Clarification is some times needed.....

It has come to my attention that I may have not been clear about the trial or dilemma that weighed so heavily upon Poppie and me.  I want to clarify that there was no upset, anger or dissension involved in the trial that involved the local Church.  I know that I just got an eye roll from some of you but it is true.  No one was mad, angry or even at odds with one another.  I want to step back a step and update some who may not know.  Poppie was brought up very loosely in a Baptist Church, his childhood gave him no solace or love of any Church or for that matter any belief in God.  It was not the Church but his up bringing and I will not go into that right now.  I was brought up on the knee of generations of God fearing Jesus loving people. I truly can not remember an epiphany that lead me to Christ because Christ was always in my life and I came to Christ more at the "appropriate" age than through any new discovery that I needed to believe that Jesus was the son of God and he died for me.  I have always believed that from such a young age I don't know that I ever wasn't saved or if there is really a moment of belief, but for official measure I and my three other siblings were savedAugust 22, 1977.  I have loved ancestors who were missionaries, preachers and teachers.  I digress, maybe if digression can be associated with the glorious knowledge of testifying about my Master and Lord Jesus Christ.  Anyway Poppie and I made a decision 4 years ago, Poppie thought it was 5 years yesterday but no it is really only 4 years ago, to seek a new Church because the one we had gone to was gone and we needed a new option.  We agreed that local was in our hearts and we truly believe God wants all people to strengthen their local community and go to a local Church.  We knew that with our beliefs that only one or two of the local Churches would even be an options, to make a long story short we landed at Lighthouse Baptist Church.  We knew that since we were changing, not faiths but sects of faith, we would have to conform as much as our beliefs would allow and since the similarities far out way the differences in the two churches it has been for the most part no compromise or real change.  The Preacher was given that info from the start and for the most part has not found fault it our belief but maybe our idiosyncrasies. Full disclosure I was raised in an independent Church of Christ which for the most part is no longer available in most communities as the Church of Christ has gone through a large reformation since the 60's, I was raised in a pre-reformation simple independent Church.  I belief, to the disdain of the Preacher that the independent Baptist Church is basically the same church having gone to both, their really are so few differences and they are not about theology but about really splitting of ways it is done or hairs so to speak.

Poppie, the girls and I have grown in the Church in the last 4 years basically the same way we would have in either church with the loving spirit of Christ in it.  Poppie has been saved, a saving which started 8 years ago when a tree literally hit him on the head and he KNEW Jesus was real and that he died for Poppie.  My Ladies have been saved and baptized, my son and son-in-law have both been saved as well.  We all have grown in the Church.  There were basically only two or three things that we could not assimilate and change our whole belief system and wrap our hearts around, they may seem trivial but are not to us.   We believe and no one can show us chapter and verse in the Bible where we are wrong and they are right, that God and only God/Jesus adds to the Church.  I don't believe the man has the right to add you to the Church.  The others aren't important in this conversation so I won't go into them.  Preacher has tried to "offend" us into "joining" the Church for literally 4 years.  That is the great dilemma that weighed on our hearts, not a big issue, argument or dissension,  it was simple a splitting of hairs that mattered to Poppie and me.  We did go forward and asked to be members last night, a compromise maybe, an action to help someone not stumble or maybe just to make the trial go away.  The Preacher either by design or maybe, just maybe, to meet us half way did not asked the Church to yay or nay our membership......

I hope I have not been a stumbling block to any of you because of my secrecy in describing something that was very hard and personal to Poppie and I in a more dramatic way than maybe it was but it didn't seem like it to us for the last 4 years.... I hope you look for Christ, read your Bible, or seek a church to learn about him.  He is the only person in your life that will ever really matter, to quote an old high school friend.... "If you meet me and forget me you loose nothing, if you meet Jesus and forget him you loose everything"  no truer words have ever been spoken.  I pray for your salvation today..... tomorrow.