outside observations

The following comment was left on a blog called Decaf. I realize that many would like this conversation to simply fade away but I’ll continue to say that to not deal with injustice in our church is wrong. The following is an important read from an outside observer named Nibb.

Hi folks,apologies, Im not in the SA, but have shared in many a worship with our local corps in Bolton. Chick preached at our own church this Sunday just gone (1th October 2006). My father in law has known the Yuill's for some time, his wife having worked at the local SA in an auxillary capacity some years ago.

He expressed great surprise and concern that Chich had 'resigned', and I said I would attempt to find out why.

The WWW is my stock and trade, there tends to be little I cannot find and I know how to use search engines better than most people. I found the link to this blog after quite a lot of mysterious 'dead ends'. Pages that were live to search engines mere weeks or days ago, now removed, or dead. Which was puzzling, I began to assume the resignation had occured some time ago and all had been swept under the carpet and laid to rest.

A great surprise to read through your comments on the board then, its all fresh, and bubbling and looks to be fairly representative of the undercurrent of concern, anger, fear, and confusion within your own church.

I said 'apologies', because from a certain point of view you could all turn around and tell others - outside of your faternity - to mind their own business. But, evangelism wears no uniform, it does not, or alas, should not I should say, limit itself to within a certain set four walls every Sunday. Chick (and others) have performed a powerful ministry far outside your own walls, and a concerned international Christian community looks on without explanation and with similar confusion to yourselves about the what and why and where of it all. Silence can only be damaging.

I have read much of the oft heated polemic here, and to be brutally honest, at the moment I see less defendable in what has happened at your upper echelons that others of you who by your very uniform are perhaps more entitles to comment.

Purely by way of illustration, and by no means an intention of comparison of person, consider this.... leaders who take action without recourse to oversight, check, are dangerous, or at least potentially so. I would agree that Christ very well would walk into the office and turn the tables over because much appears to be done 'In His Name' when its really been 'What I Think'.

You could argue the toss for hours. Far simpler, better for all surely, and open and above board - for your General to put the cards on the table and explain. It is not good enough for any leader (save Christ) to act without clarification on such matters. And no, simply again, it is not sufficient to say as followers that a leader is Under Authority of the Church or God and blindly accept and agree to all that the demand or assume. God gifts us with many gifts, and amongst the greatest is Decernment. If what has been done can lead to such an arguement alone as has been seen on just this board (and that surely a pale reflection of what carries on in your ranks and in the quiet behind closed doors) - then surely, surely, you need some accountability before the damage done turns into rot, and your organisation with all its great works and emmense value to the world wide Church and society as a whole starts to fall apart and become factionalised.

Don't let it happen. If you can ask the questions here, be brave, pray, and take your concerns higher. Show your public support or your public concern. The watching world will be far more understanding of a community that honestly questions rather than one that hides away.

And a clarification, LIBEL is not questioning someone under authority, it is the defamation of a living person by any means other than the verbal. There is no such excuse allowed by sneaking the word 'authority' in there.

best wishes, and God guide you all
Nibb

By the way, I have also been concerned (read disgusted) about those dead links.