its members take on the duty of God, judge, and jury.
Keyz... great to bump into you again. I too had been away for a while and popped in... ended up posting and here we are.
The item you mention above I feel is a key part of why I have found my church experience uncomfortable. Which brings up an interesting experience that happened yesterday.
My wonderful duaghter age 14, as we were having dinner just the two of us told me that a friend of hers has come to her to tell her that the friends father has had an affair and doesnt know what to do about it. My daughter asked me what she should do to help her friend.
My response to here was mainly that there was not a lot she HAD TO do. And I gave her my take which included suggestings that included my daughter keeping focused on just being a friend to her friend, not feeling she needed to solve or control anything, suggesting she find outside help with a trusted adult or perhaps her doctor could suggest someone. I emphasized that at 14 neither my daughter or the friend were responsible for the adults.
I further suggested that perhaps she could talk to her friend about what she specifically feels is bothering her like disappointment with her Dad, fear of her family breaking up, embarrassment, etc. Then not offer answers but simply share her own experience, strength and hope of how she got through the tough time in her life when her family was going through a challenge.
My point? In my church experience, we had been encouraged to direct, control, and "help" people who were in problems (aka: play God). We were encouraged to provide anwers, after all, we were The Church. Yet the theme of my entire post here was that The Church has proven to me to be ineffective in addressing such issues. Maybe it is not their place to and all they really need to do is point people in the right direction when such complex issues come up. I honeslty don't know.
I was just concerned that my daughter and her friend may take on too much responsiblity for "fixing" the problem or the people affected by it.
I further encouraged my daughter to act in simple honesty and to be authentic. If you don't know something just say so. Not having answers does not mean you don't care and does not mean you cannot as a friend help the other person seek answers. This differs from my church experience where we were encouraged to be purveyors of truth.... even if we didnt have it....we should come up with something that sounded spiritual.
So ya.... I feel the church, as Dr. Phil puts it, needs to "Get Real!".
Great to see you back on the boards. Thanks for your post.
