Posted on 02/27/2011 9:02:35 AM PST by SmithL
No wonder they say their church was stolen from them – by the leaders of the faith they practiced, the same leaders who changed the locks to keep them out of that church.
Their forefathers built their North Branch church in 1934 with two by fours cut from trees they felled here in western Sullivan County.
Their mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers were baptized, married and laid to rest in their church set among the pine trees in this hamlet tucked in the snowy mountains of the western Catskills.
And when local children couldn't afford winter coats to keep them warm or socks to keep them dry, the people of this tan stucco church opened the Saving Grace Thrift Shop in an adjacent building donated to them. When single moms and their children needed places to live while they got back on their feet, the church rented low-cost apartments to them in that same building in this hamlet with two-story Main Street homes where most everyone knows everyone else's name.
But in a situation all too familiar to the people of rural churches from the Catskills to the Shawangunks, the Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church has been hurting. Membership dwindled from about 100 to 39. Attendance at Sunday services shrunk to a handful. To pay the pastor they shared with four other struggling Lutheran churches in western Sullivan and Ulster counties, the congregants borrowed money from their parent organization, the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – between about $12,000 and $20,000 is still owed, depending on which side is doing the figuring.
This is why the synod said that Grace, like those other Lutheran churches in Liberty, Narrowsburg, Ellenville and Jeffersonville, couldn't continue on its own.
(Excerpt) Read more at recordonline.com ...
fyi
They state “Jesus would never do that”. Jesus would not have cared a whit about a building, the Church is not sticks and mortar, the Church is people.
If that was my church, locks wouldn’t keep me out...and if they made an issue of that, I’d burn it down.
I was just thinking the same thing!
Mel
It’s pretty obvious common sense stuff. You can change the locks on your church just as easily as they can change the locks on your church. Actually, easier. If it appears courts and lawyers are going to take their side and not yours and they intend to press the issue, then burn it.
As I read the article, it seems that the main church body has declared that this is no longer a church. It also appears that this is a struggling community out in the boondocks, probably hard-pressed for tax revenue.
So — why not have the local tax assessor start collecting property taxes from the main church body that is so in love with buildings?
It sounds like their congregation could meet in my living room, even with the greyhound in the middle of the floor. Voila, you’re a house church. Maybe they can sell the building for some funds to use in charitable works or to compensate a speaker.
Of course, the ELCA isn't interested in God's grace. They are interested in promoting their progressive worldview. God will not bless those who use His name to teach a false gospel.
Don't cry for the deaths of these "churches". It's been coming for a long time. True believers will always find a place to worship God with other true believers, and that is what God requires.
Amen! I just looked up the ELCA, again, put in my zip code, and my church, well x-church, is still listed.
When I decided to go back, quite some time ago, I didn't feel Him there. My mind kept saying "they allow everything, where is He in their teachings?"
At first, I thought it was me. After a while, I began to realize He won't be here any time soon, so I stopped going.
2 things happened after I left to confirm I made the correct decision....one of them was my old church being a part of the ELCA......WHICH ALLOWS GAY PASTORS!!!
How much clearer does He have to be regarding homosexuality? Apparently, these people DO NOT read the Bible "they preach".
It's no wonder so many are deceived and led along the wrong path....which is their own fault.
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