Posted on 03/29/2010 7:46:00 AM PDT by Between the Lines
GREENSBURG, Pa. - Congregation, heal thyself.
That is a judge's message to a western Pennsylvania congregation divided over the removal of two church elders because one was allegedly quarrelsome and the other hasn't spoken in tongues.
Pastor Roy Aiken Jr. sued in January to enforce a November vote ousting the men from the Christian Fellowship Center of Greensburg's board of directors.
Since then, the pastor and the ousted elders have formed separate boards vying for control of the church.
Westmoreland County Judge Anthony Marsili on Monday ordered the church to, instead, be governed by the board that existed before the ouster. If the church can't do that, Marsili says he'll hear arguments in June and decide, by force, which group is in charge.
How on earth did courts get involved in this dispute?
ummm... the pastor sued just like the article said
Yea, but why? This should have never gone to court but should have been settled in the congregation.
1 Corinthians 6
Lawsuits Among Believers
1 If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints?
Speaking in tongues is not a biblical requirement. Suing fellow Christians is likewise not biblical. Dividing a church is not biblical unless certain conditions exist not submitting to the authority of the Pastor is not biblical.
It looks like a Jezebel spirit is deep at work.
***Speaking in tongues is not a biblical requirement.***
Among some Pentecostal churches, speaking in tongues is so important that if you don’t speak in tongues when you come up out of the baptismal water they don’t consider you saved.
Some have told how they manage to “fake” it. One man said that he was told to say the words “glory, glory, glory” over and over and then get faster at it. He said there were little kids in the church saying “glo-rey glo-rey glo-rey” learing how to do it.
That depends on the structure of the Incorporation articles of that particular congregation.
In some groups the congregation has no say in the matter.
To go to court over this matter is completely unBiblical.
There are those who would argue that having a 501c(3) or any other kind of article of incorporation for a church is unbiblical.
You play in satan's ball park, you play by his rules. Simple as that.
Incidentally, the passage in I Corinthians does not exclude lawsuits. It discourages lawsuits over trivial matters.
Who has control of the corporate body that created a congregation is not a trivial matter.
I can understand your point.
But who should be in control is God.
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