What would you do?

So this evening, in the Austin American Statesman, this little story appears... Hyde Park Baptist is a pretty large church in Austin. They do a lot of good things, but they have also been doing "battle" with their community for quite a while regarding growth issues. As a mega church, they have been both admired and despised. In this most recent news, it appears they said yes to renting some gym space to the Austin Area Inter-religious Ministries' thanksgiving banquet. However, when they found out it was being hosted and led by Muslims - they changed their mind.

Many of the comments on Eileen's blog are pretty negative toward Christianity. I can't say I really blame them... Jesus showed an amazing amount of acceptance and tolerance. As a follower of Christ, I'm the first to admit that I haven't always been as accepting and loving as he was. However, if we are honest, there are many religions and mosques and synagogues that would do the same thing as Hyde Park were the positions reversed. It's easy to point our finger - but then we'd be judging, wouldn't we?

So what would you do?

By the way - I'm glad Congregation Beth Israel stepped up as host...

Comments

[Jacob Vanhorn]

As you know, The Quarries is not a church building, it is a church owned recreation center 10 miles from their church building. Other churches use it and they rent out to the Austin community.

As a church planter, if our church enters the marketplace (which Hyde Park has done with the Quarries) we should assume that it will get messy. But that is why we are entering into the marketplace to begin with, to get messy with people and serve them as Christ.