Negative church people

I recently received a rude email from a person who had attended our church a handful of times and doesn't understand why we would care about orphans in Haiti or about doing anything outside of our immediate community for that matter. The tone of her email was very negative and she took the opportunity to throw in a couple backhanded slams at one of our church leaders who in my opinion is the epitome of the type of person I'm trying to develop at Mountain Vista...loves God, loves his family, serves his community and serves the church family. 

Normally I let these types of emails simply disappear without the dignity of even a response and I pray that the sender will find the peace they obviously are missing in their life. Then, I move on with the job God has called me to do. In this case, because of the comment about one of our Spiritual Leaders I responded.  I don't apologize or back down in the face of misguided criticism that is directed at one of our leaders. I'm OK if people have an honest difference of opinion or different priorities, but I'm not OK when they say things that disparage the people I respect and care about. 

The reality is that people choose to join with our church or to leave as a regular occurrence due to whether they do or don't feel connected to our mission and vision. That's a good thing...we don't want people hanging around who are fundamentally opposed to what God has called us to accomplish as a church. We do want a growing number who are getting on board the bus and joining us in this amazing journey to know God and serve him in ways that matter!