| Author | Message | ||
| Esther Registered user Username: Esther Post Number: 205 Registered: 5-2004 |
I got this link from a friend to this article. I suspect others of you will get it too. http://www.adventistreview.org/2005-1514/story2.html | ||
| Esther Registered user Username: Esther Post Number: 206 Registered: 5-2004 |
opps, I got cut off. Just wanted to post this link you could be prepared and give any input you feel like. | ||
| Tdf Registered user Username: Tdf Post Number: 70 Registered: 11-2004 |
Esther, Interesting article. I don't know if I've ever read a testimony from someone who left the SDA for doctrinal reasons and then returned. Am I the only one who was disturbed by the author's account of his meeting with Leslie and his experience during a potluck? Why would such things happen in the remnant church? Could it be that many in the SDA church do not truly understand love? My SDA father has always told me that he thinks that there are far too many sermons on God's love and not enough sermons on God's discipline. Now, when my dad hears a sermon on love, he whinces and makes a sarcastic comment about a touchy-feely gospel. Very sad. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1770 Registered: 12-2003  |
Wow, what an article. I have a couple of reactions. First, Dennis (the author) doesn't say exactly how he arrived at his doctrinal conclusions in the 70s and 80s that caused him to leave. A lot of people during that time were examining Adventist doctrines--not all from a position of wanting to know Jesus, but rather of objectively comparing Adventism to the Bible. Second, he gives no hint that during his years away he was following Jesus, worshiping with any body of believers, or studying Scriptures. It sounds more as if he left after some pretty difficult interactions with the conference--and went--where? Nowhere? The fact that he gave his heart to Jesus while reading Goldstein later suggestst that during the years after leaving, he was living on his own without an active relationship with Jesus. Third, it amazes me that Clifford Goldstein's book moved him--I personally found the book to be sarcastic and condescending. I suspect, though, that Dennis had never really resolved his issues with Adventism or his relationship with the church. Goldstein probably gave him a sort of lifeline that let him think there was hope for resolution. (Honestly, none of us can actually leave the church and find peace without going with Jesus and without knowing we are leaving for a much more real and meaningful calling: following Jesus.) Fourth, the fact that Dennis went back into the church does not surprise me given the inference that he had spent the preceding 23 years without the Lord as an active part of his life and without making peace with his leaving. I have a dear friend who left Adventism and had her name removed from the books when she was in her 20s because she couldn't live up to its demands. Years later she met Jesus and actually went back into Adventism for about 8 years. She says now that she had to go back in order to leave for the right reasons. First she left because she couldn't support or live the religion. Finally she left because of two intertwined reasons: she met Jesus and committed her life to Him and began hungering for and studyng the Bible, and then she began to learn how unbiblical the church's doctrines were. She finally left as a statement of her faith inJesus alone and because Adventism is unbiblical. I can't possibly know all the details. I do know, however, that God will do whatever He needs to do to bring people to complete surrender. It's very possible that the author is back in the church with a new commitment to Jesus precisely so he will begin to see the incongruence between the Biblical gospel and the reality of Adventism. I notice that his re-entry into the church is less than a year old. His pain over Adventism and over the way he was treated even ater he left suggests that he had never resolved his identity. In his heart, he was still Adventist. It's one thing to leave because of doctrinal differences; it's another to leave because of a relationship with Jesus. If he has truly found Jesus, I suspect that his cognitive dissonance will increase over time. Colleen | ||
| Yossariana Registered user Username: Yossariana Post Number: 27 Registered: 8-2004  |
It doesn't look to me that he returned for 'doctrinal reasons'. Maybe he couldn't find his place outside the church. "I'm convinced that as a church, however correct our doctrines, we need to live out the compassion and mercy that Jesus embodied." And this seems quite common : "When we sat down to our table, no one joined us. Leslie and I ate our meal by ourselves. Never did we feel so unwanted or unwelcome; never did we get a call or visit, not even from the pastor." I didn't know adventists believe in hell!!! "I didn't know her, but she knew me. She called me an apostate, told me that I was going to hell, that I had the mark of the beast, and that God was going to destroy me." I don't know what to say, it's terrible confusing to go back in a church without believing all its teachings, just to be accepted...I don't know... For me, only Jesus!  | ||
| Windmotion Registered user Username: Windmotion Post Number: 121 Registered: 6-2001 |
