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Note to Self:  Shooting an Arrow in Church is a Teachable Moment… from the Police!

Orginally published on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 7:44 AM
by Todd Rhoades


From the 'it seemed like a good idea at the time', Pastor John Putnam thought it was a good sermon illustration when he asked a member of his congregation to fire a steel tipped arrow across the stage of a Sheboygan Falls, WI church. The man who shot the arrow was cited for 'using a missile indoors' and the pastor was cited with 'aiding and abetting'. Both were fined $109.

Not everyone in the congregation was amused by the pastor's so called 'teaching tool'. One man stood up and asked them not to shoot the arrow since it was unsafe and illegal. The pastor (according to a newspaper report) told the man to sit down (which he did until the bow was drawn again). According to the news report: "The man objected a second time, after which Putnam said he asked the man to leave. Putnam said the church will seek a restraining order against the man, who he said was yelling and "causing a disruption."

More from the article…

One woman in attendance described the scene differently from Putnam, saying the man’s objection was “very gentle and very respectful.”

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said church leaders closed the rear doors of the church after the man left, and Wilke then fired the arrow.

“Our family was a little scared,” she said. “They can easily ricochet and kill a person. That’s happened.”

Putnam said he was challenging churchgoers to be active in sharing their testimonies with others. He was elaborating on a passage that details spiritual “equipment” given to Christians, such as the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit and the belt of truth.

You can read the whole article here.

What are your thoughts?


This post has been viewed 662 times so far.


  There are 29 Comments:

  • Posted by Bob Hyatt

    Ed Young Jr’s fault.

    Yup.

  • Posted by

    I agree with the protester.  Doing something like that did sound stupid, dangerous, and something not appropriate for inside of a church.  But something else caught my eye:

    “The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said church leaders closed the rear doors of the church after the man left, and Wilke then fired the arrow.”

    I think this is a telling sentence.  Shouldn’t people within churches be free to give their names even when they disagree?  I see something more going on in this congregation than can be covered under an article about inappropriate archery.

    --
    CS

  • Posted by

    CS,
    You might be just over thinking this.  I think this is a funny story and 15 years ago/20 years ago it probably wouldn’t have been any fizz at all. 

    Pay attention is the lesson.  If you have people shouting and objecting.  Maybe an adjustment to the illustration is necessary.

  • Posted by

    If this pastor has a board of elders or deacon body, he’s going to get an earful about this, maybe even a chance to put his resume out there.
    The same point could have been made with a kid’s bow and arrow with a rubber suction cup tip, and no one would have been at risk. (No smart archer shoots when bystanders are ‘downrange’, even if off to one side)

  • Posted by

    I don’t know the circumstances of this particular situation, but we did a similar illustration a few years ago in our youth ministry and the person we had shoot the arrow could hit a dime from 15 yards away. 

    If this guy was shooting at a target designed for arrows, and was trained at all with a bow and arrow, there is no way the arrow would ricochet.  Who knows, maybe he was shooting at a metal drum, blind folded, while doing a cartwheel and everyone’s life was in danger, but I doubt it.

    Major props to the pastor, and if you ask me it was well worth the $109 bucks.

  • Posted by

    CS,

    You are right on the money.

    I’ve personally experienced Pastors weaving veiled threats into their messages… i.e., “If you don’t like it then leave”, to paraphrase. It’s meant to disqualify and strongly discourage any challenge or correction… and it has no place in the Church, perhaps in a dictatorship or a totalitarian regime.

    Bad judgment by this Pastor… then he followed it with even worse judgement.

    “Here we are now, entertain us"… this is the condition the Church Growth Movement has created, and we now have to top ourselves in absurdity every week it seems.

  • Posted by

    Bad illustration. Correct me if i’m wrong, but doesn’t Ephesians say that the believers’ offensive weapon is the SWORD of the spirit-- a close range weapon. It is the Devil who uses long range (fiery darts) weapons. I don’t know the people invovled and don’t want to judge their motives. But I sense a little sensationalism going on, rather than illustrating Biblical truth.

  • Seems to me it would have been easier to get a toy boy and arrow that is so obviously unreal it’s laughable. It would have proved the point. Also, since some in the congregation were uncomfortable with that, I think the pastor should have relented and continued his sermon.

    ~Himalayan Goji Juice

  • Posted by bobby

    Call it sensationalism or whatever you want.  The reality is, visual aids work for teaching points.  And yeah, what he did is going to be a lot more memorable and have a bigger impact on someone than a toy.

