Bev Sterk

Bonnie, bless your heart for being bold and brave and bringing this into the light!!

I see part of the problem directly connected to pornography (objectification of women)...  so am working on exposing what is hidden in darkness there and there is a huge connection between porn and violence... For me every level of porn is horrific, but especially disturbing/sickening is the fact that the porn industry fuels/feeds the human trafficking and abuse of children in the sex trade - child porn/prostitution... it has been an unbelievable battle...  several things i am coming to a conclusion regarding this battle and i think it's relevant for domestic violence, and other abuses of women/children as well:

1) silence contributes to the problem... be warned though, that when you speak Truth about things the enemy does not want exposed, the enemy will use those in church to try to silence you in various ways... ie discredit you, the enemy will use others to call you unstable, emotionally unhealthy, heretical, divisive, a gossip, slanderer, they will threaten, intimidate, manipulate, abuse, ostracize, shame and shun you to mention a few behaviors typical of silencing in order to cover up the "deed"...  you will quite likely lose friends...  sometimes even your job...

but don't let that stop you!!!  Go on in the Name of God... (*** See quote below)

2) secrecy... when things need to be kept secret, that's not a good sign...  God says expose what is hidden in darkness, and warns that the enemy will do everything he can to keep it in darkness (John 3:19-21)  Truth will want the light..

3) cover up...  beside trying to silence those who speak (see #1), manipulation, deception/lies, fraud, tampering of evidence, are a few more ways the enemy will try to keep the "evil" from coming out into the light.

so far in the situations I'm familiar with, it seems that those in leadership are protecting those in power at the expense of the victim.  Sadly, disturbingly so, I have not witnessed justice from the church leadership involved in these situations, and instead the women are treated as expendable, much like the woman caught in adultery (John 8).

*** here's an encouraging quote from a 1791 letter from John Wesley to Willliam Wilberforce:

Unless the divine power has raised you us to be as Athanasius contra mundum (Athanasius against the world), I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! ***Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.

thx Bonnie, please keep talking!!

it seems some of the confusion comes from what is the loving thing to do? is exposing what is going on in darkness the loving thing to do, or is the loving thing not confronting it, and letting those in power continue to cover up wrong doing, so that the leaders (and the church's) reputation can be protected?   Hebrews 12 gives us the answer to that I think...  He disciplines those He loves... so that after the discipline, we will walk in the peacable fruit of righteousness... that can't happen until we first repent and own up to what is our fault, where we have dropped the ball of what He has called us to do. 

Every single revival was marked by open repentance...  and at this point there still seems to be denial of any wrongdoing and much resistance to genuine repentance.  so let's keep praying and speaking as the Spirit leads...

Wow, thanks Jim for being bold and brave bringing this up...  I've been warned (and have experienced) that I won't make friends when I talk about stuff like this, so hopefully you will fare better =)

In the last 2 years, I've been very intentionally researching one specific sexual sin in the Church, and that is porn...  I have attached an article that I think we might find quite disturbing with the information shared (encourage you to read comments as well)...

http://blogs.christianpost.com/guest-views/sexual-sin-in-the-ministry-8613/

I have found statistics that the % of those in the church (primarily men) struggling with it, was 40% in 2002; 50% in 2008 and 60% in 2012, but the estimate of spiritual leaders, based on anecdotal evidence, is even higher with 80% and 90% being suggested by numerous leaders (Including in the article linked to below).  I know synod 2012 endorsed the overture to take an active stance against porn, and, well, we'll wait and see what that might look like...   because it is a huge, huge issue in the Church.

the following quote breaks my heart, and unfortunately, this verifies what I along with several other women that I know have experienced regarding ungodly conduct by leaders in the Church....   cover it up, keep it quiet, minimize it, circle the wagons, shut it down pretty much at all costs for a number of reasons...  and the spiritual leaders doing the inappropriate behavior end up staying in leadership (at least in the situations I'm personally aware of).  Maybe a few here and there are quietly asked to leave once their secret sin is discovered, but it's very rarely a public rebuke (generally only when it's a crime and the police are involved) even though I TIm. 5:20 states that is what is needed so other leaders can take warning (which is ironically humorous that I'm being the one warned that I won't make friends when I talk about it)...

BOQ...Many of those crimes were covered up by bishops or other denominational judicatories, sadly the very individuals or bodies responsible for safeguarding against such behaviour.  EOQ

what we have found is that those in power protect each other at the expense of the weak/victims, and that abuse thrives in a culture of shame and silence.  the exact opposite of what the Church is called to do.  we have found that even though the Church is called to a higher standard than the world, we are not even up to the world's standard on holding spiritual leaders accountable for ungodly conduct, in the situations i'm aware of.   To have any level of accountability has been a battle, and at this point it seems the victims are losing.

here's the link to what our church order has to say about reinstating office bearers in article 84 ...  (page 99 or so - I hope the link works, it did for me a while back, but for some reason not today)

of course, this assumes the leader resigned, or was suspended or deposed in the first place.

http://www2.crcna.org/site_uploads/uploads/resources/2012_churchorder.pdf

anyway, that's the tip of the tip of that iceberg,,,

BOQ.. which is to say that Classis are regularly appointed according to geography and have never been previously created on the basis of a theological barrier or divide.  EOQ

where I struggle is this theological barrier/divide seems to be totally ok at the denominational level, but then not ok at a classical level...   how can we apply this to one level, and totally ignore it at a higher/broader level?

isn't this how the CRC broke away from the RCA in the first place?

maybe our "denominations" should also be regional instead of based on theological, etc. differences....  maybe we need to be looking at a bigger dimension than just classis...  it seems we are ok with gathering all the "like" minded denominations into alliances.... and that's not by region/geography...  so which one is it?  is the Church to be expressed by region or by like mindedness?  Which one does Scripture support? 

