Mahaney, founding Pastor of Covenant SGM Church, Gaithersburg, MD, and founder of Sovereign Grace Ministries, having run afoul of his own history with discomforting stories emerging, bolts from home church. Mr. Josh Harris, the current senior Pastor of Covenant Life, will be discussing Mahaney's bolt and retreat to Mark Dever's Church, Capital Hill Anabaptist, DC, at an upcoming meeting.
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=2740&cp=all#comments
Dear Members of Covenant Life,
Yesterday in the e-mail regarding Mike Bradshaw’s and Brian Chesemore’s resignations, we announced that we would have a members meeting this Saturday. We apologize for any inconvenience, but we’ve decided to change the date of this meeting to next Wednesday, August 17, from 7-9 p.m. in the Auditorium.
We hope this will allow more people to participate. It also gives me more time to prepare; this Saturday was going to be a stretch, as I need to prepare the sermon for Sunday morning. We had previously planned on having Thabiti Anyabwile preach to us. Thank you for your understanding and patience with this change. Here are some of the bigger items we plan to address at the Members Meeting on Wednesday.
1. Ad Hoc Committees: We will give an update on the selection of Ad Hoc Committee Members. Reminder: the deadline for making nominations is August 13. We plan to select 20 people from the names the congregation nominated and present this list to the congregation to affirm.
2. Caring for Victims of Sexual Abuse: We’ll communicate how we’re seeking to reach out to people on the blogs who have shared heartbreaking stories of sexual abuse and also make you aware of our policies and practices.
3. Mike’s and Brian’s Resignations: We’ll seek to answer some common questions to this current situation.
4. C.J. Mahaney Attending Capitol Hill Baptist Church During Leave of Absence: This is a big one and I wanted to share it with you here and talk about it more at the Members Meeting. C.J. and the Sovereign Grace Board have let us know that they think it is best for C.J. and Carolyn to attend Capitol Hill Baptist Church during his leave of absence. In June, when C.J. realized that a leave might be necessary, he began pursuing Mark Dever (pastor of CHBC) about pastoral care and counsel for both himself and Carolyn. He thinks that in addition to continuing the care he is receiving from Mark, it would serve him and his family to worship with Mark’s church during this time. We’re torn over this decision. We understand C.J. wanting to attend where he feels he can best be cared for and best serve his family, but we also have reasons why we think it would be good for him to stay at Covenant Life. C.J. has also expressed concerns and points of disagreement with how we have been leading during this season. He’s communicated a desire to work through these issues with us in the coming months with the help of mediators from Ambassadors of Reconciliation. We are all eager to do this and have told C.J. we’re ready to meet as soon as he’s ready.
5. Improving Our Communication: We’re seeing that we need to grow in effective communication with the church and would like to share ideas and invite your input.
We look forward to being with you next Wednesday. Let’s continue to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). And please keep your pastors in your prayers. We are weak and fallible but filled with hope in God.
On Behalf of the Pastors,
Joshua
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=2740&cp=all#comments
Dear Members of Covenant Life,
Yesterday in the e-mail regarding Mike Bradshaw’s and Brian Chesemore’s resignations, we announced that we would have a members meeting this Saturday. We apologize for any inconvenience, but we’ve decided to change the date of this meeting to next Wednesday, August 17, from 7-9 p.m. in the Auditorium.
We hope this will allow more people to participate. It also gives me more time to prepare; this Saturday was going to be a stretch, as I need to prepare the sermon for Sunday morning. We had previously planned on having Thabiti Anyabwile preach to us. Thank you for your understanding and patience with this change. Here are some of the bigger items we plan to address at the Members Meeting on Wednesday.
1. Ad Hoc Committees: We will give an update on the selection of Ad Hoc Committee Members. Reminder: the deadline for making nominations is August 13. We plan to select 20 people from the names the congregation nominated and present this list to the congregation to affirm.
2. Caring for Victims of Sexual Abuse: We’ll communicate how we’re seeking to reach out to people on the blogs who have shared heartbreaking stories of sexual abuse and also make you aware of our policies and practices.
3. Mike’s and Brian’s Resignations: We’ll seek to answer some common questions to this current situation.
4. C.J. Mahaney Attending Capitol Hill Baptist Church During Leave of Absence: This is a big one and I wanted to share it with you here and talk about it more at the Members Meeting. C.J. and the Sovereign Grace Board have let us know that they think it is best for C.J. and Carolyn to attend Capitol Hill Baptist Church during his leave of absence. In June, when C.J. realized that a leave might be necessary, he began pursuing Mark Dever (pastor of CHBC) about pastoral care and counsel for both himself and Carolyn. He thinks that in addition to continuing the care he is receiving from Mark, it would serve him and his family to worship with Mark’s church during this time. We’re torn over this decision. We understand C.J. wanting to attend where he feels he can best be cared for and best serve his family, but we also have reasons why we think it would be good for him to stay at Covenant Life. C.J. has also expressed concerns and points of disagreement with how we have been leading during this season. He’s communicated a desire to work through these issues with us in the coming months with the help of mediators from Ambassadors of Reconciliation. We are all eager to do this and have told C.J. we’re ready to meet as soon as he’s ready.
5. Improving Our Communication: We’re seeing that we need to grow in effective communication with the church and would like to share ideas and invite your input.
We look forward to being with you next Wednesday. Let’s continue to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). And please keep your pastors in your prayers. We are weak and fallible but filled with hope in God.
On Behalf of the Pastors,
Joshua
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