resignation

It was officially announced on Sunday, and many of you have known for several weeks, that I have resigned from First Baptist. It is a complicated matter and I won't go into all the details, if you'd like to know more please feel free to call or email.

The heart of the matter is a disagreement about what the role of pastor is. Three texts were laid on my heart and these were the things that led to my resignation.

"Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." - Jude 3,4

"Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ...to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ" Colossians 1:28, 2:2

"And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." - Ephesians 4:11-16

A failure to abide by these texts has led me to leave the church. May God be merciful to us all.

In Christ,

-joe