junior misn: Please spare the city for the sake of 50 people.
senior misn: you are a young misn. you don’t know what you are talking about.
junior misn: please. I’ve been here for several years. I just have a suggestion.
senior: no you will always be a young misn. humble yourself. if you are not happy with the situation go and start your own chapter, prove yourself. We will not compromise. 
(as Dr. Ben said, “shape up or ship out”)

end of discussion….
hope no one gets offended, but this is just a pattern that I’ve noticed.
But, i dont think this behaviour reflects God’s heart.

But I personally have experienced true friendships in UBF. Friendships, like all relationships take work from both parties. The best Bible teacher I ever had told me, “I want to be your friend.” She was the first Bible teacher to ever say that to me and she meant it. If you stumble across people who don’t want to be your friend, I suggest you shake the dust of your feet and leave them. Of course, do your best to make friends, but if nothing changes after 4 years then leave. But when you find someone willing to be your friend hold on to them and treasure that friendship. “Friendship is one soul living in two bodies.” You are not going to have that with everyone, but 3 or 4 would be nice:). 

Sentences, such as, “How sad it is that there is no place for good and somewhat the best christians I know in the organisation of UBF!” or “…he cannot be a friend of a member, because he believes to be “over” them in “spiritual order”. He cannot be the friend of the regional director either, because he believes to be “under” him” are generalizations.

In my opinion, such statements do not reflect reality and they are disheartening and unhelpful for the many people in UBF who actively seek change in the ministry.

 But let me illustrate an effect of ministry-idolatry (and im not writing this to put anyone down). I got a Christmas card from a child and it said, “I hope you have many one-to-ones, SWS attendants and raise 12 disciples.” I was like, “Child, do you even know what you are talking about? Are those really your words?” From a young age even children start to value numbers as most important, but this has so many negative effects. How can a missionary survive when his value depends on the number of one-to-ones and SWS attendants he has? When his “sheep” aren’t doing “well”, i.e. not attending SWS, daily bread, conferences, meetings, it gets ugly. Just as when you try to take alcohol away from an alcoholic (this is just an analogy, I’m not calling anyone an alcoholic). If a leader receives his value from his ministry then anything that doesn’t go his way in “his” ministry is a threat that must be destroyed. We have heard instances of it right here on this site, some of us have been personally affected by it.

But the golden commandment is to “Love the Lord your God.” The first commandment is, “You shall have no other gods before me.” The second one is similar, “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the the earth beneath.” Nothing must take the place of God, which is the first place in our hearts. This is a struggle every Christian deals with.

1. I respect the director of my previous chapter as God’s servant. Just like David never lost repect for King Saul. He is God’s servant no matter what. Like King David whom God called a man after His own heart, committed adultery and murder. Just like Abraham whom God called his Prophet even though he lied to Abimelech and didn’t protect his wife. My previous director didn’t do any of these things. Yes, I am still friends with my previous director. In fact I went to his church last night because they had a guest speaker on healing. It was really interesting. It was in Russian so I understood only about 80%. Maybe if I get the translation I will have it posted in UBFriends and see what you guys think of it. It was a 3 hour lecture so I will need to just summarize it. I greeted him and he welcomed me. I love his wife. I call her often and even invited her to lunch for sushi. She hasn’t taken me up on it. (She’s busy) When their youngest son broke his foot and her husband was in Korea she called me and I brought him to the hospital. Their older son skypes my daughter and they talk for hours about spiritual issues(that’s what she told me). Their daughter comes to my house for movie night and any party we have. Their children are like our children. My previous director is a man of God. I am not close to him like I am with his wife but I consider him my friend. 
2.  Can a UBF director be a friend of someone who left UBF? Yes, ask Dr. Ben he is the director of Westloop UBF. Brian Karcher is one of his good friend. John is a friend of Andrey S. and others who left and he is the director of Podil UBF. I can’t say about others because I don’t know about them.
3. The American who commited that terrible crime should be tried and the court must decide his fate. In the previous article that Dr. Ben wrote “Your sin will find you out.” talks about what happens when we commit sins. God is Love but he is also Holy and Righteous.

I am personally very aware of the shortcomings of the church, which i call my spiritual home. The stories you tell are really terrible. I do not doubt for a second that your pain is real. However, i am also aware of the fact that UBF is huge and diverse. 