Did anyone check out that www.reconnectnow.org link in the adventist review article. VERY IMPORTANT!! It is a new ministry of VOP for former Adventists. Apparently friends and relatives can put your name on a mailing list and you will receive a newsletter and eventually be outreached by a local church! According to the website about 1 million former or inactive Adventists live in North America! (Praise the Lord) Maybe Adventist leadership is taking the AA 12 steps to heart, the first step being ADMITTING YOU HAVE A PROBLEM!! You can respond to the website via email although there is no guarantee your response will be published. Not all of the responses are glowing, however; so maybe there is a chance :-) There is a link on the reconnectnow website to another one called www.creativeministries.org which appears to be similar but not as new or as militant. So interesting! Thoughtfully, Hannah | ||
| Jeremy Registered user Username: Jeremy Post Number: 557 Registered: 10-2004  |
On the reconnectnow.org site, they link to vop.com/gettingintouch where you can email them your feedback! The address is: mjones@paclink.com But I wonder if they would publish any testimonies about finding Jesus and being plugged into another church! Jeremy | ||
| Riverfonz Registered user Username: Riverfonz Post Number: 186 Registered: 3-2005 |
I don't know Jeremy, but wouldn't you like to get an exciting VOP correspondence course!? Stan | ||
| Loneviking Registered user Username: Loneviking Post Number: 335 Registered: 7-2000 |
Have you seen the book 'We can keep them in the church?'. The author is going to be at the Tahoe campmeeting this year doing some sort of presentations. I'm really thinking about a little talk with her............ | ||
| Praisegod Registered user Username: Praisegod Post Number: 304 Registered: 3-2004  |
This part was revealing: "After I left the church and renounced my calling, I ended up doing something I never dreamed of doing: selling insurance. I hated it. This wasn't my calling; being an Adventist minister was." It doesn't look to me like he ever got to the point where he was crying out to know the truth and being willing to study until he had some resolution. His call was to Adventism, not to the Lord. This man's story is nothing like those of ours who found Jesus and went on a search of doctrines. He is much more like the ones who left for the wilderness for whatever reason. Have you ever noticed how many wilderness wanderers pop in and out of the SDA church? They will get rebaptized and try to become involved but I've usually found them to be emotional basket cases because of the guilt and perfectionism that drove them out in the first place. It's not long--a few months or years until they again wander off into the wilderness. Am I the only one who has seen this? Perhaps there is a big push to discredit formers by using stories such as this one. It will be interesting to see how many of us get any sort of contact as someone's project. Praise God... | ||
| Esther Registered user Username: Esther Post Number: 208 Registered: 5-2004 |
Thats what I was thinking. Sorry, I kinda had to post and run and things were hectic. I can't tell you how much lately my family has been pushing the stories of others who've left and are now back. So there must be some church sponsored "plan" of how to try to win back formers. I also felt like the author of the article wasn't strongly Christian based upon leaving Adventism. From the bits and pieces of detail, it sounded like he left with all the mess over the IJ, but during all those years, still found himself back at visiting SDA churches. I was thinking of trying to email him and find out more details. I know it's a hard road. When I read Canrights book and realized how many times he switched back and forth, I know how hard it can be to actually settle everything in your mind and leave for all the right reasons. Which is why all the information on the internet was so pivotal to our leaving. Within a matter of months I was able to read so much material and study so many things. | ||
| Marcell Registered user Username: Marcell Post Number: 24 Registered: 4-2004 |
all I have to say is "Like a dog returning to it's vomit..." Marcell | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 1375 Registered: 3-2004  |
I cannnot remember the number of times I was ignored at an SDA church and I did not think of leaving over the lack of love and attention. I hung in until I learned about EGW. It was then I decided, with God's help, that I could not be rebaptized. I left for the right reason. I cannot believe a lie and a false prophet. God is to good and so awesome. Diana | ||
| Dennisrainwater Registered user Username: Dennisrainwater Post Number: 113 Registered: 8-2000 |