    Who knows, the pastor may not have handled the situation itself perfectly.  Maybe he should have had an extra safeguard in place.  Maybe he should have responded differently.  But I’m not sure the person needed to stand up and make a scene either.

  • Posted by bishopdave

    A real weapon in church anytime is not wise. We had a lady (CHILDREN"S SERMON, no less) get up there with a real butcher knife to illustrate backstabbing. That was her last children’s sermon.

    Had a friend who carefully made sure his pistol was unloaded. Then during sermon he whipped it out, grabbed his son (he had previously warned his son) and to illustrate how thoughtlessly we raise children, but the gun to his son’s head.

    Long story short--he was gone from that church in 3 weeks, his wife was gone (with son in tow) in less than 3 months.

    The dramatic impact of real weapon illustrations just isn’t worth the risk.

    But then, one summer at camp, this dude used a blow gun--and he was good!! Kept the target in front of audience (nobody alongside or behind the targets).

  • Bobby--Sure, I guess it did prove the point! And yes, visual things certainly stick with people longer.

    Had I been there, I wouldn’t have made a scene; it wouldn’t have bothered me so long as he never drew the bow while pointing at the congregation & he used a low pull pound. I’m sure not anti-weaponry or whatever you call it!

    This is interesting & I’m sure not one person sitting there has ever forgotten. :D

  • Posted by

    The Gospel doesn’t need our “help”. If the Holy Spirit isn’t searing someone’s conscious then all the tricks in the world are useless and worthless. If the Word doesn’t penetrate a heart we think our cleverness can?

    This is why I so adamantly stand against sensationalism (stunts) and sensuality (dramatic lighting and hypnotic layered music) in a worship service. I was a part of all of that once. Services that >SEEMED< planned and produced INTENTIONALLY to manipulate people on an emotional level. No need for the Holy Spirit’s conviction just high quality story telling, the persuasiveness of a charismatic speaker with a dramatic plea will bring in the crop.

    This is a part of the push for DECISIONISM and its just wrong.

  • Posted by Jermayn

    Oh My Goodness Christians, grow up!!

    Who really cares if he did that or not. Have we gone so soft that we cannot have any sort of danger in our Christian life?

    I am sure the people involved in firing the ‘missile’ had everything under control…

  • Sounds like the pastor is one of these guys who needs to get his way and not be questioned.  I wonder if the protestor was a regular member.  Break rank, and you are out, soldier!  If the pastor had only ran the idea by a couple of people he would have realized it was a terrible idea.

  • @Jud--

    I think perhaps I didn’t communicate myself very well. I wholeheartedly agree with you that the Holy Spirit must convict each individual person, not a show with arrows or whatever at church. Neither God nor the Gospel needs our “help”.

    And yes, I hate sensationalism in church--they build on the emotions and then call it “drastic conversion”. No, that’s not the way it works. It’s all about the Lord convicting our hearts and us responding in humility, faith and repentance.

    I suspect that we all agree, but when we are talking via the computer, we aren’t communicating correctly.

  • Posted by

    Jud, not everything sensational is used or produced because of the Church Growth Movement.  Its not the same thing as Purpose-Driven, Emerging/Emergent, Circus Church, or any other methodology.  And even at that, most of these ideologies are tools that can be misused by people in the church.  I’ve seen the Bible used in some pulpits in ways that is much more dangerous than a bow and arrow.

  • Posted by

    jud writes:
    “The Gospel doesn’t need our “help”. If the Holy Spirit isn’t searing someone’s conscious then all the tricks in the world are useless and worthless. If the Word doesn’t penetrate a heart we think our cleverness can?”
    and
    “No need for the Holy Spirit’s conviction just high quality story telling”

    Lemme see, a camel through the eye of a needle - that seems like a clever illustration to me.  In fact, every parable was high quality story telling.  Jesus did not have our technology, but the essence is still the same - illustration of truth.

    My guess is that they were trying to make a point (ha!) about sin, since our english word is supposed to have originally been an archery term for “missing the mark.”

    There are blunt point arrows that the guy could have used and still gotten his message across.  Sounds like it was not well thought through.

  • Posted by

    I have seen this done at a promise keeper rally i did not think a thing about it.  It was in big arena though and chances to get hit were slim because everyone was high up.
    I think it was not the best idea and I would not want to be sitting in the first row.

