Thank you and God bless you in your ministry.

If you are part of the lammers’ movement, you might spend a little time suggesting to the leadership that reaching out in “love” rather than with a sledge hammer, would be a more appropriate approach towards the Adventist Church and its members. Blessings, Bruce

exellent…

great…

I’ve availed myself of your SS material for several years and appreciate the work you put in to assist the rest of us.

My dated (but continued) surprise at folks like the “lammers” or Dale Ratzlaff (Is there any connection between the two?) is that there are billions of people in this world that have either not heard of, or have been given the wrong picture of Christ, and as a result, have not had the opportunity to know him has their Savior. Yet folks of this sort spend their time, effort, and money trying to convince Adventists to become ex-Adventists. The disconnect between the Gospel commission and what they are doing is stunning to me. Relationally speaking, it looks like the person who gets stuck emotionally after a relationship ends. I’m certainly not pleased that there are folks who want to end their relationship with the Adventist church, but if that’s their desire, the healthy thing to do is move on. Especially in light of the magnitude of the work before us in the world.

We need to be growing God’s kingdom. There is no kingdom growth value to the kind of activity practiced by these people. However, I do know that among people who decide to leave Adventism, there are some for whom the road doesn’t stop at sitting in the pew of a Sunday keeping church. Rather for some, (to whom I am related), the road ends (ended) outside of the company of any fellowship of believers, which is certainly not consistent with any New Testament model of practice. And this is the risky non-academic mischief that the lammers apparently have no qualms in visiting on their targets of opportunity. It seems they’d would rather risk having folks not connected to the body of Christ at all than to be connected via an Adventist church. Thus the only possible outcome of lammer activites, in aggregate, is a reduction in God’s Kingdom among folks who follow the path advocated and prepared by them.

I could go on. There are other aspects of their approach that make no logical sense to me. Unfortunately, I believe most folks who leave Adventism under the kinds of circumstances cited in their “Stories Of Faith” are not leaving for considered logical reasons, though I doubt you could convince them of that at the time. The telling indicator is that there is generally a common thread or kernel of outrage at something, that starts a person on this path and apparently renders them unable to do a truly logical analysis of their motivations for wanting to leave. Anger is a powerful and blinding emotion.

However, for those who might be considering, but have not yet moved in their thinking so far as to actually leave the church, I pray that your well reasoned (and pithy) arguments may have the desired effect of making folks reconsider walking down a path with so many potholes in it.

Thanks so much for all you’re doing! I believe your efforts are a needed counterweight to these misguided attacks.

God bless.