LORD, pour Your love into the hearts of Your followers, by Your Spirit, so that we can be one, as You and the Father are one!

my hope and prayer for Synod, is that there will be such an outpouring of the Spirit for unity...  going back to the Moravians, they had many struggles over doctrine - far more diverse than what we're wrestling with here, as they had religious refugees from various streams (moravian brethren / catholic / protestant / lutheran / etc) all coming together to live in Hernhut, close to Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf's estate (he wrote #513 in Gray Psalter - Christian Hearts in Love United - works well with tune of Come all Christians be Committed as an option).  They were so divided that they walked to church/communion on separate sides of the street.  at one point, through prayer and research led by Zinzendorf, a covenant of unity was drawn up, and shortly thereafter the Holy Spirit fell upon them in one of the most powerful outpourings since Pentecost.  I think most of us would love for such an outpouring to fall on the crc / synod / michigan /any state / any congregation !!

here's a quote from the following link:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravian_Church

BOQ The refugees established a new village called Herrnhut, about 2 miles (3 km) from Berthelsdorf. The town initially grew steadily, but major religious disagreements emerged and by 1727 the community was divided into warring factions. Count Zinzendorf worked to bring about unity in the town and the Brotherly Agreement was adopted by the community on 12 May 1727. This is considered the beginning of the renewal. Then, on 13 August 1727 the community underwent a dramatic transformation when the inhabitants of Herrnhut "learned to love one another", following an experience that they attributed to a visitation of the Holy Spirit, similar to that recorded in the Bible on the day of Pentecost. EOQ

warring factions hmmm?  can we relate?

again, their history is fascinating, as the Moravian Brethren come from the pre-reformers of Jan Hus and John Comenius... I encourage you to do your own research on them... maybe this should be mandatory reading for synod delegates =)

wow...  just caught up on this topic and it's posts...  well, what blows my brain is the concept of a God Who always was, is and will be, never had to be created... He's the "Uncreated Creator"... .   Then let's throw the angelic and demonic beings in to make it more interesting... when where they created, and how did lucifer fall, how was hell "created"  etc... for me, believing creation is easy after these. 

so if we struggle with the concept that God made the world like He shares with us in His Word in Genesis,  what do we do with believing in a God, that never had to be created and is perfectly good, all powerful, all knowing, everywhere present, 3 in One Being, etc.?  That's the BIG step of faith for me... my mind cannot compute it...my mind "chokes" to borrow a crc pastor's phrase.  To me, creation is an easy step, if we are believing in an almighty, powerful God, Who has always existed, breathes light at 186,000 miles per SECOND... (yes, that probably caused quite a bang!  I could feel the concussion of a little M80 explosion)  He cares about  and numbers every hair on our head... mind boggling as well...  has our earth spinning @ 1000 miles per hour and I'm not sure what word to use for us hurtling around the sun @ a wild and crazy 67,000 miles an hour ((93Million mile radius x 2 X pi)/365/24hrs) and we're not even aware of it!

so here's my 5 loaves and 2 fishes worth... if it's from the LORD, He will multiply it...  last year my 10 year old son had to do a report for school, it was on Mt. St. Helens... in doing the research with him, we discovered that what happened in seconds/minutes through the explosion, later looked like it had happened over millions of years... I will try to find the article on this...

second, I have had Divine timing of events in my life, where the statistical probability is off the charts.  Not just once, but  often...  If this happened once in a lifetime, we could statistically accept it, but this is a fairly common part of my walk with Him as I follow the leading of His Spirit.  He surprises me with the most amazing timing that can only be orchestrated by Him.   So, what do you do with promptings by the Holy Spirit?  No scientific explanation for that. 

Is believing in creation ridiculous, irrational?  I call it super-rational.  God is often very counter-intutitive.  just think about tithing in a bad economy...don't make no sense... Oh, wait, that means it does, but only because God is part of the equation. 

 Just curious what those with the evolutionist view think about the molecular structure of laminin?   I will try to find something to post on that as well, but encourage you all to look it up.

lastly, I think it is interesting that there seems to be a lot of confusion about how the world started and how it's going to end...  these discussions are interesting, and I'm surprised at the energy put into this discussion, but as "nobody" posted...

" You people realize this isn't that important to what we are supposed to be doing? ""

so, if intellectuals think I am very "silly" and simplistic, I'm totally ok with that...  should they be ashamed that we are part of the same denomination?  I hope not..  .we need to honor the Church (not science), the Church is the Bride of Christ, and Jesus is very protective of His Bride.  I have struggled with denominational concerns on other issues, and still do, but the answer is not attacking each other, the Church.  Our battle is NOT against flesh and blood aka each other, it is against the enemy and he is the father of lies, it is his native language (Eph. 6/John 8).   as someone discussed in an earlier post, every world view (that is not 100% God's), has some truth in it... but  then the enemy twists and perverts the rest. 

ps. Ken, aka "nobody" - glad to see you're still here and posting =)

 on June 15 @22:25 there was a posting in this discussion by "nobody"...  who is also named Ken.   he hed been a fairly active "poster" on the network and I had been missing his posts, and somewhere on one of the forums I saw that in May he had requested his account to be closed... so when I saw the June post, but under the name "nobody" instead of Ken.  I was glad he was still involved.  however...  I haven't seen anything from him again, and praying he's ok... 

so Ken, if you read this... I miss your thoughts, and you are not a nobody...

ok... I was going to post something on Mt. St. Helens, and the network was denying access the other day, so will try to do that later...

I almost forgot, but in another blog this topic came up which reminded me I was going to post this article on Mt. St. Helens and its implications on evolution and for creation..

http://nwcreation.net/mtsthelens.html