  • Posted by

    Jud and CS, you seem to take every opportunity to point out the same thing.  Is it the only thing you can see?  I would hope and pray better for you both,

  • Posted by

    Leonard:

    “Jud and CS, you seem to take every opportunity to point out the same thing.  Is it the only thing you can see?  I would hope and pray better for you both,”

    The only things I pointed out in light of this story is (1) shooting a real arrow across an audience as described in the news sounds like a dumb idea, and (2) when church members who disagree with the church leadership or their accounts of a story request anonymity in speaking with the press, something sounds wrong behind the scenes.

    Now, jud went down the road of talking about the Church Growth Movement and the implications of using other devices as necessary mechanisms for spreading the Gospel.  I didn’t go there (not to say that jud is not correct, mind you).

    So, I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at here.

    --
    CS

  • Posted by

    It is the find the conspiracy, the problem, the secret flaw of leadership in every situation.  Assuming the person was unanimous because of a lack of freedom is a big leap as though something else is happening in the congregation.  Could be any number of reason for anonymity. 

    Your comment opened the door to the following;

    Pastors weaving veiled threats into their messages…

    It is the same old story, again and again and again.

  • Posted by

    Leonard,

    When you’ve lived it you know it. Perhaps I do wear my heart on my sleeves a bit much but I know what happens when a calling becomes an ambition. And I know what CAN happen when ambition becomes REALIZED held power/ authority and when you combine that with religion you have something that can, and I have seen this, become quite unwieldy.

    My perspective is that of a Christian who chooses to stand against the “organized religious” applications of Christianity. As a person who has a background in the visual arts I have MANY friends who are skeptics of our faith and that almost always begins with a mistrust over the issue of MONEY. And after seeing church after church after church build and amass massive inventories of facilities, staffing that has to be compensated and pastoral teams who talk missional (where most of my friends live) but live either comfortable suburban lives or as fashion forward urban trend setters. The number one virtue it seems is for us to remove any and all barriers that would make anyone avoid coming to a church service, some even going so far as to conceal or disown doctrine, yet we staunchly maintain this “organized religion” aspect of huge money sucking overhead that would be perhaps the greatest barrier.

    I know this isn’t always the case, and I also know I can’t judge peoples motives… but I look at churches and pastors in Africa and China, and I remember the bi-vocational(factory working) Pastor of my youth who refused to take any compensation from the church because he knew people he was trying to reach might stumble over that..... Well, When I absorb all of this I think it’s high time for what the trend watchers might call a paradigm shift.

    Do I have some anger/ authority issues over all of this… yeah probably so. Does that mean I do not raise valid points?

  • Posted by

    If this demontration was done, as I have seen it done in a school gymnasium, or circus setting, or a midevil festival, it would be called a tremendous demonstration of skill.  However, it seems like one more example of one congregant who isn’t happy, or doesn’t agree with the pastor who feels justified to do whatever to disrupt the Pastor’s ministry.  Plus, I don’t remember an arrow being legally defined as a “missle”.  If that’s the case, then any article with a shaft and a sharp point traveling through the air would fit that description-darts, pool cues, wooden pencils, which fly through the air at many churches on many occasions for many reasons.

    I also have a niece that was asked to try out for the Olympic Archery team several years ago, and this girl could hit a quarter repeatedly from fifty feet with only a few inches of clearance around it.  So, I’m skeptical of the claimant’s “concern” for safety, when I would bet that this claimant and his/her friends have found many other reasons to criticize and undermine the Pastor.  I don’t know this for a fact, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is an ongoing issue for the “offended” ones, and this is another example of someone using the legal avenue to create problems for a Pastor.  Besides, why didn’t the offended ones go to the Church Board before making this a criminal investigation.  This just sounds like a parishoner that most Pastor’s would like to see visit and take his/ her membership elsewhere.

  • Posted by

    Jud, thanks for the thoughtful response.  I do not disagree that in some places what you say about the abuses of money and power are true. 

    The srtuggle I have with your posts are that they lump and accuse.  They lump everyone together based upon your experiences and accuse leaders of things most leaders I know do not do.  My other struggle is you see it everywhere. 

    Here is a truth… if you look for fault everywhere, you will find it everywhere.  That is not discernment, that is just a critical spirit.

  • Posted by

    jim:

    “If that’s the case, then any article with a shaft and a sharp point traveling through the air would fit that description-darts, pool cues, wooden pencils, which fly through the air at many churches on many occasions for many reasons.”

    What church do you go to, when there are darts and pool cues being lobbed about so prolifically?  =)

    --
    CS

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