Laurent Grosvenor is the pastor of the Alpha Church in Austin, Texas.
In a sermon yesterday, he said the Seventh-day Adventist Church is too top-heavy and bureaucratic. His message starts at 1:43:58:
The Alpha Church is in the Southwest Region(al) Conference. This is within the Southwestern Union Conference and North American Division.
Sermon Timestamps
1:46:14 — If you hear that I'm no longer the pastor next week, then it's because of what I'm about to say right now.
1:46:48 — The church is too top heavy and someone has to pay to support the top heaviness.
1:47:30 — But biblically and theologically, the storehouse is not a building in another city. It is the house where you're fed, where you're formed, where you fellowship, and where you serve.
1:47:45 — The conference or the denomination as a whole is an administrative body and not a sacramental one. It's supposed to facilitate ministry. They don't feed souls week to week. They don't visit the sick. They're not going to call to check on you. They're not going to show up when your loved one needs burying. 9.5 out of 10, they ain't coming.
1:48:39 — The church is the locus of the divine encounter. It is the storehouse of spiritual food and pastoral care. And I and I'm I'm telling you, I'm letting you in to what me and my pastor friends we talk about. I am tired of these conferences and unions uh and divisions building buildings sending money to another office who send it to another office who send it to another office so that the institution is building muscle and the church is atrophying.
1:43:58 — Now, growing up in church, those of us who grew up in church, we would hear this every week. Will a man . . . finish it off . . . Rob God.
Discuss..
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