The link below will take you to the video of Patrick confronting the protester that decided to set up shop across the road from the church on Super Bowl Sunday. I am amazed that the protester put this video on youtube himself. Please share your thoughts on the incident.
OMGosh!!! Patrick I don't know how you kept your "heathen" self from getting SUPER mad!! I'm so proud of you!!! Who would have thought a football game would have caused all this??!!! Actually, I think it was great that Christians were able to get together and watch the Superbowl together. I hope there were some unsaved people there that could see what "true" believers do!! There's no better way to minister to the unsaved than to show them how to have fun together. It's sad that some people just don't get it and hide behind their King James Bible's. They don't see that it's about love and not judgment. They want to judge the world - not love it like Jesus did. I don't recall reading about Jesus standing outside the synagogues with picket signs protesting!!! Must be in a different Bible than the one I read!!
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ReplyDeleteIt is sad that this man claims to be a Christian but is so full of hatred toward others. It is people like this that drive people away from the church. Keep doing what you are doing, Patrick. You reach people because you make our faith relevant to our every day life.
ReplyDeletethere are over 600 hits on that video now...wow!
ReplyDeleteThe following will appear in next week's White County News (Feb 17, 2011) in my monthly article:
ReplyDeleteGod loves the Protester…and the Protested
A couple of weeks ago the church where I pastor attracted a group of Christian protesters during our Super Bowl event. Honestly, I found it quite strange: Christians protesting Christians. Really?
Like many of you, I have grown accustomed to seeing protesters on the square delivering a conflicting love/hate message to targeted groups. I just never imagined that a group of passionate followers of Christ who will go to any lengths in order to help restore a broken world and the broken relationship between people and God would be the target of demonstrations by others who profess to have the same purpose.
My understanding of the moral will of God as revealed through Scripture causes me to agree with the protesters’ condemnation of sin. However, the same Bible used to reveal the holiness of God and the devastating and eternal consequences of sin also records the love of God, who “demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
(cont.)
ReplyDeleteThat evening of the protest, I attempted to engage the protesters. I invited them into our event and offered to introduce them to some of the many people who have come to faith in Christ and have found freedom from drug addiction, or the restoration of their marriages and families, as a result of choosing to trust and follow Jesus. They were not impressed, nor open to the invitation, and just grew angrier, eventually resorting to name-calling through a bullhorn. Surely the heart of God was broken, or at least frustrated, to see his children unable to get along.
I do not question the passion and zeal that the protesters have for God and the Bible. Their actions were no doubt driven by love and devotion for God, and strong emotional concern that he was being somehow misrepresented. Their intentions were not to destroy anyone’s faith in God or the Church, but rather to call those who they perceived to be out of step with God back into alignment. Like Saul (later renamed Paul) in Acts 8-9, they were sincere in what they were doing, just sincerely wrong.
Acts 22:3-11 records Paul’s testimony of how he came to the realization that all of his conclusions about Jesus and his followers were wrong. Saul had devoted his life to learning all he could about Jewish faith, law, and prophecies, and along with most of his colleagues, concluded that Jesus was NOT the Son of God or Savior. So Saul set out to protest the followers of Christ, in hopes of bringing them back into alignment with his own understanding of faith in God. Saul had it all figured out, until he figured out he had it all wrong.
Through a supernatural encounter with Christ, Saul became Paul—a devoted follower of Christ with as much passion for defending Christ and his followers as he once had for attacking them. Later, a follower of Christ named Barnabas brought Paul to meet the other disciples of Jesus, who were more than a little apprehensive about accepting Paul into their fellowship.
How would you respond when the one who led the protest against you on the street last week was sitting beside you in church the next week?
This was not just a test of faith for Paul, but also a test of faith for every follower of Christ. The disciples’ initial response to Paul was in protest (Acts 9:26). But after his eyes were opened, Paul became the outspoken supporter of Christ and defender of the Church, who lovingly and sacrificially carried the Gospel to those living farthest from God, the ones he spent the first chapters of his life condemning and avoiding.
It is much easier and perhaps more culturally acceptable to respond to a Saul by becoming a Saul: to protest against the protesters. The greater challenge and call of Christ is to respond to a Saul the way Barnabas did: as one who can appreciate the sincere love and passion that such people have for God and the Will of God, and the willingness to look past their misguided zeal and combative methodology with prayer and hope that their eyes can be opened, their hearts can be broken, and their anger towards a fallen world give way to compassion for fallen people.
I apologize to all those in our community who may mistake the actions of a few, done in the Name of Christ, to be a statement made on behalf of all those who consider themselves to be followers of Christ. Please forgive us. History shows that even the most sincere Christians are not immune from missing the point and allowing their spiritual zeal to be misdirected. Unfortunately the message that some of Jesus’ followers scream through bullhorns can drown out the message he delivered through the cross: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:16-17, emphasis added).
I have noticed, in retrospect, that the words and actions of a few can only heap trouble when one calls attention to it. The fact that this protesting pastor found it so important to bring his albeit misguided throng to our Church, to an event that does the very thing today that Jesus commanded us in the great commission...must mean that we are doing something right. The message of Salvation...that which we are COMMANDED by Jesus' own words is being spread so far and wide that the true result is unbelievable. It is sad, to me, that these folks did not see what everyone else in our community sees, that being the action of our very motto...Connecting faith and life. I am proud to call THE BRIDGE my church home, and especially honored that Patrick is our Pastor! Preach on!!
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