Recently, I was listening to my pastor teach and discuss our church's new covenant (which, realistically, wasn't "new" because it just explained in better detail the same expectations which were laid out in the previous covenant plus Scriptural references for confirmation), which was recently "rolled out" to our members a few weeks ago. He stated that a few of our members had decided to leave the church on account of the covenant being "legalistic". It is this reason which I find both bizarre and feel compelled to blog.
In looking at both the 2004 and 2009 covenants, I found neither to be, in the words of some, "legalistic".
If you will take the time to check out my profile and watch my YouTube ICOC Presentations 1-7, you will learn that I have truly lived a life of legalism. I had people in my life, who claimed to be first century Christians, telling me how to "live" (tongue-in-cheek quotation marks) my life as a "disciple" (more tongue-in-cheek quotation marks!), to have a date every Saturday night, to read my Bible and pray daily, attend every church service, attend every Bible study, get advice from my "discipler" whenever I had a major decision to make, evangelize/witness/share my faith with whomever I came in contact*, AND that everyone who wasn't a member of MY "church" was NOT a Christian!
Suffice it to say, the covenant which our congregation is signing is NOTHING as legalistic as what I've been through!
*Infractions of ANY of these resulted in either a confrontation from my "discipler" or an intervention-like meeting with several leaders!
