Dear Folks.....

Duane has given me the permission to be an Administrator/Editor of the Forum.

In other words....there is a new sheriff in town....and things are going to be different!!

For one....this will be a Restoration Movement Forum, limited in use to only those who are a part of the Restoration Movement, i.e., Christian Churches and Churches of Christ.

What that means is......if I can't tell from your posts that you are a member of a Christian Church/Church of Christ....I will delete your posts and or threads.

I have personally wearied of trying to convince people who have no intention of being convinced.

If I do not know you....and I find your posts to be questionable....I will e-mail you and ask you what church you are a member of....and I will call that church, if necessary to validate.

The original intent of this forum was for people in the RM to discuss issues related to and of importance in our fellowship of churches. It was a place to discuss/debate ideas within our fellowship.

It was never intended as an evangelistic tool to convert the plethora of Calvinists out there.

Next....I will do my best to keep threads on the subject. For instance, if a discussion on computers turns into another diatribe on the elementary teachings of baptism.....I will start deleting unrelated posts.

Lastly, while some may view this editorial priviledge as harsh....I hope you can appreciate the attempt to get this forum back on track. There are a number of people on here whose views I respect and I would like to have a sounding board to go to when dealing with some of today's issues.

And.....I would like to do that without having individuals who do not have the RM's best at heart....interjecting devisive comments.

The above changes will go into place immediately. I check in often.....and will delete as often as necessary.

I trust, however, it will not take long to get this place back into a more constructive tool.

-- Anonymous, July 22, 2001

Answers

Thanks Robin!!

BTW Folks.....to help out....if you are recommending somebody to the board from your church....or a sister congregation...drop me an e- mail so I know ahead of time who they are. In essence....you are vouching for them.

If you will check out the "Microsoft...." thread....you will see the beginnings of what I am doing.

-- Anonymous, July 22, 2001

Sounds good to me.... I am a big believer in being able to talk about everything, but there is a time and a place.

Thanks!

-- Anonymous, July 22, 2001

Brother Danny:

I welcome you as the “new Sheriff in town” so to speak. And as you know I have been writing in this forum far more than a year and have enjoyed the many discussions. I have written volumes on the subject of baptism and very likely have repeated those arguments in great detail probably more than five or six times. This labor was indeed a labor of love and it was seldom notice as being such. Several have in fact been converted to Christ through this forum and those many discussions on those fundamental themes. I might also notice that numerous false teachers from our own mist have come and gone as swiftly as they arrived. The work however in the direction of ‘converting some of those Calvinist out there” was frustrating but not without some success. And I thank God and those who have made this forum possible for those results. And I pray that those who have been converted will remain as lurkers in the forum and will use it as an opportunity to grow in the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

AS you know, I would most certainly have no aversion to continuing the battles with false teachers. For they are battles that must be fought. But there are plenty of forums out there for me to attack their pernicious ways. In fact, many of their forums do not allow the free expression that we have had in this one. If you ever make strong statements they will consider that you are “unloving” and will not allow you to be in their forum any more. But I can try can’t I?

One of those who did so much work to bring this forum about and make it a success is our Brother Duane. I believe that we should all express to him our great appreciation for all of his diligent efforts and his faith in Christ our Lord that moved him to begin this great work. I want to express my gratitude to him for such a great work. For I know that he sacrificed much time and energy in the work. I pray that we will see him often in the forum again. So, please accept my great appreciation to Duane and his wife Teresa for their labor of love in the beginning and maintenance of this forum and the great good that has been accomplished thus far in it. And I particularly appreciate Brother Duane for his eminent fairness and impartiality in allowing all to express freely what ever they wished to say.

And Brother Danny, as you know, we have fought many battles together in this forum against false doctrines of Calvinist and many others. I believe that was a good work. And I am sure that this new approach will be productive of much good for the edification of the body of Christ under your diligent and dedicated oversight and guidance as well. And I look forward to fellowshipping with my brethren in this new direction which the forum is taking with the hope that I can in some way contribute to the furtherance of the cause of Christ and the strengthening of the faith of my Brethren through the word of God. As you know I have great respect for you and the work that you do for Christ. And I pray that we can now focus on a greater study of God’s word without having to perpetually defend the faith from those who come in from outside of the body of Christ with no greater purpose than to disrupt and express contempt for our Lord and his word.

I do not know exactly what I will do since I will have a few “opponents” to fight. Ha! It seems that I have been doing that so long that I may not remember how to do anything else! Ha!

Honestly, however, this may allow me the time to begin writing what I had started to write once before but was constantly interrupted to go and defend the faith from a continual stream of false teachers who sought to use the forum as a means to spread their pernicious doctrines. And it is regrettable that many of the arguments that I made and repeated many times were simply ignored with not even the slightest effort to respond to them in any way.

But I had started to write some expositions of the scriptures, somewhat like a commentary, with some practical observations to strengthen us in our understanding of God’s word that is able to “build us up and give us an inheritance among all them that are sanctified”. (Acts 20:32). I hope that with this new approach I will be able to find time to do such a work and it is my sincere prayer that it would be of benefit to my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus our Lord who read this forum regularly.

You have said:

“If you will check out the "Microsoft...." thread....you will see the beginnings of what I am doing.”

I see what you are doing. And I must tell you that I spent several hours today writing a response to nonsense that I had answered many times and had just posted it and now I is gone! Ha! But it probably received as much notice gone, as it would have received if it remained! Ha! Not to worry, I save my work if I ever need it in the future!

I do understand what you are doing and support you in it. Though there are many who were learning much from the conflicts that they witnessed in the forum. But, it is my prayer that they will continue to lurk and learn as much as they can as we now have the opportunity to focus primarily on the word of God. And comprehend what it teachers without having a constant never ending discussion of the false doctrines that oppose the doctrine of Christ. For if they learn the doctrine of Christ they will always know when any false doctrines conflict with it and will be ready to answer every man.

