Your pastor and his wife loves you and yes you are in his care so out of respect you should ask. I applaud the visiting church for their ethics it is outdated today.
I have spoken to my pastor now. He knows enough about my situation to already know why I went visiting yesterday. He has no problem with it and has encouraged me to go as often as I'd like. He only asks that I let him know where and when I'm going so he can answer to the other pastor who'll be calling him when I do go visiting.
I guess that's "permission" in a way. He gave me "permission" to do whatever I want to do w/o having to ask his permission.
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Originally Posted by chosenbyone
You had some good feedback from the other members regarding this situation. Casten's post probably gave the clearest reason why the ladies at the church you visited reacted the way they did when they found out you were a member from a neighboring church.
You should tell your pastor that you were just looking to meet friends, so there wouldn't be any misunderstanding that you were looking to leave the church. He should give you permission to continue and if he doesn't then I would pray long and hard for direction from God on the next step to take.
Your pastor and his wife loves you and yes you are in his care so out of respect you should ask. I applaud the visiting church for their ethics it is outdated today.
Out of respect, I had already talked to my pastor's wife. I had asked *her* for the service time vs looking it up or calling the other church. And out of rsepect I will let him know where and when I'm visiting in the future. But, I will not ask his permission. Unless we're just hung up on semantics. I trust my pastor's counsel and if visiting a church I haven't already heard him endorse, I would seek that before going. But that's still not asking permission.
The visiting church didn't even ask if my pastor knew I was visiting. They assumed he didn't and scolded me accordingly. There are reasons why this bothers me as much as it does but I'm having trouble putting some of them into words and others I'd rather not post publicly right now. I do think the church needs to keep in mind that not everyone attending has been there their entire life. I wouldn't have been as upset if the pastor's wife, or someone else in position of leadership in that church had spoken to me. I still think the best way to have dealt with it would have been to simply call my pastor and find out if he knew I was there..and have him deal with it if he didn't.
There are pastors who are concerned for your soul, that you don't get confused in your thinking. I can respect that.
There are pastors who are fearful you will dicover that they are teaching something wrong or that they are control freaks.
There are pastors that are concerned the tithe is gonna disappear.
All three types are prevalant in our ranks.
I would be packing my bags if a pastor told me I could not visit another church service being held at a time that did not cause me to miss my own church, unless he convincetly showed me in scripture that the church I was wanting to visit was in very clear scriptural error.
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God has lavished his love upon me.
Could it be that you're really a sincere Christian and that lady didn't want you to be tagged or classified as a "church hopper" ... think of it in that perspective.
Interesting answer. Why is church hopping a bad thing? And can I expect a Biblical answer?
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I've gone and done it now! I'm on Facebook!!!
I've not seen too much of that kind of behavior anywhere around here for the most part, thankfully.
It's unfortunate that so many people are walking around with a corncob up their hindend though.
ROFL!
Cheesehead (BTW, I'm wearing a Packers sweatshirt at school today, even though they are playing my Broncos tonight.......don't tell them that though), you have a great way of putting things into the correct perspective!! I love it!
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I've gone and done it now! I'm on Facebook!!!
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