Stever is Heresyman

A little background on the moniker “Heresyman”. Here is the Reader’s Digest version:

Several years ago, the church I had been attending in San Clemente dissolved and blended into another local church. Without going into details, I decided at that time that the new church being blended would not be a great fit for me.

So, I started attending another, well established, church which was growing and quite popular. After a month or two of “plugging in”, attending the Sunday services and trying to get to know people, the church was having a meeting after the last service one Sunday to make some corporate decisions or some-such, and being one who wants to be involved, I stayed after to attend. To my surprise, I was turned away at the door because I was not a “Member”. I apologized for being ignorant, and asked how one becomes a member. I discovered that I must attend “Membership Classes”. So, I signed up and sat through the explanation of how the church is governed and which verses of the Bible are the basis.

After three or four weeks of training, we had our final exam. The exam was a series of statements and you had to mark off whether or not you agreed with them. One of the statements basically said that if you disagreed with the Pastor, you would keep it to yourself. Another said that you would not teach anything to others which didn’t agree with the pastor, even outside of church activities on your own time. Being me, I of course marked the “do not agree” boxes. Needless to say, I was called to meet with the Pastor.

To make a long story short, I refused to change my answers on principal. (He suggested if I didn’t like the way he ran his, I should start my own church.) I was told I was welcome to continue as an “Attender” but I was not welcome to be a “Member”. I intended to start going to the services wearing a scarlet letter “A”. That way if I were asked what the “A” was for, I could say I was branded an “Attender”. But out of respect for my very embarrassed wife, I agreed to find another church.