I consider you a fair, just, honorable and faithful brother in Christ. And I look forward to seeing how much good we can achieve if we have enough time to discuss the word of God without having to constantly defend the truth taught in it from false teachers. Who have no desire to sincerely consider the truth but rather who do not love it at all and ever despise it, as well as, those who teach it and faithfully follow it.

Your Brother in Christ in love of the truth,

E. Lee Saffold

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

A new sheriff indeed... and a well-qualified one.

We are coming up on two years for this Forum. But we have wandered from it's first intent. In the "About" section (see opening page of this Forum) one paragraph reads:

But this Forum is not the place for those of you who wish to challenge the historic positions of the Restoration Movement. There are plenty of Forums on the internet for this purpose. This is not one of them. If you are a sincere seeker of the truth, email me at duane@thechristianchurch.com and I will be glad to direct you to many Christians who would be happy to share their opinions with you.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

To be quite honest, I was about the "drop out" of checking this page on a regular basis ... i have it as my home page so I can get up-to- date readings on what is going on whenever I go to the internet, but I was about to change to another homepage. Having almost everythread, regardless of original content, end up refering to immersion was getting very old.

There are a number of folks from outside the RM on this forum ... and they may be posting from a good heart ... but most of what they say needs to be posted elsewhere. Reading how Connie blasted the RM congregations and members as a whole was almost the last straw. Now I can hang around again! I'm glad for that.

I'm sure Danny will keep the forum interesting.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

Thank you Darrell!!! Interesting it will be!!

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

Cool !!!

Sanity & Reason returns!

Thanks, Brother

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

I did want to thank Duane for pointing out that while the direction of the forum now is "different".....it is certainly not "new." This direction change brings us now more in line with the original intent of the forum that Duane cut and paste in his last post. This original intent can be found on the home page of the forum.

And we know those of us in the RM.....are very interested in "original intent." :)

BTW.....I'm just the "Deputy Sheriff"....(Barney Fife). Duane is still "the" Sheriff.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

but isnt the Forum a living breathing document? I wouldn't want to be a strict constructionist...

Danny can be Sheriff... I'm more like the mayor... getting credit but doing little work :)

We could use some volunteers to help RE-Categorize some of the old threads....

Any suggestions as to some additional Categories? This will help visitors gain quicker access to some of the archived posts....

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

Hey -- can I be an alderman ... or city councilman ... or something like that? :)

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

Duane......I'll leave the "categorizing" up to you!!!

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

Duane:

Since you are the Mayor, I hope you will consider allowing me to just "sweep the streets"!

I agree with you however that the archives should be organized now so the persons can find articles posted on certian subjects as opposed to merely being able to find a thread. I realize that it might be difficult to have something similar to a "table of contents" for each thread but that would indeed be helpful. For as you know, for quite some time the title of the treads, since they were designed more for effect that utility, do not really tell one exactly what the subject of the thread is. And worse, the threads often merely suggested a topic that others chose to discuss rather than the subject of that particular thread. Therefore one cannot tell by looking at the titles of the threads or the broad general categories given to them where to locate a particular post with information that they considered useful or that they would like to read yet again or material that they need to quote in order to verify the truthfulness of an assertion that a certian person actually said something that they are now denying that they have said in the past.

Thus I have two recommendations. One, that we all volonteer to take a small number of threads and go through them and make a table of contents concerning what is actually found in them. And two, that we then categorize them under a certian subject heading that fits the majority topic actually discussed in that thread. And three, that we then set some guidlines, and assign someone to ensure that they are followed, concerning titles of threads which will indicate more accurately the topics under discussion. And that as soon as a new tread is started the title can remain but that it is assigned to a subject or topic heading that we believe fits the actual conversation found in the initial post rather than the title which was selected by the one initiating the tread. For as you know there are those, like Nelta, who would give some wild title to gain attention and the subject of the initial post and hence the thread had nothing whatso ever to do with the title. And four, that we make a table of contents, underneath the actual subject of the thread as each new post is posted into it.

It seems to me if we do this eventually we will have topics or categories with threads under them that have each a table of contents describing each new post that is entered under that thread and one can easily then be able not only to find the threads that discuss the subject of their intrest but also the very post that interest them.

And, if we wish to be more detailed, which I highly recommend we could have a category of post which are listed under the author of the posts so that persons seeking information from a specific author can search under the authors name if the only information that they have is his name. This would be useful to new comers to the forum so that they can see what a particular author has said in other threads and other post concering the same topic at a glance. And this way the authors can refer them to those threads or post more easily and they will not feel the need to repeat what they have already covered previously.

These are some suggestions and I am aware of how much work would be required to do somethingl ike this. I have not fully explained every detail of the idea but I am willing to help make such happen if the "Mayor" thinks it would be a good idea.

So, if this would be a good idea then all the Mayor need do is send the "deputy Sheriff" to tell the "street sweeper" to "clean things up around here a bit" and the "street sweeper" will be happy to comply!

For Christ and those who love the truth in Him,

E. Lee Saffold

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

Who is gonna be Earnest T Bass?

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

That would be me ;)

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

Does that make me Opey?

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

Danny, If I am Opey, can I call you "Pa"?

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

I guess that leaves me as Aunt Bee. Making sure you all get enough to eat, wear your warm clothes, clean up after you, generally taking care of everyone. And on occasion lovingly muddle up your life.

I am looking forward to the way this forum will be re-directed. I know I will learn much from our discussions.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

Can I be Goober??

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

No Mark....you are more like a raisenette!!!

:)

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001

Hey!...................I resemble that remark!

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2001