If you have not read it yet, check out last week's edition of the eNews.
Lance addresses one common way American Christians invite children to accept Christ. He repeatedly describes his frustration, even anger with it. He compares it to the way people are exposed to timeshare sales pitches and bait and switch sales scams and he wonders how much harm is done to the cause of the gospel by this method.
Interestingly, Lance opens his article stating that he hopes he doesn't offend anyone but he hopes to begin a conversation.
And, he didn't offend me. What he wrote encouraged me, in a small way, about the future of the Kingdom in America.
So, three days ago now, I entered a comment in which I began by describing what Lance wrote as brilliant and concluding encouraging him to "be strong and courageous."
In between, I offered concern that we need to be careful not to be shepherd dominated and parish priest focused, as I often do.
If you check out the eNews today, you will see that my comment has still not been accepted for publication. (FYI, when I sent the comment, I saw the indication that it was sent successfully).
And, I'm not certain what to make of the fact that my comment has not been put on the blog.
I see Lance as a very progressive old wineskin guy. If I'm correct on that, he certainly is not on board with my criticism of the old wineskin's parish priest focused way of doing things. And, certainly, not everyone in Findlay is as progressive about the old wineskin as is Lance.
But, Lance did open his article by inviting readers into a conversation and I accepted his invitation. There was no obscenity or vulgarity in my comment. What it says about Lance that my few words were not published, as my Pennsylvania Dutch neighbors would say "wonders me."
What has become of conversation, of dialogue, in this part of Christ's body?
I have called leadership in the CGGC a shepherd mafia in the past and I hoped that when Lance ascended to the top of its highest peak that the mafia would be broken up.
I don't think that is what has happened.
Update on my comment.
ReplyDeleteI checked the eNews page before I clicked publish on my blog post to be certain that I was correct in writing that my comment had not been published.
And, IMMEDIATELY after I clicked publish, I checked eNews again to make certain that my comment still was not on the page. And, it wasn't still.
I just checked three minutes ago and two comments, Nate Buck's and mine were there.
And, I'm glad for that.
I will say that, considering that this article will be supplanted in two days by the next one, if Lance wanted to begin a conversation, all appropriate comments would published at the earliest possible moment.
At this point, I don't know when comments would have been published had I not squawked and I don't know if my comment would have been published at all had I not thugged it on the site.