{"id":21020,"date":"2000-04-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2000-04-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2000\/04\/01\/conversations-13\/"},"modified":"2000-04-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2000-04-01T00:00:00","slug":"conversations-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/conversations-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Bird Has Blown It<\/h2>

I was disappointed when I read John Beukema’s “Today’s Nesting Habits<\/a>” (Fall1999<\/a>). I have watched the sad trend of church hopping in the San Francisco Bay area. I hoped Beukema would offer suggestions to help people strengthen commitment to their church home.<\/p>

Instead, Beukema has acquiesced to church hopping as normal behavior. He does list one or two special circumstances when it is healthy for a person or family to attend another church (e.g. when a recovery or youth program is not offered at the home church). But his acceptance of issues-avoiding hummingbirds, self-gratifying waxwings, and the passive-aggressive protests of ruffed grouses as acceptable migration is flabbergasting.<\/p>

I can appreciate [Beukema’s] sense of loving and nurturing his flock the best he can. However, I just don’t believe it does them any good to encourage lack of commitment.<\/p>

Bob Lane<\/strong>\nMenlo Park, California<\/em><\/p>

Dear Bob:\nI appreciate the time you took to respond to my article. You make valid points, all of which I considered prior to writing. I did not intend the article as seriously as it seems to have been taken.<\/p>

My intent was to present the reasons why people have more than one church home, and to consider that some of those reasons are healthy. I think as pastors we have an immediate negative reaction to polydomous people, and I was attempting to challenge that a bit.<\/p>

What I left unstated, or at least not openly stated, is that I am not tolerant of the negative aspects of the polydomous.<\/p>

John Beukema<\/strong>\nWestern Springs, Illinois<\/em><\/p>

Approach with Caution<\/h2>

I salute Donna Schaper for her bold article “When Public Prayer Gets Too Personal<\/a>” (Winter 2000<\/a>). It is long, long overdue.<\/p>

One Sunday I filled in for a sick pastor. The church secretary told me there would be a list of people to pray for on the pulpit. I dutifully read it and then followed with my own pastoral prayer. Several days later, I learned a woman whose name had been read from that list was very, very angry. All she had done was to go for a routine doctor’s appointment. Someone had seen her at the hospital and assumed<\/em> that she needed (and wanted) their prayers.<\/p>

During 32 years in the parish, I learned:<\/p>