Thank you so much for this! I was thrilled when the two messengers brought up this issue. When I heard that the IMB was requiring the covid shot for missionaries and their children over 16 years of age, I wrote a letter to IMB expressing my concern. I got a brief response assuring me that their doctors felt the shots were safe. I personally know a family for whom this was the last straw. They left IMB and began raising support in order to continue to minister. I am disappointed and angry overall at the way our churches and religious institutions reacted to covid. It left me thinking some of them would recommend we take the mark of the beast if the government said it was safe and effective. I no longer feel good about supporting IMB, but I have done so because I don't want to let our missionaries down.
These are people who gave up much to be missionaries and then are tossed aside when worldly systems are applied within the church
We didn’t go to church for about 2 years because of ridiculous rules of 6 feet distance between seats and masking rules. No one spoke or socialized! Whatever was the point. Singing with a mask? Please!
And then, dropping into a church while visiting a sister, the pastor said I was sinning for not regularly attending a church. I was respectful and said, “I’ll think on what you have said!” We never went back to that church.
Compassion and grace walked out the back door when worldly systems were applied during that horrible time. And it still continues.
It all boils down to Authority. Who has it and what are they doing with it. Despite all the decorum offered here to the IMB, the IMB has limited their workers far beyond Vaccines and have been subject to careless institutional behavior:
- female (egalitarian) team leaders overseeing teams of men.
- restrictions on their labors in the name of security.
- mobilizing unqualified men & women.
The IMB as a whole generates company men who, in the end, are slaves- not co-laborers.
I appreciate you writing about this. This was a hang-up for us as well.
Thank you so much for this! I was thrilled when the two messengers brought up this issue. When I heard that the IMB was requiring the covid shot for missionaries and their children over 16 years of age, I wrote a letter to IMB expressing my concern. I got a brief response assuring me that their doctors felt the shots were safe. I personally know a family for whom this was the last straw. They left IMB and began raising support in order to continue to minister. I am disappointed and angry overall at the way our churches and religious institutions reacted to covid. It left me thinking some of them would recommend we take the mark of the beast if the government said it was safe and effective. I no longer feel good about supporting IMB, but I have done so because I don't want to let our missionaries down.
These are people who gave up much to be missionaries and then are tossed aside when worldly systems are applied within the church
We didn’t go to church for about 2 years because of ridiculous rules of 6 feet distance between seats and masking rules. No one spoke or socialized! Whatever was the point. Singing with a mask? Please!
And then, dropping into a church while visiting a sister, the pastor said I was sinning for not regularly attending a church. I was respectful and said, “I’ll think on what you have said!” We never went back to that church.
Compassion and grace walked out the back door when worldly systems were applied during that horrible time. And it still continues.
It all boils down to Authority. Who has it and what are they doing with it. Despite all the decorum offered here to the IMB, the IMB has limited their workers far beyond Vaccines and have been subject to careless institutional behavior:
- female (egalitarian) team leaders overseeing teams of men.
- restrictions on their labors in the name of security.
- mobilizing unqualified men & women.
The IMB as a whole generates company men who, in the end, are slaves- not co-laborers.