Image: Video screengrab via Vimeo / Grace Community Church / Religion News Service via AP. Certain parallels to Eileen Gray were immediately clear to him. This mutualization of sin can take place in church settings where both parties are asked to confess and seek forgiveness from each other. Here are 22 essential L.A. spots for every tourist, Column: We cant afford another writers strike. Obviously, many people contracted COVID. Sign up for our newsletter: While most evangelical churches have formalized disciplinary processes in written policies and bylaws, its becoming less common for American churches to follow them in practice and even rarer for a church to publicly announce discipline cases multiple times a year, according to Sande, the Christian mediator. Gray had refused to follow leaders counsel to lift a restraining order against her abusive husband, David Gray. Browse 60+ years of magazine archives and web exclusives. But in court papers filed May 8, county attorneys asked that the hearing on the churchs motion to vacate the injunction as well as the contempt issue not go forward on June 23 because the parties are presently discussing the terms of a settlement that would resolve this entire action and obviate the need for the court to decide the motion to vacate.. Its amazing to see the Lord protecting us, he said. In court filings obtained by CT, she stated pastor and elder Rodney Andersen told her that she should submit to her husband as unto the Lord rather than provoke him. The change in the legal landscape was set in motion abruptly by the death of the Supreme Courts liberal lion, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, last September, legal experts said. Grace Today . On Sunday, MacArthur admitted to congregants that "many people" contracted COVID-19 while it "went through" the church in December and January. The Opportunity Sheet is a weekly publication of Grace Community Church, offered as a courtesy to our church family. Sunday after Sunday, people packed Grace Community Church and belted out hymns, openly violating Los Angeles County's prohibitions against indoor services during the COVID-19 pandemic. While evangelicals are growing more sensitive to the dynamics of abuse, some conservative communities retain an underlying skepticism around victims-advocacy movements and trauma-informed psychologists, defending the place of the local church in addressing marital conflict. Grace Community Church attorneys cite two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in their motion to lift the preliminary injunction in its entirety and end the countys effort contempt effort. M-F 8:00 am-5:00 pm 818-909-5500 . . Copyright 2023 Grace Community Church. I need to fear God instead of man. "We are grateful to the county's faith organizations for their continued partnership to keep their congregants and the entire community safe and protected from COVID-19," the statement continued. Now, they say theyre spending their retirement paying for it. In the first meeting with Bill Shannon, it was made known that my safety was not the No. Pete Singer, the executive director of GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment), said seeing faith leaders defend a perpetrator in court was part of what prompted prosecutor Boz Tchividjian to start the organization in the first place. For years, they had hoped their submission, their faithfulness in marriage, and their desperate prayers would eventually lead to change in their husbands. espaol, City News Service is a regional wire service covering Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties. They completed a master of legal studies degree at UCLA School of Law in May 2022. Theres a fundamentally different understanding of what abuse is, said Jonathan Holmes, a graduate of The Masters University and a pastor and counselor in Ohio, noting that the labeland the most serious responsesoften get reserved for physical and sexual violations. The elders had publicly disciplined a woman for refusing to take back her husband. The Roys Reportrebutted Pastor MacArthurs court statement and says they do have evidencethat at least one of the GCC congregants who died was attending GCC. Roys also shared that she believes that GCC was aware of a COVID-19 outbreak within their church and shows evidence in herreport. Even if Roberts is going to side with the three remaining liberals, now you have five very solid conservative votes in favor of religion and who are going to give the government a very strict review, and thats whats happened, McDonald said, referring to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Mr. MacArthur has also downplayed the severity of the virus. Welcome to Every Woman's Grace! Sun Valley and the surrounding areas continue to have among the highest case rates of Covid-19 within the county, and have for some time, Dr. Davis said, and a gathering of this magnitude will create additional opportunities for Covid-19 transmission, both to the people that attend this gathering and the other people in the community.. The CDC study found unvaccinated individuals were more than twice as likely to be reinfected with COVID-19 than those who were fully vaccinated after initially contracting the virus., Subscribe to CT Los Angeles County officials had said that the Shepherds Conference was not a religious service, but a prohibited indoor gathering. They were telling me to back off, essentially. Even then, the