NOTE: Of the 30 elders, only Chuck Horton and Keith Benson signed and returned this document.
From Concerned Members of
Grace
Brethren Church
Of
Long Beach
December 16, 2011
Dear Elder or Prospective Elder:
This
letter comes to you from some current elders, four prior chairmen of the elder
board, eight missionaries and former pastors of this church, at least sixteen
former elders, long time members and concerned individuals that are supporters
of the Statement of Faith (the “Supporters”).
There are now well over 100 Supporters.
This letter is sent to you on their behalf.
We
believe that the pastoral staff and members of the EBOE have not been following
the church’s bylaws, which they are required to do by the California
Corporations Code. We believe that one
example is their failure to properly qualify candidates for the office of elder. As a result, some of you do not qualify to be
an elder because you do not accept as true all of the tenets of our Statement
of Faith.
Article II, Section C, Statement of Faith, has the following
introductory statement:
The Statement of Faith under
which this church exists, by which its Members associate themselves as a
distinct body, and which every Member must accept, is composed of
belief in the following: (emphasis ours)
Our
by-laws furnish the reason that this is so critical: “in order to preserve the doctrinal unity of this local church.” It
is this failure, this lack of a thorough examination of potential members and elders
that has led to the disunity that our church currently faces. Acceptance of the Statement of Faith is a covenant of
each member to every other member that they personally believe that each and
every proposition in the statement of Faith is true. The necessary corollary is that a person must
believe that any proposition that is contrary to or in conflict with any
proposition in the Statement of Faith is not true.
During the nominating
process, some of you objected to paragraph 9 of the Statement of Faith dealing
with end times. Paragraph 9 provides as
follows:
Future Plans of God.
Jesus Christ is coming back before the Tribulation to remove His Church to
heaven. Following the Tribulation period of seven years, He will return
to this earth with His saints and angels to rule and reign for 1,000 years
after which “eternity future” follows. (Daniel 9:24-27; Matthew
24:15-31; 1 Thessalonians 1:10, 4:13-18, 5:1-9; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10;
Revelation 3:10, 19:11-16, 20:4-6, 21-22).
If a person does not believe that this is true, then
such a person cannot be an elder. Nevertheless,
some of you were allowed to become or remain an
elder contrary to the bylaws and Statement of Faith. You
were told that you merely had to acknowledge that this is the position of the
church and that you personally need not hold this position. That is not true. If that is your belief, you cannot sign the
enclosed declaration.
Next
month you are set for affirmation. You
must get 2/3 affirmative vote to be affirmed.
Enclosed is a declaration for you to sign and return in the envelope
provided. If you cannot sign this declaration in good conscience towards God, you
should withdraw your name from consideration. In the
event that you do not sign and return it by December 30th, we will submit your
name to the EBOE as being unqualified to be an elder because you do not possess
the requisite belief(s) in our Statement of Faith as required by our bylaws.
To
be clear, if you do not accept as true all of the propositions in the Statement
of Faith and believe that any propositions contrary to or conflicting with the
statement of Faith are false, then you cannot be an elder of this church. Please print and sign your name at the
bottom of the declaration and return it in the envelope provided. You may fax your declaration to [--]
or you can scan and e-mail it back to indicate that the original is in the
mail. However, in all events, we will
need to have the original with a “wet” signature.
We
will report to the Supporters the names of those who have returned the
declaration with a “wet” signature. We
will ask each of them to go before the Lord and ask for His direction in how to
vote in the meeting of the congregation.
John T. Anderson, Richard Byrd, Terry L. Polley*
on behalf of The Supporters of the
Statement of Faith
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