There are UBF directors, which do not see themselves “over” their people and who understand submission as a mutual thing.

And I’d like to ask some more questions.

1. Are you real friends with the director of your previous chapter? (I can say that in our chapter the director and friendship are antonyms. The director used to say: “Never become a friend to your sheep, keep the distance, otherwise it will be difficult for you to rebuke them, and there is no spiritual growth without rebuking!”) 
2. Are those who left and the director friends? (Both questions could be united in one: can a UBF director be a friend to someone? If not, then, can there be friendship in UBF at all under such leadership?)
3. What to do if “the american continues to massacre a lot of people”? To love him? To reconcile? To trust him and the massacred to God and do nothing keeping silence? Or to try to stop him or at least to help him understand that he is wrong and to start to discuss “the issue” with him?
(Maria, I know that you are such a joyful christian. I like you )) and these questions – may be you have already answered them for yourself and could you just share?) Thank you.

My leaving was for unity, to bring attention to numerous problems and to actually begin building a new relationship with my shepherd, because I realized I had no such relationship. 

All my friends are still my friends. People who were acquaintances or fans of my ministry defense material, faded quickly and don’t talk to me. But something surprising happened when I left: reconciliation. I began meeting in person and virtually many former members. We apologized for fighting in the past. We had dinner together. We had several 3 hour conversations in person. We worshipped together at Grace Community church. All these things were only possible for me and my family when we faced the facts and left the “brother selling”, authority-demanding, hamster-wheel structure of “spiritual discipline.”

And even more amazing, I started to be friends with my beautiful, intelligent, faithful, wonderful wife! We had been married 17 years, but lived like single college students who didn’t know each other. Now we are struggling through meeting each other for the first time, yet having raised 4 children and built a life together. 

Second. A story about Chrisitan friendship.

The Christian school where I work at is full of children of: southern baptists, presbyterians, reformed theologians, arminians, nazarene (weslyans), pentecostals, catholics (but I’m not sure if they attend currently), orthodox, etc. All the parents get together and are friends because their children are good friends. (Parents learn from their kids; kids learn from their parents. Parents + Kids = beautiful relationship when they get along.) Admittedly, Bible class would get rowdy, especially if the topic was predestination or when the speaker at chapel was pentacostal (and spoke in tongues).

But we are unified by the Great Commision, our calling to preach the gospel, good news. Of course, we each have our respective ministry, we go different places on Sunday (or Saturday) but get together for soccer/bball games, workshops, etc.  I see this as a mini picture of the body of Christ we have different functions; but one goal. We are still one body who shares the same joy and the same pain. And I’m so glad to learn from fellow believers. My friend recently said, “I’m Baptist on paper, but in my heart of nothing. (She follows Jesus)”

I’m aware of this rare opportunity/community and I thank God for it. We are bonded by our love for our kids, our love for this country and our love for Jesus.
  
 

In any case, this topic is well worth a ubfriends go-around. These days I am finding out who my real friends are. I found that most of my UBF “friends” were really only acquaintances. And many of those “friends” only liked me when I was defending UBF. Now that I speak my heart and mind openly and think critically for myself, I get an icy shoulder. So many UBF people have de-friended me on Facebook that I stopped trying to keep track.

A friend of mine, who really is and has been a friend for 20 years, told me on the phone last year that he almost doesn’t want any Christian friends. At his workplace, he can manage million dollar projects well, and not one person prays. But at church, he is told that he is not intelligent, and church “friends” can’t even agree on how to study the Bible.

Personally, I would have to agree with him. I don’t want anymore friends who call themselves Christian. If someone is my friend and happens to be Christian, then fine. But I would much rather be friends with so-called sinners. For example, I like to drink rum and coke…there goes half my Christian “friends”. I have two openly gay Facebook friends… there goes the other half….my new pastor rides a Harley…there goes anyone still left…

You asked for stories of how someone greatly encouraged me, outside of my immediate church circle. For me, sometime around 2005 or so, it was several people in the “ex-UBF” group who greatly encouraged me by speaking truthfully and bluntly to me. The best encouragement I ever received in the past 10 years was from one ex-UBF person’s critique of my Sunday message about “rest” vs. “work”. Such objective criticism was healthy, helpful and honest. I am so thankful for honest words, pointing out my incorrect teachings.

