Transfer of Letter Request
Over the phoneChurch Officer #1: Since he has met with the Session and been received by reaffirmation of faith, we need to send a request for transfer to his former church. Can you help us track down contact information?
Church Officer #2: Sure. [finds number on website and calls]
Church Secretary: Hello, [insert location] Church.
Church Officer #2: I’m an officer at a church up the road. We have someone attending who moved here and is officially a member of your church. To whose attention can I send a request for letter of transfer?
Church Secretary: [chuckles] We don’t do letters of transfer.
Church Officer #2: Really . . . you don’t? [with slight surprise]
Church Secretary: Yeah, we just don’t do them [pause . . . repeat]. People can join online if they want to join and can leave if they want to leave!
Church Officer #2: Well . . . thank you for your time.
Church Secretary: You’re welcome. [click]
Church Officer #1: [later] Ah, yes. The “voluntary association.” I should have known. Silly me; as if we really care where and what our sheep are being fed.
join online?!
Sounds like you got their mail distribution office by mistake.
@bobw: Yes, it’s for real. I checked out the application process. It is pretty involved though.
@Chris: I called the main number.
Well, while you’re on the topic of church, I want to mention today’s sermon at NSF. He covered Judges 19-20. This was a new one for me – I don’t think I’d ever read this before.
I just want to confirm, to make sure I have it right and also to get your take on it. My understanding is that this simply shows that, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit”:
A Levite goes out and gets a mistress. She stays with him some then, takes off. He goes after her, finds her with her family and stays there a few nights. They leave to go back home. On the way back home, they make a point to stop in a town inhabited by Israelites (as opposed to non-Israelites). A guy invites them to stay at his place. They’re not there for too long before a gang of Benjamites tries to break in, get the Levite and sodomize him. Instead the Levite lets them have his mistress. They rape her all night and end up killing her. He wakes up in the a.m., finds her dead, cuts her up into 12 pieces and sends it out to the 12 tribes of Israel.
I am very sorry that you had that type of encounter over the phone with NPCC. Hopefully the info below will fill in the gaps for what you were not provided over the phone.
In a church environment with 10,000 members attending each week, much of the personal shepherding is left to the leaders of individual ministries and small groups. It is certainly a different approach to “church” and one that has evolved with the exponential growth with which God has blessed them.
My personal experience with joining the church included attending a seminar, completing an application, providing references, an interview during with testimony is shared with a head of a ministry, and baptism.
I am a little surprised that they would not want to at least keep an accurate count of active members. It is possible that a volunteer answered the phone. I will follow-up to let them know that my membership has been transferred.