As usual, your comments hit the mark. I’m glad you’ve chosen to come here and share some insights. I always appreciate the dialog I have with you.

I pray that all reading here attend a “camp” church and not a “village” one!

Your comments are appreciated. Don’t worry that you have “killed the thread.” Actually, this post has received more comments than usual.

One most important point I neglected to address when answering Adam Clagg’s query is that the missing factor in our churches and pastors is that of taking special care to listen.

I am not accusing any of you here of that.

Listening, however, is at the very center of the problem.

Remember the Bible account (2 Kings 5) of the servants of Naaman giving him a constructive suggestion (2 Kings 5:13)?

Why didn’t Naaman immediately issue the order, “Off with your head!”?

Because he did not have what I call “Administrator’s Disease” (compare Romans 12:8, “he that ruleth, with diligence”) with its corresponding caution (Romans 12:14, “Bless them which persecute you: bless and curse not”).

Naaman was “open to suggestion.” His servants both respected him enough that they went ahead and made the suggestion, and believed in him enough that they did not fear retaliation.

It helps to have been an English teacher from 1962 until 2001, because when I read the Bible I am very aware of the literary structure present there. That is why I know that Romans 12:8 legitimately connects with Romans 12:14.

Pardon me if many of you are administrators!

But someone needs to tell you, and so that is why the Bible emphasizes the need to listen.

When we listen, we build trust in the person who is sharing with us what they wish to say. If they believe they can come to you and share, and that you will make the appropriate and justified Biblical response, you have won their loyalty.

If you have won that kind of loyalty, you won’t be losing folks out the back door.

(How do I know? My school administrators always noticed that students who were assigned to my classes in inner city Detroit almost never dropped out of school. They wondered why. I just told you.)

If you have won that kind of loyalty, and fulfill the rest of the Bible’s mandate for teaching Scripture (1 Timothy 4:16; 2 Timothy 2:2), you hardly need to be concerned about schism.

People will come, even flock to your church, because you demonstrated you care when you clearly and evidently demonstrate that you continue to listen. Provided, that is, that you also feed people spiritually, and teach them how to feed themselves.

The Bible does not sanction our creating or fostering a dependency relationship with our hearers. We should make every effort to so teach others that we literally teach ourselves out of a job.

Many years ago a remarkable black pastor was browsing books in John’s Bible and Bookstore, just like I was. I asked Pastor Goodin, “What are you doing to teach your flock how to study the Bible for themselves?” Pastor Goodin said, “Jerry, I would never do that. If I did, I’d soon be out of a job!” I told the dear pastor, “The opposite of what you fear is the truth!”

The church that asked me to find another church that believed like I do did send one of their missionaries to talk with me some years later. I knew the parents of the missionary (they attended a different church, Methodist, in a small town nearby), and through them, the missionary (served in Spain) obtained my book, The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, and told me he greatly appreciated my work.

I was certainly most willing to share with him exactly what happened. He was most gracious and interested.

He told my wife and I that many he had talked to shared a similar reaction to the lack of acceptance, all having felt they had been “frozen out of the fellowship.”

The local church evangelist from that church and I shared excellent fellowship, and he introduced me to many at their local church camp.

I noticed, though, that the pastor’s wife kept a close eye on us (really me, I am sure) to listen in on all I had to say (before I had been asked to find another church).

I am absolutely sure I said nothing indiscrete or objectionable.

I guess they were afraid that since I was an author, I would try to change the doctrines of their church. That is what one board member’s wife told my wife at the grocery store.

I had no such intention, and never had.

When I accepted Christ as my Saviour I was attending a Methodist Youth Fellowship at the local Methodist church. I had been raised at Highland Park Baptist Church in Detroit. I surely did not try to upset my Methodist friends by arguing the issue of baptism! Or Calvinism!

When a Presbyterian pastor urged me to attend his church, since it was close to where I first taught school, I did. I didn’t discuss issues that Methodists might urge against Presbyterians, or that Baptists might urge against Presbyterians. I kept strictly to what the Bible teaches and avoided controversy.

That pastor put me right to work. My high school Sunday school class grew from 8 to 40 regular attenders, and the youth group from a handful to 300 on our regular contact list.

But none of those churches were “village churches.” I would certainly be welcomed again to any of them, but they are all too far away to attend.

Even my former students who are now pastors (especially Pastor Emery Moss of Strictly Biblical Ministries in Detroit, who often has me on his radio program, and mentions me oftener than that) would welcome me with open arms and put me right to work! His church, though, is over 80 miles away.

But out here in the boondocks, where I live on 15 wooded rural acres where I have blessed peace and quiet, there do not seem to be any local “camp churches” looking for a Sunday school teacher.

But the real loss is to the church that declined my membership application. Anywhere I have served the Lord in a teaching capacity the attendance at the church and Sunday school increased, sometimes skyrocketed. So I grieve a little over the many who could have been reached for deeper Bible knowledge and spiritual commitment that were not.

Such choices make a huge difference for eternity.

I placed notes on how to remedy this problem in The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge at Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 6:9; and Jonah 4:11. See also the cross references in Nelson’s Cross Reference Guide to the Bible at Romans 15:7.

Jerome- You said we should “check into why people are leaving.” How is this done?

Is there a way to get honest answers where the one who walked out the back door feels comfortable and where we don’t get defensive?

Most guests and members/regular attendees that we lose will not tell us the truth, but they do tell other people…

I read the article and really don’t see what the problem is. There is no agenda contained in it for the church to accept homosexuality. Quite the opposite, it encourages our young people to reach out to their friends with the truth and healing of the gospel. (What a crazy notion!) I wish something like this would appear in FUSION for our adults to think about.

Our high school teacher brought the parent letter to me at the beginning of the quarter and asked me what she should do about it. I told her to send it home with the students and talk about it with her students.

Blessings.