Conversations
April 1, 2000
This Bird Has Blown It
I was disappointed when I read John Beukema's "Today's Nesting Habits" (Fall1999). I have watched the sad trend of church hopping in the San Francisco Bay area. I hoped Beukema would offer suggestions to help people strengthen commitment to their church home.
Instead, Beukema has acquiesced to church hopping as normal behavior. He does list one or two special circumstances when it is healthy for a person or family to attend another church (e.g. when a recovery or youth program is not offered at the home church). But his acceptance of issues-avoiding hummingbirds, self-gratifying waxwings, and the passive-aggressive protests of ruffed grouses as acceptable migration is flabbergasting.
I can appreciate [Beukema's] sense of loving and nurturing his flock the best he can. However, I just don't believe it does them any good to encourage lack of commitment.
Dear Bob:
I appreciate the time you took to respond to my article. You make valid points, all of which I considered prior to writing. I did not intend the article as seriously as it seems to have been taken.
My intent was to present the reasons why people have more than one church home, and to consider that some of those reasons are healthy. I think as pastors we have an immediate negative reaction to polydomous people, and I was attempting to challenge that a bit.
What I left unstated, or at least not openly stated, is that I am not tolerant of the negative aspects of the polydomous.
Approach with Caution
I salute Donna Schaper for her bold article "When Public Prayer Gets Too Personal" (Winter 2000). It is long, long overdue.
One Sunday I filled in for a sick pastor. The church secretary told me there would be a list of people to pray for on the pulpit. I dutifully ...
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