Henry said:
John,
I understand what you're saying. Still, for me, if that website you quoted from is telling the truth, I wouldn't join no matter who the leader was- those rules do come across at "cultish," were it not for the fact that it was the Bible being studied, but still such legalism has no place in the body of Christ.
I guess, to me, I wouldn't be worried about joining a cult, just an off-kilter group planned by some misguided people with some really weird rules that stifle real discussion and have the potential to allow a lot of incorrect teaching be accepted and even taught within the meeting.
Keep in mind, I'd never heard about BSF before this thread, and my $0.02 comes just from the comments and quotes you provided.
Hi Henry,
I think you've mirrored a lot of what I was thinking. I don't think they are a cult either, and I don't even know if I would label them off kilter or not, but there is something about it that doesn't make me feel comfortable. So I am leaning very heavily now toward not going anymore.
I actually went a second time this week. The first week, all the new-comers went into an introductory class during the discussion time, so I wasn't able to see how the discussions were actually run. In the introductory class they told us the rules, but I wasn't sure how closely they followed them or not. Below are some of my observations.
For the discussions, they break the whole group (about 40-50) into groups of 10. You are assigned a group that you will keep the whole year. Attendance is taken. In fact, they ask for a volunteer to be the attendance taker each week, so they really encourage that person to come. Also, everyone got nametags to wear. I even got a nice laminated nametag. Both the attendance thing and the nametags didn't sit to well with me. It's little things like that that make me feel some kind of pressure that I have to attend every week. The attendance policy is kind of strict. If you miss three weeks in a row you're out, unless you contact the leader and have a good reason. Also, if you miss more than 8 times during the year (Sept-May) without valid reasons, you're out. I think this kind of attendance policy may be an "addition" to Scripture that isn't right. I can count at least 3 weeks in the next 6 weeks I can't make it due to some family members and friends coming to visit me from the US.
The discussion itself is really not much of a discussion. We go through the list of questions that we were supposed to do the week before. Each question is read and then one or two people are allowed to answer based on what they have written on the sheet. I don't think they are too strict about looking at the sheet though. I probably could have answered if something wasn't on my sheet or added some additional stuff to what was on my sheet. But, since the discussion time is only about 30-40 minutes and there are quite a number of questions, there is really no time for discussion. To complete them all in the time period, basically you can only give a short answer. My discussion leader really didn't make many comments about the answers given, but mainly just said encouraging things. For the most part, the answers given were pretty close to Scripture, but there were a few things said I didn't agree with. In addition, there were a lot of points that were vague and I couldn't attach exact meaning to the words being used. I thought this was very frustrating. For me, precision in meaning is extremely important.
After the discussion, everyone gathers again and the head guy teaches about the lesson. This time it was on Acts 1. I took a bunch of notes this week. I tried to write down everything I could so I could ask you guys some questions if I needed to. A lot of what was said was very accurate I thought, but some things made me a little uncomfortable. For example, some of the things I felt he got right that are often messed up is that the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" comes when you are saved and not at some later time. All Christians are indwelt by the Spirit and non-Christians aren't. There are a lot of Christian groups that get this wrong. On the minus side, here are some quotes that I didn't feel comfortable with.
"He will have expected us to do something in preparation and he gave us the Holy Spirit to enable us to."
"The single over arching purpose is sharing the gospel and the salvation of Jesus Christ. He will have expected us to accomplish something in his name."
Principles
"God has prepared you for service (by serving the people around you)"
"Applying the Bible to your life is the best way to learn it"
Application Questions
"How has God prepared you for service. Is there anything you are lacking?"
"If Christ returned tonight what would he say to you about your service? What do you want to change?"
"What will you pray the Holy Spirit will help you to do this week?"
"How will you apply the lessons of Acts 1 this week?"
It just seems like the Gospel has been lost somewhere. Where is the focus on God and his holiness, justice, etc., our sin, Christ's work on the Cross, etc. It's like they start with these as basics, but then immediately move on to "doing works of service in the Spirit," and sort of only mention the first things on occaissionaly.
Since this is getting long, I'll split it up into another post.
John
