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 should i be public?

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mrenziboi




Posts : 42
Join date : 2012-05-01

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PostSubject: should i be public?   should i be public? EmptyMon May 07, 2012 11:49 pm

before i started my conversion process and actually up until fairly recently i was a christian minister and pastor. i have one lots of national work publicly as a chrisitian minister and still get requests. yesterday in a conversation i had with a friend who converted years ago they suggested that since i am such a public figure that my conversion may become a public thing. this is sort of stressful for me. a couple of weeks ago when i showed up to school my professor was like hey i heard u were becoming a jew... in schul on sat morning someone told me that my name came up in a faith meeting and someone mentioned that i was converting. i blog periodically and have been considering doing a blog post about converting and if i am the one to do the post then what gets said is on my terms and not someone else. has anyone else had experience with someoen like this. there have already been lots of questions about why did i walk away from being a pastor... or why am i no longer on the board of certain chriatian denominations...
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Dena

Dena


Posts : 678
Join date : 2011-09-05
Age : 41

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PostSubject: Re: should i be public?   should i be public? EmptyTue May 08, 2012 12:47 am

Normally I would say it's your business but since people have known you as a Christian Pastor you may need to be more up front about your conversion.
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mrenziboi




Posts : 42
Join date : 2012-05-01

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PostSubject: Re: should i be public?   should i be public? EmptyTue May 08, 2012 12:57 am

thanks dena yes i have wanted to keep this private and my business but everywhere i turn around i am hearing stories about people talkign about it... i am confused as to why people are talkign about me when i am not around oy vey
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Dena

Dena


Posts : 678
Join date : 2011-09-05
Age : 41

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PostSubject: Re: should i be public?   should i be public? EmptyTue May 08, 2012 1:48 am

Is it Christians who are talking about you? I imagine they are very confused. If Jews are talking about you then perhaps they need assurance that you really are on the path to become a Jew and you are not just trying to hassle them.
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searchinmyroots

searchinmyroots


Posts : 152
Join date : 2011-12-01
Location : New York

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PostSubject: Re: should i be public?   should i be public? EmptyTue May 08, 2012 9:46 am

I would say that if it is already out in the open, somewhat, and people are "talking", then maybe it is in your best interest to write about it in a blog.

This way, as you mentioned, everyone can see the reasons on your terms and it will avoid any misconceptions. Of course people will always have their own opinions anyway, but at least it will clear the air.

Christians don't like to lose people to other religions. And I would guess that is even more so when that religion is Judaism. Some even go so far as to say you were never a real Christian, whatever that means.

Mazel Tov on your journey!
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mrenziboi




Posts : 42
Join date : 2012-05-01

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PostSubject: Re: should i be public?   should i be public? EmptyTue May 08, 2012 10:06 am

it is faith people in general who are talking it meetings and in different settings... as far as the jewish people in the community i have been going to my schul for a year. i dont think there is much concern on that end. i have a lot of jewish friends... some of the conversation is not bad for instance one friend was telling a non jewish friend that she was sad cause one of our jewish friends went off to rabbinical school and so less peope to bring folks together so my friend told her i was converting and she got excited and sees it as an opportunity to get together more study and other things. searchingmyroots thanks once i am done with this paper or when i take a break i will write the blog
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Mychal

Mychal


Posts : 277
Join date : 2011-09-23
Location : Tennessee

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PostSubject: Re: should i be public?   should i be public? EmptyTue May 08, 2012 12:41 pm

I think you should not just come out on your blog and say, "I'm going Jew," but make it a series of posts as to how you came to that decision. Show your research. That way no one can accuse you of making a hasty decision or being brainwashed.

Quote :
Jack Saunders has a snowy white beard of biblical proportions. Back in the 1980s he was a Baptist minister at Frazier’s Chapel Independent Baptist Church in Cohutta, Georgia, near the Tennessee border. But that was before the now 58-year-old Tennessean began to question the fundamentals of his faith and came to the conclusion that the gospel stories of Jesus and the entire New Testament are false.

“It was kind of disturbing,” he says of the experience. “But if you’re looking for truth and truth smacks you in the face, then you have to do something. You have to be able to confront it and say, ‘This is the truth’ and let go of your emotions.”

Saunders recalls how hard it was to express his doubts to his parishioners and admit that he had “been wrong for all those years.” The process was slow. For about a year and a half he preached only from the Jewish Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament. Then one Sunday morning, Saunders recalls, he stood on the pulpit and read from Isaiah 7:14, in which a young woman, interpreted by Christians to be a virgin, gives birth to Jesus. For the first time he let his parishioners know that he saw no hint of Christian prophecy in that passage. “That’s when everything, you may say, hit the fan.”

Some church-goers abandoned Saunders, but nearly half of the congregation’s 70 members were moved by the pastor’s change of heart and stayed as Frazier’s Chapel Independent Baptist Church removed its steeple and crosses. “At the time,” Saunders says, “the only thing we knew was what we were not.” After reading about the Seven Laws and studying with a rabbi, Saunders and his remaining flock became Noahides and redubbed their place of worship Frazier’s Chapel B’nai Noach Study Center. “I wanted to be able to read the Hebraic sources by myself,” says Saunders, who has since learned Hebrew. “I didn’t want to be lied to because I’d been lied to by all those Christians.”

There's also a video about former-pastor Saunders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_QsL7HAvPo
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