BlkManWithSomeSense said:The balance is subjective.
It is. I asked because I just needed to 'hear' it.
Hopefully, the Pastor is lead of the Holy Spirit. Church is more than an uproar of emotions, twist and shout...take up the collections, then Church is out.
I love Isaiah 50:4: 'having the tongue of the learned...a word in season for he that is weary.'
There are some who will always feel the church does enough in some areas and not enough in others. It is in an even more precarious position because critisism comes swiftly when mis steps are made but support trickles in cautiously.
An oft troddened pastor should not undo the dillegence and sincerity of the congregation. We must remember that although we preach, teach and worship together, at the end of each day we choose our own actions.
This is where it hurts...(the bolded) ...the choice of one's own actions...at the end of the day. I look at the ones I've known and I've seen fall and I wonder if I 'missed' it. Could I have done something more in prayer to create a diversion? Offset the enemy? To hear it in the news is one thing; To have (or see) it happen to several, not one, but several Pastors and ministries that I know....
I don't know..... It's just that, what I 'saw' is not what I thought I'd see and it messes with me. I don't understand the choices these men made or why; and we can't blame it all on the devil. Your last sentence above proves it, "...at the end of the day, we choose our own actions."
I just don't know why? Why here in God's house?
That's why the article at the top of this thread is hard because I know personally of some ministries who have done some of what was mentioned.