Anyone paying attention to my Tw comments and polls lately has read a bit about the changes recently occuring at the church I'd attended for 30+ years. The social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant financial consequences led to a situation where my congregation has been subsumed by a larger, megachurch-aspirant--if it's not already one--flock as the latest of its five campuses ("campus" being a word of which I'm vehemently unfond in an ecclesiastical context). The interim campus pastor in my location has emphasized that we, as a congregation, are part of ONE church with MULTIPLE locations. Regardless your thoughts about Christianity, does that concept make sense to you?

I believe there's theological rationale to be skeptical of the one-church/multiple-locations model, but a practical one recently came to my mind. The way where I'm churching now operates is that the head pastor of the mothership body writes sermon notes for each other campus pastor to base his own message. What if I get enough out of my location's pastor's homily that I'd like to listen to it again? My only option would be to access the head pastor's take on his notes, as other campus pastors' sermons aren't archived on this "one" church's website. Do you, as I do, see this as problematic?

I won't go into every detail I find problematic in my church's new arrangement, but one at the heart of its leadership is that the senior pastor refers to himself as both a pastor and C.E.O. He's also a business consultant on the side, and I've no problem with his referring to himself as a CEO in that capacity. But, even though he may have incorporaetd the one-church/multiple locations he heads as a limited liability corporation (or LLC; and I'm not certain that he has incorporaetd it). I'm not convinced from the Bible that CEO is a term that should be applied to someone nurturing souls in their relationship with the Lord. Is a pastor using that term OK with you?

Since I started composnig this survey, I had a most antagonistic--though not from my end--conversation with the interim campus pastor of what I'd called my church regarding a letter I'd emailed him and blind carbon copied to my fellow former deacons and a select few other friends regardinmg my concerns with the direction he's taking what I'd considered my congregation until earlier on the day I'm writing this. I believe it would be fair to say that he used strongarm and deflective tactics I've read about used by those who oversee seeker-sensitive megachurches. After a brief time of shock and disheveling of my spiritual bearings, I'm now feeling liberaetd and exhilarated, ready to pursue a place in another church. Have you ever experiecned, however briefly, what you'd describe as spiritual abuse?