care of the situation, protected those involved, and I was able to read about the crime in the Carmel Paper the next week. I say well done, and Thank You.