No charge at the door, church promises.

The Providence Journal ^ | 11-21-2004 | RICHARD C. DUJARDIN

[ItsOurTimeNow]

With a new TV ad, the United Church of Christ promotes itself as an accepting alternative for alienated believers.

*snip*

Moving to dispel the idea that only conservative church groups know how to attract new members, the predominantly liberal United Church of Christ is launching a series of TV ads to promote itself as an open and welcoming church.

In the first commercial, which will begin airing Dec. 1, two nightclub-type bouncers stand at the entrance of a church, turning away people who don't pass muster.

"No, step aside please," one of the bouncers says to a would-be entrant. "No way," he tells another. "I don't think so."

Fade to black, with the words: Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we.

Then, a voice-over: "The United Church of Christ. No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here."

Coming at a time when most mainline Protestant groups have been losing ground to more conservative congregations, many of Rhode Island's Congregationalist (UCC) clergy see the commercials as a way of countering the perception that their time is over, and that those who feel alienated by more conservative church traditions have no choice but run and hide.

"There are so many people who have felt excluded from religious institutions and from their own faith communities," said the Rev. David Proctor, interim minister at the United Church of Christ's Four Corners Community Chapel in Cumberland, where the membership has doubled in five years. "What we are saying to these people is that we are here to welcome you, with all of your questions, your hurts and pains."

*snip*

Mr. Tripp believes there are lots of reasons why millions of Americans have come to feel excluded from the church in which they were born and raised. For some, it may be a divorce, or a disability that makes it difficult to climb the church steps. Or it may be the feeling that they will be shunned if they disclose that they are gay.

*snip*

Mr. Williams said that while every congregation in the church continues to enjoy the right to decide for itself what it believes, the national denomination tends to be very much on the side of those who say that God's revelation is continuing. Campaign organizers are using as their motto some words attributed to the late comedienne Gracie Allen, in a letter she wrote to her husband George Burns: "never place a period where God has placed a comma."

The notion is an implicit challenge to the stance of most conservative churches, which insist that what has been revealed in Scripture cannot change and stands for all time.

"I can understand where those conservative churches are coming from, because I sometimes say myself that 'God has spoken,' " said Mr. Williams. "But remember, Jesus Christ said, 'I have come not to change the law but to fulfill it.' By fulfilling it, he meant to show how it can be revealed now in us. It's a constant state of revelation evolving into something new and fresh and great."

[MississippiMan]

EARNESTLY contend for the faith BECAUSE certain men have crept in turning GRACE in LASCIVIOUSNESS.

Mighty profound for the current environment, eh?

MM

[John O]

"Hate the sin; love the sinner" only applies to those trying to overcome their sin; not the ones comfortable with, and consciously/deliberately practicing, their sin.

Disagree solitas.

We have to love the sinner even if they are unrepentant. God still loves them after all. However that does not mean that we are to accept them or their sin until they do repent.

Sometimes true love results in delivering someone to satan to be tormented until they repent, or if they are already saved, delivering them to satan for the destruction of the flesh so the spirit can be saved.

And unfortunately, sometimes true love results in praying that God will prevent them from dragging others into hell with them, even if He has to kill them to accomplish that.

God loves each and every one of us. Even those who will be cast into the lake of fire. But that love will not stop His justice from being served. You either accept Jesus death as payment for your sins or you suffer the entire penalty of the law. Get saved or die eternally. There's no other choices allowed to us to choose, or to God to dispense.