In Good Faith

There does not appear to be a permalink, but this is an excerpt from a July 31 posting of Dave Seldon's at the WeLoveYouDaveandPaula.com site. Wise stuff.

Sunday evening I attended a meeting with five current and one past elder along with a group of other BCC members. I will post my thoughts about that later today, but want to urge everyone to please do as Steve Lamm suggested, and “take a breath”.

I’m not urging you to change your opinions, or to lessen the importance of this issue, but simply to remember that the elders of BCC are good men. Many of you don’t know them, but I know at least something about each of them, and am at least an acquaintance to each. Trust me, these are truly honorable and good and strong men. You may disagree strongly with them, but this does not mean you cannot acknowledge their goodness.

I’m still wrestling with my feelings and conclusions after meeting last night, but believe that it is important for all of you to do what you can to try to understand where the elders are coming from. This is not said to try to “sway” you to “their side”, but simply to honor the fact, that like it or not, they have come to this place after a long and difficult journey.

I, like many of you, do wish that many things had been handled differently in this process.
That does not change where we are right now . . .

If you are ready to honestly begin the difficult journey towards understanding this situation, I urge you in the strongest possible way to go to a meeting.

(All of the bold emphases are Dave's, btw.)

There are open elder meetings still scheduled for this week. You can sign up at the BCC website. But do so quickly, as there is limited seating and they are filling up fast. (Within ten minutes of the church's email notice of the meetings, I signed up for the Monday night session and was informed it was already full. I am attending Tuesday evening.)

I do not know if the in-home sessions are still going on, but I heard that not many signed up for those. If you cannot get into one of these at-church elder meetings, you might think about inquiring about signing up for one of those previously announced "cottage meetings." If they still plan to conduct them, that is.