I just want to start with this. When we began the process of starting NewSong Church the goal was to be a church that was different. A church that actually practiced the Love, Compassion, Grace and Forgiveness that Christ exemplified for us in the New Testament. We understand, and have no illusions, that people are people and that people are going to mess up. Some mess ups big, some small. Regardless, we wanted to create a church that would be slow to speak, cast judgement and blame and quick to listen, have compassion and offer BIBLICAL instruction/correction for reconciliation.

When Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees with the woman caught in adultery, he didn’t make a quick judgement. Instead, he said “let the one without sin cast the first stone” and began to write in the ground. As he did this the Pharisees all left. Jesus then asked the woman “where are your accusers?” her reply was “Lord, I have none, they are gone.” Jesus proceeded to pick her up off the ground and said “neither do I condem you, go and sin no more.”

In this one instance Jesus had compassion for this woman, loved her, had compassion for her, and extended grace and mercy to her. In the past couple of days I have witnessed leaders of a church do the exact opposite of this to people associated with their church. Instead of gathering first hand information and offerring to hear a plan of action for BIBLICAL reconciliation from these people, this church chose instead to cut ties and associations with these people because they where more concerned with how it would make the church look to be associated with them.

My heart broke! I was shocked and appalled to hear this. This came from a church that I had great respect and admiration for, and thought that if any church had faith love and compassion for people, it was this church. But that, apparently is not the case. This is the reason many people have left the church completely and have not returned for years. This is the reason people feel that church leaders are nothing but hypocrites. Because in their times of greatest need for compassion and help, they turn to their church and the church turns it’s back on them. It should not matter if it’s a longtime member of your church, a newcomer, or a person in a leadership position. Everyone deserves to have their part of the story told, offerred an opportunity for reconcilitation, and be given the same grace from people that God gives.

God Bless

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