I spent a a few minutes the other day talking with someone about a decision that they have made and they kept their own counsel making it. Amidst this discussion they shared that a friend recently did the same thing. They went underground (sort of)to make a life altering decision and they left the church body to make their decision.
Now there are two things that I have to say here.
First is that I heard a prophetic word in the last few years saying that there were going to be weddings that would occur suddenly, and there have been a few so far that have fit the bill. They have been surrounded by interesting circumstance and I cannot say whether right or wrong, but God will bless them if they that have committed will remain committed. They will have a marriage of testimony if they keep their eyes on the One that blesses and follow His lead of dying daily.
Now number two. These young folk didn't trust the church body that they were apart of to bless them in their motion, nor in fact, to even give it a chance. They felt that the body would or did judge them in their quest for happiness.
The failure that I see in this, and I'm not through meditating on it, is that the church body does in fact judge. We look at a situation or an appearance and call it what it would be if it were in our experience.
Neither party in this is free from guilt and both party's need to repent and get into right relationship with each other.
How can the older teach the younger if all that the younger expect to hear is that what they are doing is dangerous?
And why should they listen when all the elder do is meet their expectations?
We pray for the prodigals to come in and and it is immediately incumbent on us to start acting like dogs and smelling their butts to recognize them- who they are, where they've been, what it is that they have consumed, both intellectually and physically.
I preach Jesus the Christ. Him crucified and me grafted into His resurrected body that is not slave to sin and stands for nothing to stand between Him and fellowship with His Father.
I am no slave to sin. Neither I, nor anyone else who has turned to Jesus for completion, have any fellowship with sin. Nothing is sin except that which separates us from the Father and we are the ones who define that by allowing it to be used to shame us.
Children know no sin, and we are to come to Him as children- I suspect that this means we come in innocence. Clean and pure because we think on the things that He instructed us to... Whatever is clean whatever is pure-
This is hard, a hard word, but more because it irritates us like sand in our pearl making bits.
I don't have this yet, but I submit it here for a comment or two.

add: Part of the thing in the church is not to stumble others with our nonsense and this is why we are to be careful what we do and where. If we stumble someone, if we give someone with a propensity to judge something to judge, perhaps this makes us guiltier than they for we can consider and know better.

This is certainly the best time ever to live in. There is a movie out now based on a book whose author has been quoted numerous times as designed to plant doubt in the minds of young people. Now as much noise as I heard from people over Harry Potter, some of those same people have looked into it prior to the hub-bub and have poo-pooed the concerns.
I'm not really one to go off half cocked about those sort of things now- (I was in the past- demon in every door knob so to speak)and with Harry it looked more to me like it was about friends and camaraderie and good against evil. I just can't think of anyone having this kind of a purpose and pitting good against evil with the idea of harming the basis of our moral values.
What is it that gets into a man to cause him to hate the supreme being to such a degree that he can't stand anyone else having any respect or love for it either.
That, however, is not why we live in the best time ever.
I live in a democratic republic filled with people who think we live in a democracy, an unmanageable task to run our country by the whims of the masses whose sight doesn't typically go beyond the moment that they are living in. (Native americans made decisions based on five generations out, so they contemplated the results of their actions pretty thoroughly before making any decisions.)
This is one reason that there is too much information out there for the getting. you can learn nearly everything within moments of it occurring these days, and yet we live thinking that everyone would of course think the way that we think and appreciate all of the things that we believe are rights- (Boy are we spoiled)
Yet this is not what makes this the greatest age.
What makes this the greatest age is that God is about restoring all that we had in Eden, if we can see it. If we can let go and understand that it doesn't look like what we want it to, but we can imagine it as we go along and see it come to pass in our lives day by day if we allow our expectations to be tempered in our time with our Father who wants to give us every good gift, and we don't really have a clue about being gracious.
We want what we want, they way that we want it, in our timing, to be used as we see fit.
What is the answer? To learn tolerance of the message, know the Word that is God (Jesus), know the Father based on the history that He has left for us, the cannon. And hold on to Him, knowing that He is the Lover of your soul having paid a great price for your admittance to the presence of the Father.
Too much for one blog? Probably, but I had to get it out. I'll think on it with a more clear purpose, but not tonite.
I love you.
(sometimes I just really want to say that)