The Separation Issue
My Confrontation With the Church: Part II
South Haven, Michigan, today boasts 41 churches of various denominations. I cannot remember the first church we joined although I think it was either a Bible or Baptist church. It was a relatively new congregation located on Blue Star Memorial highway circling the city.
It was such a new and growing church that the moment Doris and I joined we were assigned a task of supervising the teenagers on a planned picnic at a nearby inland lake. That gathering quickly got out of hand. The girls stripped down to bikinis and dove in the water. The boys diving right in behind them. There was little we could do other than watch and make sure the situation didn’t get any worse.
That church pastor preached a severe separation policy. It was not long before he confronted me about my membership on the South Haven Fire Department and a Saturday night bowling league that I belonged to. He argued that separation to Christ meant a separation from all worldly things. This forced me to raid the Christian book stores collecting books about church member separation. I learned that the accepted theology is that born again Christians worked as a witness to the people we worked and played with. Putting walls between us and the rest of the community failed to accomplish the work we were meant to do. This became a major separating point with that church and we decided to move on.
During this time I was hit by a case of mononucleosis that put me in bed for about a month. I spent much of my time studying the Bible and my books on separation. One day two young members of the Mormon church showed up at my door. Out of a need for some new challenge I invited them in and we debated religion. By then I was familiar enough with my personal beliefs and Bible verses that I talked these young men out the door. They returned a few days later with elders who unsuccessfully carried on our debate. They gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon to add to my library after I promised to read it.
Doris and I decided to seek another church and picked a Bible church in the nearly town of Bangor. It was a great little congregation that accepted us warmly. We attended but never joined because I changed jobs and moved to Kalamazoo shortly after this.
My Confrontation With the Church: Part II
South Haven, Michigan, today boasts 41 churches of various denominations. I cannot remember the first church we joined although I think it was either a Bible or Baptist church. It was a relatively new congregation located on Blue Star Memorial highway circling the city.
It was such a new and growing church that the moment Doris and I joined we were assigned a task of supervising the teenagers on a planned picnic at a nearby inland lake. That gathering quickly got out of hand. The girls stripped down to bikinis and dove in the water. The boys diving right in behind them. There was little we could do other than watch and make sure the situation didn’t get any worse.
That church pastor preached a severe separation policy. It was not long before he confronted me about my membership on the South Haven Fire Department and a Saturday night bowling league that I belonged to. He argued that separation to Christ meant a separation from all worldly things. This forced me to raid the Christian book stores collecting books about church member separation. I learned that the accepted theology is that born again Christians worked as a witness to the people we worked and played with. Putting walls between us and the rest of the community failed to accomplish the work we were meant to do. This became a major separating point with that church and we decided to move on.
During this time I was hit by a case of mononucleosis that put me in bed for about a month. I spent much of my time studying the Bible and my books on separation. One day two young members of the Mormon church showed up at my door. Out of a need for some new challenge I invited them in and we debated religion. By then I was familiar enough with my personal beliefs and Bible verses that I talked these young men out the door. They returned a few days later with elders who unsuccessfully carried on our debate. They gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon to add to my library after I promised to read it.
Doris and I decided to seek another church and picked a Bible church in the nearly town of Bangor. It was a great little congregation that accepted us warmly. We attended but never joined because I changed jobs and moved to Kalamazoo shortly after this.