My Heart for Two Rivers Baptist

As I sit here starting this blog, I have debated about posting my thoughts and feelings about the goings on at our church. For those of you who are not members of TRBC, I ask that you pray for our church. For those of you reading this who are TRBC members, please only read this knowing that I am sharing my heart. If you are reading this for something to gossip about, please stop reading now.

My heart has broken over what is going on in our church. There is a spirit of division. I do not feel that this is what the Lord has intended for any church within His larger Church. In a warped way I feel very blessed that this is happening. I firmly feel that satan will not attack a church body unless the Lord is moving. While none of us would openly welcome this, we have to acknowledge that the Lord is indeed moving. When I look at VBS, Super Summer and the number of baptisms I can not and will NOT deny that fact.

I want to share my feelings on somethings that have I heard being said over the past several weeks...

1) That this situation was not prayed over: If any person in our church honestly knew our pastor and our staff even a little, they would know that many, many, many hours of prayer have gone into praying over this whole mess. They would also know that all of our pastors are men of prayer and they seek the Lord with their whole heart as far as their lives and especially the life of our church is concerned.

2) It has been said that Pastor has caused this dissention in the church. I have to say that this frustrates me very much. Pastor has not brought this on the church. Church members have brought this on the church. No where in scripture has the Lord endorsed a coup against a godly church leader. The fact that we have a pastor has been the pastor of our church for 21 years says a great deal about his character and the man of God he really is. I personally do not believe that the Lord would have a pastor spend his entire ministry jumping from church to church. I believe that He would have pastor be in a church to baptize, marry and bury several generations. I believe that if we will pray for, encourage and lift up our pastor, we can if it is the Lord's will, see that happen.

3) I will not believe that I am a member of a church where I am strong armed, railroaded or bullied from the pulpit. One thing that I LOVE about our pastor and pastoral staff is that we are highly encouraged to be in the Word and study for ourselves what the Lord has to say about certain subjects. I love that we are not told that they are the final authority on anything. I love that we are encouraged to get to know that Lord on a personal level and that we have the freedom in our church to ask questions and seek answers. I believe that only a pastor who is truly seeking the Lord and is secure in his position as pastor would encourage the congregation to dig into the Word and pray.

4) I know that there is some dissention about the 11:01 service. I know that I am among a rare few in my age range that actually prefers the 9:30 service. I do have to say that even though I prefer the earlier service it does NOT mean that I am against the 11:01 service. I believe that as long as the Gospel is not being watered down and people are coming to know the Lord and that people are growing in their walk there is absolutely nothing wrong with the 11:01 service. Since the pastor and pastoral staff are firm in doing both of these things, I support the 11:01 service even though I do not attend. (On a side note I do like the fact that in the early service we do get to sing the great hymns of our faith. I believe that we can learn a great deal of theology from these great hymns. I also like the praise songs in that most of these are lifted straight from Scripture. How great is it that in our music we get both theology and Scripture)!

5) I think that we need to focus on what the Lord has for our church instead of tearing each other down and back biting. I believe that the Lord has much instore for our church. I believe that we need to whole heartedly search the Lord and seek His will for our church. I believe that it is very appropriate that we are taking the entire month of August to study prayer and spend it as a church praying. I believe that only when ALL of us become broken that our church will completely heal and move forward.

6) Last but not least I want to share a personal story. The summer after I graduated from college I served a semester missionary through NAMB as a youth minister in a church out west. When I came to the church there was tension in the church. The longer I was there, the more I learned. While I cannot say that I know what our staff is going through with all of this I can somewhat relate.....
In the mid 70's the pastor of the church was asked to leave the church. In that case, the pastor had actually done something to which he should have been removed. In the years that followed the church went through some major turmoil. Since that time this church has run off several pastors. These men were not bad men, they had not even done things for which Scripture would allow them to be removed. Fastforward almost 25 years and the church is still batteling what happened in the 70's. I started in this church in May of 2000 and NAMB pulled me out in May of 01. Not long after I left the pastor was voted out.
I share this story not for gossip sake but to illustrate a point. We need to be careful the legacy that we are leaving for the children of our church. 25 or 30 years down the road do we want our children and grandchildren to still be fighting this battle? Do we want them to not truly understand what they are fighting, but that this is the way it has always been, and so that is what they must continue to do? What is it that we want our children and grandchildren to know about what happened when they look back on the history of our church? Do we want them to see dissention or a godly legacy?

I pray that anyone who has taken the time to read this entry will stop and pray for Two Rivers. I pray that the Lord will bless the pastor, pastoral staff and the rest of the church staff as well as their families. I pray that all them would find and encouragement. I pray that the Lord will carry our church through this time. I pray that when we get to the other side that we will be able to look back and see what HE was doing. I pray that we can continue to seek His will do the ministry that HE has called us to.

Thank you for "listening" to my ramblings. I pray that the Lord will bless you and that you will continue to seek the Lord in all that you do!!!

Heather
Hab 3:19