William Willimon, United Methodist bishop, scholar and writer, started a blog this month. I take my hat off to any writer who’s prepared to put their thinking online and open up for comments.
His first post, back on July 4, was on church planting. Quoting a number of ex-pupils he draws the Alabama Conference’s attention to the link between growth, missional engagement, flexibility and new churches. He finishes by saying, “I want our Conference to make new church development a priority among priorities. New church development is that way to the future, the answer to our problems in membership decline and lack of inclusiveness, and a gift of God to us in our present challenges.”
Willimon is online at willimon.blogspot.com
Dear Sir.. you say..
“in our present challenges.”
THE REASON FOR MEMBERSHIP DECLINE could very well be that you people are so entrenched in outdated and opinionated dogma that people are just getting tired of it. all one hears is that GOD IS LOVE. and everything around one is sin fear and self loathing, and that although we are” precious” in the eyes of the lord. we are the same time are awful disgusting creatures who sin. i mean CMON. who needs a sicko philosophy like that. along with a HATEFUL god that is exbited in that book of fabels and myths you call a bible? And all that hate and bigotry that is so entrenched in the “church” that all you people do is PROMOTE more hate and bigotry.
You mentioned ALABAMA . i mean look a the right winged self righteous pontificating cretins that come out of the south. Alabama is the WORST. Hardly anyone who is in the REAL world of spirituality wants to follow. That is of course unless they want to go back to the dark ages of fear and self loathing.
Spirituality is a wonderful thing. God is wonderful. Christ is great also. But RELIGION IS THE GREATEST EVIL IN THE WORLD TODAY. It has NOTHING to do with the greatness Christ but everything to do with CONTROL. In that cesspool of mediocrity they call “religion”.
Also the poor people are no longer as stupid and ignorant as they used to be, and that’s NOT a good thing for the church types. They use ignorance and the poor as a HOST so they can feed off of them to inject them with the poison of their outdated dogma. I certainly hope this adds a little pause for you to think of a different perspective. ..
NAWWWWW it wont.. that would mean you have to give up your self righteous and pontificating ways and that will NEVER happen
Thanks
It’s frustrating enough to hear marketspeak from marketers, but from church leaders? Ugh!
To Spocketsandspokes. You mention fear, loathing, hate, bigotry, and self righteous, outdated opinionated religion. I agree – they’re not good for anyone in Alabama or anywhere else. From what I’ve read of William Willimon, he’d agree with you and me.
Hi Christopher. What do you think would sound better from church leaders?