In this church, a woman had come to their council meeting just the month before and asked that they cut all funding from the local church to the denomination offices. Her argument was that as long as they are struggling to meet the needs of their own budgetary expenses, they should not be so inclined to send money to any outside agencies - including the denomination.

Now, one never knows when one hears this whether or not the person making this proposal is on the level. It could be that they really think that this is the logical next step to keeping their church out of debt. And it is because of this - that is, because of the fact that it is an easy and logical thing for local churches in financial straights to consider - that attack agents will use this proposal as a tool for separating a local church from the denomination. That is certainly the case in a denomination like the United Church of Christ - which adheres to a free church polity and allows every local church to be fully autonomous. If they WANT to send us money, they do. If they DON"T want to send us money, they don't have to and we might not like it but ultimately there is little we can do about that.

In the church in question, the Council president was not sure whether or not the request that came from a council member to cut funding to the denomination was one made innocently - in other words, simply as a way to cut the budget in tough times - or with more sinister intentions in mind - in other words, to try and move the church away from a denominational affiliation. We name this as an early warning sign that a move to take over a church might be happening.

The Council president attended our workshop, and heard what was going on in other churches. She took a CD of our workshop to the woman who brought the recommendation to the council to cut the funds, and waited to hear back from her.

She did hear back from her.

She told her that she had no idea anything like this was going on the wider church - or that the very thing she was trying to do was used as a ploy by activists to drive a wedge between a church and its denomination. She said that she wanted to withdraw immediately her request, and that of course the church should continue to fund the denomination, even if it meant more of a burden on their budget. And finally, she reported to the Council president that if there was ever any inkling that any activists were trying to take over their church, she was to called as soon as possible and she would be counted on to fight for and defend their church from takeover.

I am not now in a place to say one way or the other what was going on prior to this new revelation - that is not the purpose of my writing telling this story.

The point to be made is this: we made a calculated decision a long time ago to treat the matter of church takeovers as a pandemic affecting even our strong, healthy, and covenantally connected churches. We have gone to great lengths to teach and train and equip them to fully engage in protecting and defending their church from hostile takeover. Some argue that the less said about this, the better.

But I believe for too long our silence about this has cost us. And here is direct evidence that the strategy to equip church members with information about what may be happening in their churches is in our long term best interests.

We will continue to do everything we can to empower churches to defend themselves against these new age marauders who find themselves on a crusade to destroy our churches in the name of an intolerant God.

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