Posted on 07/06/2012 8:17:04 PM PDT by Penn4God
A Phoenix man has been sentenced to 60 days in jail after he refused to stop hosting Bible studies in the privacy of his home in violation of the citys building code laws.
(Excerpt) Read more at radio.foxnews.com ...
I agree with you.
Every Wednesday night our family would meet with other families at a church members house for our weekly Home Meeting. We might have 20 people and we comfortably filled every available seat in the house. Everyone brought something to eat and we ate like kings. The study of Christ’s teachings surpassed anything you could get at a church service. The most precious part of all of this was there was miraculous healing at these meetings. We saw people with intense memories of being sexually abused as children, released of their pain. We saw intense back pain instantly healed. And blood disorders completely healed. We learned the power of the Holy Spirit.
We learned that when the government puts bureaucratic obstacles in the way of God’s purposes, that the Lord will remove those obstacles if we ask Him to do so.
If he has 4 1/2 acres, same as I do, parking on his own property would be no problem...the town has a bug up its behind about something else...
When the government believes it has the right to shut down private bible studies, it is time for our silent Pastors and passive Christians to wake up and take a stand for what is right. Radical Secularism must be stopped before we have moved past the point of saving the U.S. and our God given freedoms. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated, “ Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act”
In fact many of them would look at it just the way you do
but they must obey the rules of the world rather than obey God, because they are of this world, unless they come out of her.
Gods people are not of this world and we are not running it, does that mean that we need to start liking what they do? God forbid.
The price they paid was death, but they gained ever lasting life.
If traffic is becoming a problem, neighbors have a right to protest to the authorities regardless of whether it is a religious meeting or not.
but put with every thing else that is happening to our freedoms and it is easy to see, world tyranny.
Call it “Koran” study. Government cowers in fear. Problem solved.
This has apparently been going on frequently for years - I can sympathize with the neighbors. If he wants to host crowds weekly, then he must abide by the rules. It doesnt matter if this is bible study, knitting club, Hot Rod show - Im sure that most people wouldnt mind an occassional crowd down the street - but every week, since 1998 is a bit excessive.
I agree with you.
Home Bible Study crime Ping.
If parking is really the issue, he could have sidestepped it easily by working something out with a nearby business to allow worshipers to park in their parking lot on Sunday morning, and have two or three cars shuttle people over.
“The First Amendment is supposed to trump the building code if I am correct.”
See how far that gets you with the lawyers if someone is hurt or killed because the building or safety codes weren’t followed. Maybe a loved one of yours, even ?
The zoning folks had better have the same “issues” with Amway and Mary Kay “meetings”.
Excellent point! But bringing that up at a zoning mtg will probably get you “escorted” outside, since the zoning criminals probably hold Amway and MK mtgs, but not Church mtgs.
That is the problem with these internet articles you never really hear the true details. Even at 1.5 acres who is to say the rest of the guy's land is accessible by the cars?? maybe the cars were out on the street.
I know many firefighters and they are reasonable people and mostly conservative. Can't believe how the fire fighters in the story cracked down so hard on the guy. Something we are not being told.
This is not accurate. I live in Phoenix and it seems people are immediately jumping to conclusions. Phoenix has one of the more laidback codes of any city I’ve lived in, basically if you don’t give them a reason to pick you out, they don’t care, but if you make a nuisance of yourself, you will hear from them.
Now as everyone is arguing, the man has the right to do whatever he wants on his own, but when his 20-30 guests show up and park their cars on the street as has been common, you can understand why the neighbors are upset. They are not parking the cars on his property, they park on the street, which is fine for a yearly Super Bowl party, not fine for weekly or sometimes twice-weekly meetings that congest up residential streets and sometimes leave no space for actual homeowners to park their cars.
I think the neighbors deserve some rights as well, this is definitely not a “religious rights” issue but more about being a considerate neighbor.
It is not a church issue if the guy is over-running the neighborhood with a gazillion cars every time he holds a bible study.
You are playing the church card and condoning a guy that does not give a wit about his neighbors. A few people at a house every Sunday or whatever day he holds the Bible study is fine. But if he has 30 to 60 cars showing up in the neighborhood regularly it is not right.
He is lucky he is not trying this in my neighborhood because I would not put up with it for the number of years he has been doing it.
He needs to go find a building where he is FREE to hold his religious services.
If he was hosting a NAMLA chapter, no problem!
Long time ago I lived in an urban neighborhood where there wasn’t enough parking for all the single family homes that had been carved up into at least 3 apartments each.
A neighbor was a big wheel in Amway. Hated Monday nights when I had a night class and he had Amway meetings....usually had to park two blocks away and then move the car after his meeting broke up.
I also remember a nasty woman neighbor’s home in Coral Gables (FL) back in the 70s, when she had “MK Rally” mtgs, and the adjoining streets were packed with “pink cars”, making resident parking almost impossible, until the arrogant (and drunk) bitches finally left late at night. Some of those a-holes even parked in our driveways and on our lawns! Local CGPD LEOs wouldn’t do anything, as their own wives were among the bunch at the mtgs.
The neighbor woman told us to *screw-off* when we complained about her guests’ bad parking habits.
Under cover of darkness, we many PO’d neighbors stealthily let air out of their tires and shoved potatoes up their tailpipes, disabling the cars and causing them $$$ in service costs, until she moved the mtgs to a local rented firehall, with its own parking lot.
Problem solved. (Our “step #2” was to set fire to all the cars. Fortunately, we didn’t have to get to that step.)
It is not a church issue if the guy is over-running the neighborhood with a gazillion cars every time he holds a bible study.
He and his wife have been hosting Bible studies on their 4.6 acre property since 2005. The gatherings were originally attended by as many as 15 people.
And why would they have to comb for violations if it really had any thing to do with too many cars or people?
No i am not making it a church issue, as i did not mention church in my comment to you and i do not go to any church, it is a Government tyranny issue as far as i am concerned.
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