Prologue: I sent my letter withdrawing membership from my church on September 24. On September 25, I received a short response from a friend in leadership acknowledging my leaving, then a longer one from him on September 26 expressing concern and offering to talk. What follows below are my responses to his kind and honest words and emails over the course of five days. I have only included what I wrote in our exchange of email messages in order to protect his integrity of action within the church.
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 9:21 PM Chris Orozco <> wrote:
Friend,
Thank you for your kind and considerate words.
I made my statement about our pastor and elders because that is the only way which I can look at the church and understand the path that the church has taken. Of course, I know that with Grace Church, the church is led for the most part by our pastor, especially in the popular mind, but I also know that if there was a true difference of opinion, one taking risks of speaking up about, that would have been made manifest in some fashion to the congregation. When our pastor in the interview stated his definition of a “real believer”, I did not hear of dissension from within the leadership of the church. However, you are correct that I never heard you say those words, and honestly, in my understanding of you, I do not believe you would even think or utter those words.
Now, I also do not believe that all elders or pastors agree with everything that is said and done by our pastor, and I also assume that some are in deep conflict with the depth and the magnitude of what has happened to the church and its witness to the community, and the ability to minister to at least some of the church members, especially those not cheering our pastor on, which is truly astounding to me to begin with. However, it is the church as a whole that I am leaving, because of what I see as a great misleading, which is a great burden to me. And I leave in order to maintain my witness of Christ and of His kingdom and His gospel to my family and to many friends who I have witnessed to over the years with my life, friendship, and words, who the Lord has allowed me to build a relationship of trust and caring. I don’t know how to do otherwise. If anything this process of me leaving over these years has drawn me closer to them all, and all of them to a better and deeper understanding of the gospel and of Christ. And from my heart, I cannot speak of other individuals or groups as I hear constantly from the church, and I leave also to get away from all of that. I do not want to become or be as our pastor or some others who I hear speak and preach at church.
I do understand it is Christ’s church and not the church of any one individual, but I also know that Grace Church is not The Church and that Christ and the Holy Spirit are at work in many places and in the hearts and minds of those seeking Him and who are His. I greatly rejoice in the faithfulness and compassion of Christ in my life, and in the leading of the Holy Spirit through all of this, and I take great comfort and solace in the prayer life Christ has built within me.
I thank you for your offer of further discussion, you are the only one who has really reached out to me, and I thank you very much for that, but just in your reaching out, you have blessed me in giving me the opportunity to personally explain to you my leaving, and for me, that is discussion enough.
… (Omission of personal information)
Friend, thank you again. You have always been kind.
Chris
On Fri, Oct 2, 2020 at 2:57 PM Chris Orozco <> wrote:
Friend,
Thank you for your letter below. In the interview video, you will hear our pastor speak of his phone conversation with the president, which I believe he has mentioned at least a few times from the pulpit at Grace, in which he tells the president that all, “real true believers”, will support the president for his reelection.
Now, I never seek out these videos or these articles, as I’ve learned to trust the Lord to reveal to me what He wishes me to know, and this particular link was sent to me separately by two friends at Grace church and also via a text thread of multiple family members. All of them who sent me this link, or received it, were either devastated, angered, dismayed, or aghast, or a combination of all, at what they viewed as hypocrisy, the repeating of untruths (Muslims), and the selective analysis of modern American culture and the existing social climate as shallow and politically motivated in boosting the reelection chances of the president. I will not go into the full gamut of comments that were made, but those from Grace, also cited hypocrisy and untruths as key factors of what they heard, their hearts even touched with anger, and these things in their hearts and minds then strengthen and exasperated by the overall silence of the church as a whole and by the leadership.
For me, I wrote letters. Others did not feel that they really had the voice to speak up. And I wrote because I thought it was my duty to the church, and because I wanted to be obedient to the Lord’s leading in addressing these issues, which have been issues for years. I was always mystified that the leadership of the church did not seem to have, or want to have, any collective understanding of the turmoil, anxiety, and confusion and stumbling that all these years of political agitation and noise from the pulpit and the church as a whole has caused within at least some within the congregation, within those that were given to the church, the pastor’s and elders, for their care and protection. And all this for what? For this man’s reelection? I still do not understand this, or how what has transpired and what the church has become has just happened, and I constantly wonder – how can this be? And this is the central theme and cry of my heart to the Lord within my prayers for the church.
And, yes, our pastor is an excellent biblical teacher. And yet even with this, and with a carefully constructed systematic theology for the seminary, and a purified Grace hymnal, and with the seminary and the university and an annual conference for pastors – with all of this, how then do you explain what the church has become, what is being preached from the pulpit, what is being broadcast on GTY, what is being fed into the hearts of the people, why a thousand cheer and applaud rebellion and a putting aside of the second great commandment, and why has so much of the turmoil and noise and chaos of the world come to dominate the voice and image of the church? Again, all this, is why I have left Grace Church, why I believe the Holy Spirit has led me out.
Friend, you have a very difficult task and path ahead of you if you try to bring back into the narrative of the church the voice of our Savior, of Jesus, and His gospel and kingdom. The poison of the world’s ways and wiles within the heart of even true believers is deep and ugly and deathly, and only dealt with by repentance and a calling out to the Lord. Before the Lord, these are not PR issues. You have been a friend to me, friend, and I will continue to pray for you in whichever way the Lord leads you along a better path than what I have seen at the church as a whole.
Chris
Sat 10/3/2020 12:32 PM
Friend,
Our discussion is one among friends and it stays with me. I appreciate your honesty. … (Omission of personal information)
… (Omission of personal information) A blessing in all of this, is that we have drawn closer in communication and in understanding the issues each of us are confronting.
Chris
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