I have been a PROUD member of Broadway for 21 years, and to these so called “friends of Broadway,” or whatever the heck they are calling themselves, if you don’t like what Brett has to say, go somewhere else. Because no matter how many people you get to sign this proposed “firing of Brett” paper, there will always be more members signing against it. Stop wasting your time. I am proud to call myself a Broadway Member, and will for the rest of my life, no matter what happens to the church itself in the future. This churched helped create who I am today, and for that I am truly grateful. We do not affirm nor deny gay membership. We are accepting of all peoples and ideals. We allow anyone who wishes to enter to enter into our stained-glass filled, life changing music filled sanctuary to worship with us. If you don’t like what you hear, please leave. Don’t complain that you’re not getting everything you want. We do our best to incorporate everyone’s ideals and feelings in everything we do. We cannot, and will not, EVER, please everybody. It is impossible. I love Broadway with all my heart, and will stand up for Brett Younger if the situation does arise.

I am not sure I would compare what has been done on the internet with Paul’s writings. He may have used electronic media, but I think email is good enough these days for churches. I don’t think airing one’s dirty laundry to the world is a solution to a private church matter.

Information wants to be free. Go tell’em what you think.

Three points and one correction:

1) I think this shows, once again, that contrary to what has been suggested by many moderates and liberals, conservatives aren’t the only ones who can act immature and unChristlike in Church and on the blogosphere.

2) As I pointed out before, you simply cannot expect to build unity around diametrically opposed views. They will inevitable clash.

3) Maybe churches should consider making a part of their bylaws a clause that prohibits broadcasting church issues on the blogosphere. I don’t think this would be a violation of the Baptist heritage of dissent since the blogosphere is neither necessary (or really helpful) to bring about change in a congregation (and it, in fact, often compounds the issues).

A Correction:

You said, “Sam Shaw, pastor of Germantown Baptist Church resigned due in part to his unsuccessful proposal to shift the church’s governance to elder-led instead of congregation-led.”

First, that was a small part of much larger issues that were happening at GBC. And more importantly you suggested in your statement a false dichotomy between “elder-led” and “congregational-led”.

In fact, there exits in Baptist life elder-led congregational polity. They are not in opposition, like in the Episcopal and Presbyterian forms of Church polity.

For more on this see: Elders in Congregational Life: Rediscovering the Biblical Model for Church Leadership by Phil Newton.