I thought a few years ago I had finally found the perfect church, a Non-denom full gospel congregation, and began attending there Wednesdays, but still teaching and sometimes preaching at our home church. A new pastor came, appealing to the college age people more than the last pastor who decided to move back to N. Carolina to remarry his ex-wife (a commendable thing to do!).
Services more and mnore centered around loud explosions of music, the pastor working his electric guitar, trying to sing songs the words of which I never recognized. The youth absolutely accepted all what was being touted as "worship". I quit going there, hearing less than a minute of doctrine, seeing too much flesh. Literally more and more anatomy appeared on stage behind thinned and thinner garments, both male and female performers.
Some of the older members came by my office asking what they should do. I advised them, the tithers supporting the ministry, to ask the pastor to prioritize 1 Timothy 4:12-16 (KJV)
[SUP]12 [/SUP] Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
[SUP]13 [/SUP] Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
[SUP]14 [/SUP] Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
[SUP]15 [/SUP] Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.
[SUP]16 [/SUP] Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.
The result of that meeting with their pastor was for him to say the Bible no longer has impact on today's youth. They want music, no doctrine, absolutely no bad news about sin and judgment. The people apparently want to be told they are forgiven regardless of their failures in life.
The building is no empty, for sale or lease. One couple came away from that "charismatic" church in terrible economic trouble, both of them out of jobs due to business closures. They went to a large mainline church. There they were told God is testing them. That yanked what little faith they had left right out of them. How could a loving God test them by making their 1990 Plymouth their home parked nightly wherever the police allowed it? They had a nice home, making a good living, then paradise was lost in 2013. Up till then they enjoyed sound doctrine, were active for the kingdom of God, had a charismatic church the town respected.
Don't keep riding a horse that keeps dying. When you see your church abandon 1 Tim 4, alert your pastor. If there's no improvement, move out, but don't hook up with a "cemetary church" full of the dead.
