(Tim) Lest anyone who's been watching the debate with our R2-K brothers think they're making much ado about nothing, check out this NYTimes piece about the various ways churches in the Pacific Northwest are replacing Father God with Mother Earth. Millwood (Washington) Community Presbyterian Church, for instance, holds a very successful Greenies market in their church parking lot where deeply spiritual beef and sanctified vegetables are sold.
When the city fathers came to the church and told them to stop hosting the market or start paying taxes, the church started paying taxes. Pastor Craig
Goodwin explained it this way:
“It’s like we’ve got more going on in our parking lot than we do within
the walls of the church...."
I'm betting it's not "like" that at all...
you know?
“I’ve never been good at door-to-door evangelism,” said Deb Conklin,
the pastor at Liberty Park United Methodist Church in Spokane, Wash.,
where an aging and shrinking congregation of about 20 people worships on
Sundays. “But this has been so fun. Everybody wants to talk to you.
It’s exciting. It’s ministry.”
Several mainline church leaders in
the Northwest said environmentalism offered an entry point, especially
to younger adults, who might view Christianity as wrought with debates
over gay rights and abortion.
Such abandonment by the Church of her Gospel ministry is common among evangelical congregations and missions, also. Recognizing this, Church of the Good Shepherd and ClearNote Fellowship have committed ourselves to decline to support so-called "ministries" and "missions" that are not building the Church.