ruling was seen as vindication after months of defying the previous county order, which aligned with the states guidelines, allowing only outdoor services, with strict physical distancing. Eileen Gray said hearing about other women who had been blamed, accused, and often retraumatized by leaders at Grace motivated her to share her account publicly years later, once her children were adults. Its not just another thing to do. On the first day of the Shepherds' Conference Wednesday, the pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and chancellor of The Master's University, preached about the need for churches to be separate from the world or risk becoming corrupt. Get the most recent headlines and stories from Christianity Today delivered to your inbox daily. People arriving for a service at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Calif., in December. This story was updated to include the cost of the countys legal fees. Featured; Sunday Bulletin; Newsletter; Videos; Books; Opportunity Sheet . It is in this spirit of service and love that we send short-term ministry (STM) teams from Grace Church each year to build up and encourage our missionaries, and it is therefore with great joy and thankfulness that we look back on the 2022 STM season. Former members who reported abuse said they feared church discipline for lack of submission or abandoning their marriage. But those admissions mean you need to make it right with the person you wronged; that is utterly basic Christianity.. 9:00 & 11:00 am John MacArthur Jesus' Personal Invitation Matthew 11:28-30. Four months earlier, the court had rejected a Chula Vista churchs challenge to Californias indoor worship restrictions. David Gray remains in prison. Its worship.. Indoor worship, without face masks or social distancing, soon resumed. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to authorize a $400,000 payment to settle a legal battle with Grace Community Church over lead pastor John MacArthur's defiance of . Contact. Church attorneys fought back, filing a motion to have the injunction lifted and the contempt request dismissed, citing two U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Two other leaders at Grace said they would testify on the wifes behalf, but the couple reached an agreement in January prior to their court date, so none of the pastors ended up needing to testify. These allegations specifically came from areportwritten by investigative journalist Julie Roys, the founder of the Christian media outletThe Roys Report. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Mayor Bass seeks $250-million expansion of homelessness program in first State of the City speech, Column: Trump and the NRA might be right about guns and we mostly have ourselves to blame, The LAPD has lost nearly 1,000 officers. I knew I could not pass by silently on the other side of the road, that I needed to help this woman and to call out a warning, or else the blood of the people would be on my head.. She also uses Phil Johnsons Twitter post, who is the executive director ofGrace to Youand an Elder at GCC, saying he had the virus in December 2020. This was the fifth time the Supreme Court had rejected the lower courts analysis in a case involving Californias COVID-19 restrictions on freedom of religion, the majority opinion noted. She has also contributed to The Houston Chronicle, U.S. News and World Report and IBelieve.com. At the conference last March, Cho taught on Conscience and Conviction. He spent the rest of the year living out the lesson. In a sermon last August, he drew applause when he said, There is no pandemic, and argued that the number of Covid-related deaths had been inflated. From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Los Angeles County has been committed to protecting the health and safety of its residents. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court partly lifted restrictions on religious services in California, blocking a total ban but leaving in place a 25 percent capacity restriction and a prohibition on singing and chanting. GCC and MacArthur haveremained open sinceinitially suspending in-person services for less than a month during the height of the pandemic, in which they reopened their doors forindoor worshipthat resulted in a near capacity crowd during July. LA County to pay $400,000 to settle with San, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), LA County to pay $400,000 to settle with San Fernando Valley church that defied coronavirus orders, While California lifts mask, vaccine mandates, some restrictions will endure in LA County, After three days of learning loss due to strike, LAUSD offers two bonus days, LA Countys COVID emergency ends tonight; heres what that means, LA County to lift COVID emergency declarations; some residents urged to be ready, Senate votes to end COVID-19 emergency in the US, LASD seeks help identifying suspects in Compton flash mob burglaries and street takeovers, Ex-Southern California weight loss doctor gets 7-year sentence for Lap-Band surgery fraud, LA Mayor Bass first State of the City highlights accomplishments, challenges, Procession brings soldier who died in military chopper tragedy back to his adopted LA hometown, a $400,000 settlement with a San Fernando Valley church t, Judge gives Grace Community Church, LA County a chance to settle COVID case, San Fernando Valley church, L.A. 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