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In Reply to: Re: ministers... posted by Pastor Don on September 29, 2008 at 17:21:51:
Whether or not anyone else was offended by your posts is beside the point. It only took one person to be offended or triggered by the "warning youth" statement before the coordinator stepped in. So what's different about this situation?
In the cult we conned people by saying we "work with youth" or "we help youth" or "we work with troubled teens" or many different variations of the same theme, a con job in order to get money or goods from people. From "provisioning", to selling literature, tapes and video, using variations of "ministering to youth" was used by almost everyone everywhere, as was using phoney PR photos.
So when you use phrases like "caring for the precious youth" or "I have two services for my young people" in the same posts in which you talk about the lack of money to "minister" full time, that triggers all kinds of unpleasant memories, which partly explains my initial harsh reaction to your posts.
Ministering to youth is just another way of saying spiritual and financial exploitation, in my opinion, which I think I'm allowed to express here. Your desire to get more money from your flock so you can "minister" full time (the money has to come from somewhere, doesn't it?) is unseemly at best, and exploitative at worst.
As for theological debates, I have no time for such nonsense. My point still stands: you do not get to decide who is a "real" Christian, and if you think you do, that just proves my point about spiritually exploiting youth. If you're going to call yourself a Christian, then you're going to have to take some responsibility for everyone who also claims that title. What I mean by that is that to non-Christians, dogmatic disputes between Christians as to who can rightly claim that title are irrelevant. Christians are Christians, despite differences in doctrines; moreover, you are your brother's keeper, are you not? So if you have problems with other Christians, work it out with them.