PraiseGod, you are absolutely right! His story is nothing like ours, but I suspect along with you that it is being used by the corporate church to dismiss the growing awareness among their membership of those of us who have left for doctrinal reasons, and to follow Christ. Colleen, I think you are onto something about God maybe bringing him back into the church, so that he can be brought along in his experience, culminating in a future exit for the ërightí reasonsÖ My own story includes BOTH experiences! A couple of years after graduating from academy, I became involved in an adulterous relationship, and was dismissed by my local SDA church as a result. Now, I am no paragon of virtue, and completely own the fact that I was completely responsible for this sin! Yet, there were some contributing factors that led to this situation... I believe I can say with complete honesty that the line of adultery would never have been crossed if there had been someone else in the church in whom my partner (also a lifetime member of the same church) could have successfully confided her very real personal-safety concerns to ñ someone else who could have helped her save herself from some genuinely life-threatening issues relating to her then-husbandÖ Romance was not my initial reason for getting involved ñ but I learned a tough lesson in how weak and fallen I am, and how quickly and easily something seemingly innocent can evolve into something sinful and inappropriate! Again, please donít see this as me trying to let myself off the hook for my sin. Still, in one small way, the church contributed to the problem. The others in that church body whom she did try to seek help from dismissed her fears and actually enabled the continuation of the problemÖ It is somewhat ironic then, that later on after Iíd become a part of the situation, instead of seeking to help us deal with the situation on a practical, helpful level, we were offered judgment and condemnation ñ and eventually, expulsion. It is probably no surprise that having been thus turned out, I left with deep feelings of hurt and betrayal. So, having never developed a relationship with Jesus to that point, I went my own way; feeling little regret at seeking a life without the company of the church who no longer wanted me. My connection had never really been spiritual ñ but rather mostly social. So, at this stage, the usual accusations of my having left because of personal conflicts, or being wounded, or finding the moral demands too rigorous to meet, were completely true! I was an SDA-textbook case of someone who had left for all the reasons they usually consign to ëformersí leavingÖ But a few years later, I finally acknowledged a God-shaped hole in my heart that demanded to be filled. When this occurred, I turned back to the only place Iíd ever known God to live ñ within the walls of an SDA church. My studies, which led me back, had given me just enough true, Biblical foundation to feel very uncomfortable with some of the spurious dogma so prevalent in Adventism ñ but not yet enough to reject the premise of returning. However, my return to the SDA church was very definitely the beginning of my journey back out again, as this time, my reasons for ìdoing churchî were expressly because of a deep need and desire to truly know God! It was only natural, I believe, for my continuing studies to lead me through and beyond Adventism. And I really believe that it was necessary, in the larger scope of events, for me to have returned for a time ñ as if I had found a church home elsewhere first, I doubt I would have ever have been free of the haunting doubts about having left the ëone true churchí. And honestly, I donít think I ever recognized that till just now! So, I thank you for pointing this out!! Isnít God wonderful?? I just love the way He continues to splash new little pools of revelation across our path like this!! If we ever get bored with our walk with Him, it is because we arenít paying attention!! :-) I hope (and trust) God will use this Dennisí journey and testimony as impactively when he makes his exit, as his reentry has just been! Rejoicing in the discovery of one more little gem of understanding! Den <>< | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 1380 Registered: 3-2004 |
Den, Isn't it amazing, when we recognize it, how God led us in the past. Every so often I get those revelations and think, WOW, you were doing that for me so long ago and all this time I thought it was me. Diana | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1777 Registered: 12-2003 |
Dennis, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. God is so faithful. Clearly the story above is not the same as most of ours, yet I somehow think his story isn't done yet! BTW, Richard and I somehow got onto the mailing list for the VOP quarterly publication for former members. It's a four-page, four-color production that features storeis of those who have left and returned. I've never seen a story of someone who found Jesus and left, though! I feel some annoyance (I know--not helpful or charitable!) at editor Mike Jones--he also had a "leaving" experience, but he came back as an evangelical Adventist who spares nothing to promote the church now. I realize he, too, is "only a miracle away" (to borrow a great phrase I heard in a sermon once!)-- Colleen | ||
| Pheeki Registered user Username: Pheeki Post Number: 530 Registered: 1-2003 |
