It shouldnt have come as a surprise to him! When you use alcohol as a marketing tool for a “ministry” you have just completely undermined that “ministry” and actually shows the tarnished condition of your heart, and how deep the depravity of the society within which you live has clouded your judgment!
Micah 2:11:
If a man should walk in a false spirit And speak a lie, saying, ‘ I will prophesy to you of wine and drink,’ Even he would be the prattler of this people.
Very few things take church planter Charles Hill by surprise.
But when a group that agreed to support his new ministry work ingin the middle of a predominantly Mormon community suddenly pulled its financial backing and gave him the boot, he was totally caught off guard.
Hill had just begun to host Bible studies and reach out to the unchurched and those who were seeking something outside of the dominant religious preference in Utah – where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is headquartered – when he got fired.
He was allegedly let go because he drank half a beer in public during the new “Beer and Bible” meeting he started last month.
While he was told that was the main issue, he doesn’t have all the details because he didn’t receive a phone call or e-mail from the decision makers, he said. His boss, whom he respects and who had given him permission to conduct “Beer and Bible,” broke the news to him a couple of weeks ago.
He now has less than 60 days before he and his family – wife and three kids – are cut off from all funding and left “abandoned,” as he put it.
“It’s troubling,” Hill told The Christian Post. “We’re out here trying to reach people as Jesus would.
“It’s still baffling to me that when your boss has given you permission that you can still get terminated for something such as that.”
Hill moved out to South Jordan, Utah, last year, leaving a growing church he founded in Ohio to answer God’s calling in what he says is the most unchurched state in the country. He gained financial support from a denomination – which he declined to name in order to keep things as respectful as he can – after being drawn to and recruited by a dynamic church planter (his boss) in the church body.
In a city where around seven or eight out of 10 people are Mormon, Hill said he prayed a lot and battled with how he was going to reach people.
He determined that bars and coffee shops were the few places that he would be able to meet with unchurched and non-LDS folks. He knew that starting a Bible study in a bar could potentially be an issue with the denomination, so he asked for permission from his boss.
He was given the green light.
But once word about the “Beer and Bible” meeting spread and reached the upper leadership at the denomination, the 36-year-old church planter was cut from the $280,000 support he was being given for his outreach and ministry efforts. He was only five months away from a church launch in a region where not one non-LDS church exists in 25 cities.
One of the leaders, who wished to remain anonymous, in the denomination released a brief statement to The Christian Post on Monday, saying: “It’s not an issue of immorality or improper biblical behavior. We simply discovered there were instances in which we were not able to reconcile our differences as it concerns general Baptist principles.”
Hill, whose father was an alcoholic, said he doesn’t even like drinking and isn’t much of a drinker at all. Though he doesn’t believe it’s a sin, one of the biggest reasons he hasn’t drank alcohol is because as a senior pastor, he didn’t want younger believers to stumble and drink too much.
“In Ohio, we had alcohol problems in our community so I didn’t take that posture there,” he explained. “But out here, there doesn’t seem to be an alcohol issue because seven or eight out of 10 don’t drink at all. . . .
