Michael Gryboski

Pastor Warns SBC against Using Politics, Social Justice or Music to Grow Churches

“If you win them with music, you’ve won them to music. If you win them with children’s ministry, you’ve won them to children’s ministry. If you win them with politics, you’ve won them to politics. If you win them with your personality, you’ve won them to you, but not to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

A pastor has warned attendees of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting against using things like “politics,” “social justice” and “music” to grow their congregations instead of the Gospel.
Juan Sanchez, senior pastor of High Point Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, gave the Convention sermon on Wednesday morning in Anaheim, California.
Sanchez preached about Ephesians 4:11-16, noting that in the Bible passage, Paul of Tarsus writes about the foundational importance of prophets and apostles.
“The foundation of the Church is the apostles and prophets because that is the group to whom the Father revealed that Jesus is the Christ,” Sanchez explained. “The foundation of the Church is this revelation of the Father that Jesus is the Christ. He is King, He is Lord. It is through Jesus that God will bring together all that has been broken.”
Sanchez then warned against using other means to increase membership numbers, telling those gathered that “we cannot build the Church on any other foundation.”
“If our primary end is merely church growth,” said Sanchez, “we will be tempted to build on other foundations. We’re tempted to build our churches on a foundation of music styles, or age-graded ministries, or even politics or social justice or even our own personalities.”
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Religious Beliefs Shouldn’t be Subject to “Verification,” Justice Neil Gorsuch Says in Dissent

Last August, the First Liberty Institute, Christian Legal Society and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLC filed a petition to the Supreme Court on behalf of New Life in Christ Church after the Virginia Supreme Court refused to hear the complaint against the city for denying the tax exemption status.

A pair of ministers seeking a tax-exempt status shouldn’t be subject to a government “verification” process, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch argued Tuesday.
The Supreme Court denied a request for oral argument in the case of New Life in Christ Church v. City of Fredericksburg, which centered on whether Josh and Anacari Storms can claim a tax exemption for their residence.
The couple are college ministers who minister to students at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and host Bible studies and worship events.
City officials had concluded that they could not claim tax-exempt status for a parsonage, contending that the Storms family does not fit the exact classification of a minister according to the Presbyterian Church in America, which includes a requirement to be ordained and a prohibition on female ordination.
Gorsuch took exception to the nation’s high court denying the appeal in a written dissent, arguing that the Storms should have been eligible for the tax-exempt residence.
“The church tried to explain that the City misunderstood its traditions and practices. The church responded that, yes, women can and do serve as ministers,” wrote Gorsuch.
“It acknowledged that ‘in order to deliver sermons’ a minister in its tradition must be ordained but nothing in its rules or the Book of Church Order ‘prohibits a particular church from hiring ministers to serve as messengers and teachers of the faith’ without ordination.”

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Texas Supreme Court Rejects The Episcopal Church’s Motion to Keep Breakaway Diocese Property

The state’s highest court rejected a motion for Emergency Temporary Relief, allowing an earlier ruling against the mainline Protestant denomination to be implemented. As a result, The Episcopal Church has to surrender all financial accounts, property and records that it had removed from the diocesan properties that formerly were part of the denomination. “Today’s rejection is the third loss for Episcopal Church parties in the state Supreme Court and permits enforcement of the judgment to continue,” noted the Fort Worth Diocese in a statement.

The Texas Supreme Court has once again rejected an effort by The Episcopal Church to secure the property and assets of a diocese that broke away over theological differences.
For the past several years, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth has been engaged in a legal battle against the Episcopal Church over the property and assets of the regional body.
In an order released Tuesday, the state’s highest court rejected a motion for Emergency Temporary Relief, allowing an earlier ruling against the mainline Protestant denomination to be implemented.
As a result, The Episcopal Church has to surrender all financial accounts, property and records that it had removed from the diocesan properties that formerly were part of the denomination.
“Today’s rejection is the third loss for Episcopal Church parties in the state Supreme Court and permits enforcement of the judgment to continue,” noted the Fort Worth Diocese in a statement.
In 2008, a majority of the Fort Worth Diocese voted to leave The Episcopal Church over the increasingly progressive theological views of the denomination, especially the ordination of the denomination’s first openly gay bishop, the Rev. Gene Robinson.
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Charter, Private Schools See Growth During Pandemic as 1.4 Million Kids Taken Out of Public Schools: Study

There is much to learn from families who made the switch, and perhaps the biggest lesson for everyone is how critically important charter schools are to public education. In response to the coronavirus pandemic last year, public schools across the country halted in-person classes, switching to virtual learning at all levels to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Approximately 1.4 million students were taken out of public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and transferred to alternative educational systems such as charter and private schools, according to a recent report.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released a report Wednesday analyzing student enrollment trends in 41 states and the District of Columbia during the 2020-2021 school year.
The report noted that approximately 240,000 students were newly enrolled in public charter schools, representing a 7% increase, while 1.4 million students were taken out of traditional public schools.
Regarding charter schools, the report found that 39 of the 41 states plus Washington, D.C., saw increases in charter school enrollment. Only Illinois, Iowa and Wyoming saw declines in charter enrollment.
For their data, the National Alliance report used state educational agency websites to accrue enrollment statistics for the states analyzed, as well as interviews with parents, students and school staff.

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California, LA County to Pay $800k In Settlement With John Macarthur’s Church Over Covid Lockdown Orders

“California has no such power to determine whether churches are ‘essential,’ as the federal and state constitutions have already done so,” argued the lawsuit, in part. “Grace Community Church provides a spiritual service to the Los Angeles community that its congregation and its members rightly believe is essential, and the California State Constitution specifically protects their fundamental rights in this context.”

The state of California and Los Angeles have agreed to pay $800,000 in legal fees to settle their lawsuit with John MacArthur’s church over COVID-19 lockdown rules.
MacArthur’s Grace Community Church of Sun Valley had been involved in months of legal battles with state and local officials over his refusal to adhere to ongoing lockdown restrictions.
Jenna Ellis of the Thomas More Society, who helped to represent the church, posted a statement on Twitter Tuesday celebrating the $800,000 settlement.
“We are very pleased to see Pastor MacArthur and Grace Community Church’s First Amendment protections fully vindicated in this case,” read the statement.
“It has been a hard-fought battle to preserve religious liberty and we hope that this result will encourage Californians, and all Americans, to continue to stand firm that church is essential.”
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to the settlement (its amount being $400,000) due in part to recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that overturned various public health measures in response to COVID-19 that specifically targeted houses of worship.
“After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that some public health safety measures could not apply to houses of worship, resolving this litigation is the responsible and appropriate thing to do,” stated the county’s counsel, as quoted by the Los Angeles Daily News.
“From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Los Angeles County has been committed to protecting the health and safety of its residents. We are grateful to the county’s faith organizations for their continued partnership to keep their congregants and the entire community safe and protected from COVID-19.”
Last August, MacArthur and his church sued California over its ongoing ban on indoor worship services in response to the coronavirus.
Although Grace Community Church had initially adhered to the state lockdown rules, they returned to in-person worships in defiance of the state’s ongoing public health orders.
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