Here are some pertinent quotes from this guy: All my life I had wanted to be a Seventh-day Adventist minister, preaching the three angels' messages; and now I was doing it. They were, for the most part, happy years. He hit that one squarely on the head, they are not preaching the Gospel but another gospel...since when is the 3 Angels' message the gospel? Unfortunately, many of my colleagues didn't stop there. We twisted the meaning of the gospel until it became one of the reasons for throwing out the Sabbath, the pre-Advent judgment, and Ellen White's ministry. Anything that didn't fit within our view of what the New Covenant gospel meant was swept away. Eventually, that meant Adventism too. In effect he was siding with the SDA even thought he himself was dissatisfied...he still believed exactly as they do. The frustration of not having fulfilled my calling was overwhelming. I believe now that if someone had come to work with me, I could have been won back much earlier. In 1990 my wife, Leslie, and I decided to visit an Adventist church in Washington. As we were about to go into the service, we met Natasha* on the church steps. I didn't know her, but she knew me. She called me an apostate, told me that I was going to hell, that I had the mark of the beast, and that God was going to destroy me. This was my first contact with Adventism in nine years. That is a bizzare encounter...but I have met too many like this Natasha, SDAism and it's fatalism creates them! In my opininon, this guy never left Adventism...his butt simply wasn't warming a pew every week. He was still an SDA at heart and longed to go back but (here we go!!! The SDA fantasy that everyone leaves because they were offended or wronged by an SDA) no one begged him to come back or checked on him, etc. Then I have to ask...if he had such a burning desire to be an SDA preacher and carried this with him for 22-years...why did a few statements by snipeish people cause him to so easily abandon "all he ever wanted". And what brought him running back? See below: That night my life was changed. That book became my own Damascus road experience. In Goldstein's book were answers to the questions that--had I been given years ago--would have kept me from leaving both the ministry and the church. For the first time ever I could see how the gospel, far from contradicting Adventism, was given its fullest expression through the teachings of the church. I had to go up to my home office to read and reread the book because I didn't want my wife to see me sobbing like a baby. Where is Jesus in all this? The IJ brought him back? did listen, and I'm back. At my request, on May 8, 2004, Clifford Goldstein rebaptized me into Jesus Christ, and it is my decision to live out my life of salvation in Jesus in the context of the teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. So this guy had to be re-baptized? Did he renounce Christ or something? I have never understood multiple baptisms...but in the SDA church it is an approved practise, I have been baptised twice becuase I felt I was a back slider, not that I renounced Jesus, I just hadn't been eating right, etc. I can picture the glee the SDA will have reading this article because it only confirms what they think...none of us leave because Christ liberated us and we now know the real unpolluted Gospel, we leave because someone didn't serve our dish at potluck, or snubbed us or said something unkind, etc. FANTASY! | ||
| Windmotion Registered user Username: Windmotion Post Number: 122 Registered: 6-2001 |
Isn't it nice to know you are someone's "project" Colleen? On the other hand, did you see this sentence on the reconnectnow site? "Those in the Voice of Prophecy data base may also received notices of evangelistic outreach programs taking place in their area. However, names will be protected. For instance, none will be made available to local churches until the church has had special training in how to approach the inactive appropriately." What a great witnessing opportunity! Reflectively, Hannah | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1782 Registered: 12-2003 |
Interesting, Hannah. I hadn't read that. I wonder if we will ever be approached by a local church! That would be a very interesting opportunity! Colleen | ||
| Marcell Registered user Username: Marcell Post Number: 25 Registered: 4-2004 |
Hannah - what an interesting and encouraging reframe! If we are 'invited in' by someone trying to 'reach' us, then we have the God given opportunity to witness about Jesus - after all, they sought us, not the other way around. I got a letter the other day from my former local church, they are praying for me. I know they mean well, and there are some lovely folks there. However, I have never recieved a single phone call or any contact at all from them. (Not that I want any, really. Just find it curious) Being a big introvert, the social aspects are not a big motivator for me, but I feel you need to be in community or relationship with someone before you really are able to speak truth into their lives. It requires a suspension of judgement, which is where the typical SDA gets too frustrated. The source of 'life' for those who are stuck in legalism is being 'right'. So they have to be vigilant in identifying who is and isn't 'right' in order to get 'life'. And since they percieve that there is a limited supply of 'rightness' they have to make sure they keep the parameters closely defined. NO freedom, no joy, no real life. Hell on earth. It just makes me sad. It's like the prisoners trying to evangelize you into prison!!! Marcell |
