Yesterday, my brother-in-law, Nathan Williams, asked some questions on his blog about men and their thoughts on modesty. I tried to respond but for some reason his spam filter kept telling me my comment seemed spammy and wouldn’t let it be posted. So I sent it to him in e-mail to see if he could get it posted. He decided to post it as his blog entry today. Thanks, Nathan, for posting that. And I appreciate you striving to protect my rep by keeping it anonymous. However, I think one of the reasons we keep hearing from church after church about men falling, especially preachers and elders, is because we act like none of us ever have any real problems with lust.
Honesty
A Healthy Congregation or a Toxic Congregation
I’m going to take a quick break today from our series on the Jerusalem church. I am presently reading Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life
The single most dramatic difference between healthy and toxic family systems is the amount of freedom that exists for family members to express themselves as individuals. Healthy families encourage individuality, personal responsibility, and independence. they encourage the development of their children’s sense of adequacy and self-respect.
Unhealthy families discourage individual expression. Everyone must conform to the thoughts and actions of the toxic parents. They promote fusion, a blurring of personal boundaries, a welding together of family members to know where one ends and another begins. In their efforts to be close, they often suffocate one another’s individuality.
–Read on my Kindle
, Location 2644-2653.
As I was reading, the thought came to me about congregations. Doesn’t this apply to congregations to? Consider the following adaptation.
The single most dramatic difference between healthy and toxic congregational systems is the amount of freedom that exists for the congregation’s members to express themselves as individuals. Healthy churches encourage individuality, personal responsibility, and independence. they encourage the development of their members’ sense of adequacy and self-respect.
Unhealthy churches discourage individual expression. Everyone must conform to the thoughts and actions of the elders/preacher/brotherhood concensus/watchdogs. They promote fusion, a blurring of personal boundaries, a welding together of church members to know where one ends and another begins. In their efforts to be close, they often suffocate one another’s individuality.
That just really hit me and I thought I’d share. What do you think about it?
By the way, there are definitely associate links in this post. Help a guy with two housepayments out and click on one of them to buy some stuff.
*While I highly recommend Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life