Not On My Watch!

This morning I received an anonymous letter. Every pastor loves those things. Many guys tell me that they just throw them away, but I've kept a file of them over the years and from time to time go back and look at them again. It's really interesting to see how stories change over time. While this letter was  "anonymous", it is pretty clear just who wrote it because of the things that were said in it. I'm not going to go into it all, as it was 3 pages typed; but the gist of the letter was that if I would just move away that people who had left the church could come back to "their" church. 

It was rather interesting that in this person's mind, I have run people off because I wanted to change things and (I quote) "not let people run the church."  Now there's something I never thought of! Pastor's should just let the people do what ever they want! Why did I not think of this before?  But the real shocker was the main thrust of the letter. The person writing it went on to say that I am a good preacher, but that my problem was that I needed to stick to preaching about "good things" and that I needed to stay out of people's lives and let them live the way they wanted to. Basically, I should preach people happy and leave each person to their own ideas and devices and to live however they want? 
But it gets better. 
The writer of the letter went on to say that everyone is capable of making their own determination of if they are living right and they did not need anyone telling them from the pulpit what was sin and what was the right way to live or worship. He said that (again, I quote) "the church should be a safe place for anyone to come, no matter what their lifestyle or their belief in God and hear an uplifting message to encourage them that God loves them just the way they are."  He went on to say that we should "be a place where anyone, Christian, Muslim, Mormon, gay or straight should be able to worship together in the same place and leave the service feeling good, encouraged and happy with themselves because we are one." 

I'm sitting here just stunned this morning. Absolutely stunned. Basically, what this guy was saying is that he want a Unitarian Church. 
Sorry... not happening at Harvest Church. Not on my watch.