Last Sunday, our church teaching was on Acts 10 and deeply profound for me. The message was about Peter going to Cornelius (a dreaded Gentile leader). Peter could be friends with his fellow Jews and Jew-sympathizers perhaps, but never with some unclean Gentile. The teaching on this event was a clear rebuke and challenge to me and all who say we are Christian: Think of the group of people you least like, the group of people you are least likely to be friends with, and then pray that God would send one of those people into your life.

(Note that in Acts 10, the Gentile took only one prompting from God to obey. It was Peter, the Christian leader, who needed 3 strong “pushes” just to even consider obeying. Sometimes it is not the sinner who needs to be prepared or who is hard-hearted; it may be the Christian who needs prepared and softened!)

Also, I am wondering if you could explain a few things to help me understand your thoughts further. Why is the title “Christian friendship”? How is that different from friendship? Why is the Holy Spirit an “it”? “After this split, the Holy Spirit now found itself with two missionary teams to work with (Paul-Silas and Barnabas-Mark). “ (John 14:17; John 15:26; John 16:13)

The subject of friendship is one of greatest importance for Grace and me. Our main prayer topic and hope for Sam Paul is that he may become a friend of God and friend of people. Every time when i bring Sam Paul to bed i would hold him and pray for him to become a true and genuine friend. (and sometimes, the little one says “amen”, too). 

But it makes me realize my own shortcomings when it comes to friendship. Unlike you, it has been very hard for me to be and stay friends with people who are not in my particular church fellowship. My “reasoning” went somewhere along these lines: “it is impossible for me to even love the people in my church group the way i should. Loving people who are outside (as in different Christian churches etc) would certainly make it no easier. Maybe i should start loving the people who are close to me before i start extending it to people outside…” What a narrow, selfish heart! 

One more remark: when we were studying the book of Acts last year, i was also fascinated by Barnabas and the fact that he was called “son of encouragement”. It can be (and has often been) translated as “son of comfort”. The Greek word is paraklesis, which is very similar to parakletos. This is the term Jesus uses when he refers to the Holy Spirit as comforter in John 16. To be an encourager, advocate, comforter and helper (all of which is included in the term parakletos) are qualities of a true friend. 

I wonder — is it fair to characterize the parting of Paul and Baranabas as a church split? Or even as a breach in their friendship? Yes, they sharply disagreed and then decided to travel separately. But I don’t think Paul would have told anyone, “Come to my church; don’t go to Barnabas’ church because they aren’t doing things the right way.” I’m quite sure that members of the congregations planted by Paul and Barnabas did remain in fellowship with one another and fully recognized one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. And my hunch is that Paul and Barnabas did remain friends despite their disagreement, just as Paul and Peter remained in fellowship with each other even after Paul opposed Peter to his face (Gal 2:11).

I’m concerned that we may be reading too much into the biblical account. I fear we may be saying to ourselves, “The fact that so many Christians have parted ways over the last 400 years and the church has split into so many denominations isn’t so bad because, hey, look, Paul and Barnabas parted ways, didn’t they?” We shouldn’t compare apples to watermelons.

But regardless of whether Paul and Barnabas ever stopped being friends, your point is a good one.

Jesus never said, “It’s sad if you disagree and part ways, but don’t worry too much about it, you’ll all be friends again in heaven.” On the contrary. Jesus viewed visible unity among his disciples as crucial to our gospel witness (Jn 17:21). That unity should not be built around common ideas about how to do mission, around obedience to human authorities, etc. Christian unity is rooted in gospel. It’s rooted in the Trinity, in the fellowship Jesus had with the Father and Spirit.

And Jesus strictly warned us to go and settle our differences with our fellow Christians in *this* life, not in the next (Mt 5:23-26). I hope those words of Jesus light a fire under our rear ends to start reconciling with those who feel hurt by us. The command to reconcile is no less urgent than the command in Matthew 28 to make disciples of all nations. In both cases, Jesus said, “Go!” In a sense, reconciliation is more urgent because Jesus told us to go and do that as our first priority, even before we attempt to worship him and offer sacrifices at the altar. Disunity seriously hinders our worship and our witness.

When Christians disagree on important matters, there are no easy solutions. But I believe we must pursue unity with one another and with the whole Body of Christ in the form of loving relationships that persist in the midst of differences. The question is not if we should do this, but how. Please pray for me to have wisdom in these matters.