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-------- Original Message --------
| From: |
Mary Penny |
| To: |
AUReporter |
| Subject: |
More thoughts |
| Date: |
Wed, 25 Apr 2007 05:39:13 -0700 (PDT) |
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Some of us are sincerely concerned about problems we feel
need to be solved in one of our ministries. Has our opinion had
the proper respect? Or have honest questions and dissent been
regarded as treason? Those who do not yield unquestioning loyalty
to this ministry are being branded as being disloyal to the church.
This is not our intent. Do we not have the right as members,
no matter how poor or unknown, to have a say in our church or
must we accept everything that comes down "from above," and by
this I do not mean down from heaven.
Even as husband and wife are to be united yet retain their
own individuality, members of the church are to be united in
purpose (spreading the gospel) yet are to remain responsible
for answering to their own individual consciences.
While some of the media of the church is directed inward at
church members, 3ABN has also attracted non-Adventists. And it
is important that we do this with all our media. It should be
inclusive, not exclusive or condescending. Many self-sacrificing
people are sacrificially involved with this ministry. I am not
saying that they have not accomplished good things. But none
of them and none of us can claim perfection.
This applies even to those who are well known because of their
public appearances. Within all of us the "old man of sin" tries
to raise his ugly head. Some of us unfortunately loose this battle.
Mistakes are made. To admit that we have done wrong and to humble
ourselves and change our ways may seem to us that we are by this
saying that all our good work, all the
times when we let the Lord lead, were false. That is not what
is being said. But even at the times when we were seemingly accomplishing
much and our work was prospering, we may have been also doing
evil. Solomon did this during his reign. This happened to Eli
and to Samuel. I don't believe any one would ever say that 3ABN
has not done a lot of good. God always requires accountability,
however.
Mary Penny (pen name)
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