Gigging at churches with bad doctrine?

I filled in for a friend on bass at a seventh day adventist church here in nyc today.

We played a bunch of music - a lot of contemporary gospel. The church appeared to be very solid doctrinally. The lesson during sabbath school (sunday school) was justification by faith. The songs were edifying.

It was your typical west indian mixed with african american worship service.

The things that stood out to me were the emphasis on doctrine and the fact that the doctrine wasn't focused on their distinctive (or at least what i thought to be their distinctive) as a denomination. There was only ONE reference made to the sabbath while i was there - and there weren't any antagonistic statements made toward non-SDA people.

Here's what stood out to me:

During the sermon, the preacher, a traveling evangelist, spoke about part of the changed life of the believer as one that is free from smoking, drinking alcohol and drinking soda. There isn't a biblical proscription against any of those things, but some people extrapolate that idea from the whole romans 12 "body is a temple" text. For the purposes of majoring in the majors (as opposed to majoring in the minors), i let those statements go.

But then towards the end of the sermon (which was actually a very nice sermon) during the altar call portion of the sermon the preacher said something to the effect of "repentance, faith and confessing the Adventist church as the TRUE church"

shocked

There was an OVERWHELMING response to his sermon so i didn't even think that it would be appropriate to find him and ask him about it (because they were planning to baptize people ON THE SPOT after the service - he had something like 30 people to baptize and i was STARVING!)

There is a VERY high chance that i will get called back to this church to play again since i have good friends that are musicians that play there faithfully.

I'd like to go back there with a clear conscience.



Here's an email that i just sent to the church's contact line:

Today during the altar call that took place after the sermon, the evangelist said something to the effect of "turning from sin, faith in Jesus Christ and confessing belief that the Adventist church is the true church".

Does your church (and/or the larger SDA umbrella organization) agree with his statement that the adventist church is the TRUE church? Confessing your church to be the true church means more than "we believe that our doctrine is correct", it also states that you believe all other churches to be false churches.

Today was my first time visiting your church. I enjoyed the worship service. I was encouraged to hear teaching on justification by faith prior to the 11am service. I was just curious to understand your stance on this issue.

I am not a reporter of any sort. I do not have any ulterior motives in sending this email and soliciting a response.

I am a christian. I am a member of Sovereign Grace City Church, a new church plant, in brooklyn. I am originally from brooklyn, ny and this is the second opportunity that i've had to attend an SDA worship service. I have many friends who are SDA.

I also took it upon myself to read up on SDA churches on CARM and it appears as though there are several problems with their doctrine in general. But it also appears to be the case that SDA church 1 does not equal SDA church 2 - so i'll get to the bottom of all this before i agree to play there again.

accepted and rejected

Currently sitting at my kitchen table. I just finished writing up a bible study on james chapter 1, verse 12 (in light of everything around it, it is a very rich verse...the guy that lead last week taught on verses 1-12) for my monday night bible study. Initially, I had plans to do a study on Numbers 22-24, but I eventually came to my senses and learned that 3 chapters is very infeasible for 40 minutes of teaching.

So, first the acceptances:

I was accepted to both NYU and Yale!!

The Lord is gracious (i would be able to choose to attend either school w/o having to take out loans!!). I'm really partial to NYU, but i'm still planning to attend Yale networking events so that I can meet, greet and learn. My goal is to hit the ground running no matter where I go. A lot of the people that i've spoken to about my admissions decision don't understand how I could ever pick NYU over Yale. What most don't realize is that the ivy league does not have the corner on the top ranking slots. The top business school in the country is the university of chicago. who knew?

-------------------

Now the rejection:

At the suggestion of a friend from my monday night bible study, I pursued an opportunity to preach at the Baltimore City Rescue Mission. I showed up before their evening worship service to take a guided tour with the chaplain. He and I got along really well. I could tell that he really had a heart for the men that came out to the shelter (the shelter feeds and houses about 250 [*i think*...maybe 300] men nightly). Talking to him in the hour prior to the worship service was like speaking with an old friend. At one point he asked me if i wanted to preach that night. I didn't have anything prepared (preaching the gospel is something i'm always prepared to do, but all i was thinking when he asked me was "too soon").

I did introduce myself to the men from the lectern. I also took that time to encourage the men with phillipians 1. The sermon was awesome. The singing was awesome (ever heard ~250 men sing "I love to tell the story"?). I was really excited for the opportunity to minister in such an environment.

At the end of the night, the chaplain told me that I would need to send a copy of my church's doctrinal statement. I sent a copy of my church's doctrinal statement and i also included a note in the email that clearly stated my confession of God's sovereignty in salvation (my church does not confess this - so i felt that i should give full disclosure). I didn't think much of it since my friend who suggested I pursue the opportunity teaches on women's side of the mission and also goes to a church that has a confessionally reformed statement of faith.

I got a call on friday night, while i was in bible study, from the person who runs the mission (not the chaplain) to inform me that my statement of faith disqualified me from teaching at the mission. My friend didn't understand, so she called the guy's wife to ask about me and get this...

THEY GIVE HER WALKING PAPERS!!!



I was really shocked by all this. After speaking with my friend, we came to the conclusion that they have a poor understanding of calvinism and that they have probably had bad experiences with calvinist.

I was really crushed.

A whole bunch of other life stuff has been going on. Another blog is forthcoming.