Dear Nancy,
I am going to come right out and say this: Seacoast Church is a problem. You need to get yourself and your family out of there immediately. After being saved four years ago you claim to be a sinner, not a saint. I write to tell you that Greg Surratt and Seacoast Church are friends to neither the sinner nor the saint. Please don’t dismiss me for saying so. Allow me to use God’s word to explain to you why.
The Apostle Paul’s epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians are all addressed to the “saints”. This is because every Christian is, by definition, a saint. The Greek word which we translate into English as “saint” is ἅγιος. In the simplest terms it means “set apart for God”. It means “holy”. When used to refer to a Christian, it does not mean sinless or perfect. Only the Lord Jesus lived a perfect life. Christians sin. You know this and I know this. Yet, we Christians are to strive both individually and corporately to live holy lives. This is commanded in scripture. God is Holy so we are to be holy (1 Peter 1:16). We are to be different than the world, set apart for Him. The gospel is good news for sinners, but the church is composed of saints. In four years, Seacrest has failed to teach you this. They have you, and likely hundreds of others, under the false impression that Christians go to church because they are sinners. That’s wrong. Christians are the church because Christians are saints.
Christians are responsible for holding other Christians accountable for living in open sin (Galatians 6:1). Doing so is called “church discipline” and the Lord Jesus himself gave us directions for how to carry it out (Matthew 18). First, a church member caught in sin is to be approached privately by another individual and asked to repent. If he will not repent, he is to be approached again, this time by a group of two or three. If he still refuses to repent, he is to be brought before the church as a whole. If he refuses to listen to the church’s call to repent, he is to he put out of the church and treated as an unbeliever who needs to be evangelized.
There are two purposes for church discipline. One is to restore the sinning Christian to right relationship with God and his church. The other is to preserve the holiness of the church. A church that doesn’t practice church discipline will not be holy. The Apostle Paul knew this. He commanded the Corinthian church not to associate with anyone who claims to he a Christian but engages in immorality (1 Corinthians 5:11). We’re not to even sit down and have a meal with such people.
That brings me to you and Seacrest church. You are living with your fiancé in open sin. You bought a home together in May of 2022. This would have been, if you’ve been saved for four years, after your salvation experience. It’s not that you joked about fornication at a prayer breakfast, it’s that you’ve been involved in very open fornication with your fiancé and your church has apparently done nothing to discipline you for it. Tim Scott, a fellow church member surely knows your living situation. Instead of inviting you to speak at a prayer breakfast, he should have been calling you to repentance in the hope of seeing you restored to a right relationship with God. You don’t need to have a talk with Pastor Greg about your joke. You need to get away from him. If he was shepherding you, you wouldn’t be shacked up and fornicating. Well, you might, but you’d be expelled from church membership for continuing to do it. Frankly, Nancy, I don’t think Seacoast has built itself into a twelve-campus megachurch by insisting on holy living. You said in your prayer breakfast speech that people weren’t asking you about your walk anymore? Really? You’re engaged in open sin. Why aren’t they asking? Seacoast doesn’t have a biblical idea of church.
There is a difference, Nancy, between the unconverted woman who shows up to church looking for answers, love, and community and the woman who has claimed Christ as savior for four years. The former wouldn’t know any better and the church should patiently teach her. You’re the latter. You should know better. You don’t because your church hasn’t taught you. From a biblical standpoint, does your church really love you?
Repent. Leave Seacoast. Find a church that Christians live a Christian lifestyle. I pray you and everyone who reads this will.
Sincerely,
Seth Dunn
Here is the full speech (PG-rated jokes and all) from Wednesday’s prayer breakfast. My speech was actually about a very vulnerable time in my life and I shed a few tears telling the story about how the church changed my life.🧵1/4 pic.twitter.com/ECp8QUFphJ
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) July 28, 2023
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
