Personal ministries thwarted!
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Come on now, this is fantasy! How many independent home fellowships have you been to? I mean really, how many? And how many home fellowships did you stay long enough at to find our what they really believed? Maybe people sometimes LIKE the impersonal church environment because it is an excuse to be cool with each other, whereas we are commanded to LOVE.
I am sorry, I don't understand how you would find yourself in many home fellowships if you had moved about from city to city. Perhaps you can explain it to me because if it is possible it would be a solution for me. Home fellowships don't advertise themselves over here in UK, so if I wanted to visit them, how would I find them? And if I found them, wouldn't it be a bit rude to gatecrash someone's own home as a stranger from another city?
I thought you meant home fellowships as opposed to cell groups attached to a church. If they are attached to a church they would be working according to that church rules. If they aren't attached to a church and you are a stranger from another city, I don't see how you would be invited...please explain!
My point about ones on their own is, if they were on their own you wouldn't be able to observe what they were doing...because they would be on their own. They would be hardly likely to tell you during informal discussion that they worship swinging from the chandeliers for instance, lol!
Come on now, this is fantasy! How many independent home fellowships have you been to? I mean really, how many? And how many home fellowships did you stay long enough at to find our what they really believed? Maybe people sometimes LIKE the impersonal church environment because it is an excuse to be cool with each other, whereas we are commanded to LOVE.
I am sorry, I don't understand how you would find yourself in many home fellowships if you had moved about from city to city. Perhaps you can explain it to me because if it is possible it would be a solution for me. Home fellowships don't advertise themselves over here in UK, so if I wanted to visit them, how would I find them? And if I found them, wouldn't it be a bit rude to gatecrash someone's own home as a stranger from another city?
You're right, there is a difference between small groups within a larger church structure. Often, those have a lot more stability and accountability. I would hope that any Christian would have some friendships and relationship with those who go to different churches. I've known them from para-church ministries, family, work, hobbies, etc.
I'm not so much concerned about WHAT they're doing on their own. I'm saying the principle of isolating yourself from a community of believers is not Scriptural.
Come on now, this is fantasy! How many independent home fellowships have you been to? I mean really, how many? And how many home fellowships did you stay long enough at to find our what they really believed? Maybe people sometimes LIKE the impersonal church environment because it is an excuse to be cool with each other, whereas we are commanded to LOVE.
I am sorry, I don't understand how you would find yourself in many home fellowships if you had moved about from city to city. Perhaps you can explain it to me because if it is possible it would be a solution for me. Home fellowships don't advertise themselves over here in UK, so if I wanted to visit them, how would I find them? And if I found them, wouldn't it be a bit rude to gatecrash someone's own home as a stranger from another city?
I thought you meant home fellowships as opposed to cell groups attached to a church. If they are attached to a church they would be working according to that church rules. If they aren't attached to a church and you are a stranger from another city, I don't see how you would be invited...please explain!
My point about ones on their own is, if they were on their own you wouldn't be able to observe what they were doing...because they would be on their own. They would be hardly likely to tell you during informal discussion that they worship swinging from the chandeliers for instance, lol!
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As to bigger churches, my daughter used to attend a church held in an old theatre, in the downtown of the city. There were street people everywhere. They were invited in for coffee and a donut and fellowship. During the offering, people who didn't have money were invited to take it out of the offering plate.
I was worried about her being in a charismatic church. But when the pastor had 5 people stand up who had been saved in the last month and give their testimony (absolutely broken and damaged people) I was solidly rebuked for my attitude by the Holy Spirit. The sermon was sound Biblical material, as they read through Scripture and then exegeted it carefully and applied it.
My daughter had my blessing that day. It did open my heart to the need to reach the lost, the hurting and broken, in a way that most suburban churches never do. Not to say that God can't use mega churches or suburban churches to reach the unsaved, but that he also wants to save those who are the "least" of these!
Maybe the OP needs to find a church like this to attend. Or just do his street ministry and thank God for his calling, instead of attacking the church for not giving him money to do the work which God wants him to do.
I was worried about her being in a charismatic church. But when the pastor had 5 people stand up who had been saved in the last month and give their testimony (absolutely broken and damaged people) I was solidly rebuked for my attitude by the Holy Spirit. The sermon was sound Biblical material, as they read through Scripture and then exegeted it carefully and applied it.
My daughter had my blessing that day. It did open my heart to the need to reach the lost, the hurting and broken, in a way that most suburban churches never do. Not to say that God can't use mega churches or suburban churches to reach the unsaved, but that he also wants to save those who are the "least" of these!
Maybe the OP needs to find a church like this to attend. Or just do his street ministry and thank God for his calling, instead of attacking the church for not giving him money to do the work which God wants him to do.
This is becoming a really interesting discussion, thank you! What seems clear to me is that the church in the USA is a very different thing to what we have here. I suppose scale is one major difference. I live in a moderately sized town as British towns go, and, apart from blatantly cultish places like the kingdom hall, I reckon I have visited all of the churches there are. I did so following the bad experience I mentioned in my only longstanding fellowship...where I was virtually kicked out for speaking out what God was telling me. When it was discovered and proved to be true by the leadership, instead of apologizing, they invented something that they thought they could pin on me, having circulated rumours about my behaviour which were total lies.
It nearly broke my heart to leave because I had been there a long time and got to know and love everyone. As far as I was concerned, I was doing what the Lord was leading me to do, and I still am, it is just that I had to figure out that what He wanted from me was not exactly what I imagined.
Next followed about 15 years of homeless work, as I explored that area of what God has called me to. I met a lot of homeless Christians, and a lot of others who just had such deeply sad circumstances, and it seemed to me that they were being swept under the carpet and ignored by the authorities and also the church.
Even so I was longing for fellowship and what came was informal, twos and threes, under the sky praying together, getting to know each other better and trying to help out there when the needs seemed just so enormous compared to limited resources.
I haven't given up entirely on the local churches, but between the heresies preached from the pulpit as though it is truth, the false authority, the lack of discernable love and/or power of God, and the fact that my name is mud in some places because of lies that were told about me by my original fellowship (mud sticks!) I have just about exhausted all avenues for fellowship.
Finally I am in a place where I wait for the Lord to show me what next. It feels like I have finally found my way down to the bottom of the hole I am in, and everything has gone quiet. Jesus said in the world we will have tribulation, but fear not, I have overcome the world.
So you see, it is not always rebellious people that find themselves without fellowship: it can be the opposite. Jesus made that plain and told us to rejoice and be exceeding glad, if they say all manner of things about you FALSELY for My sake...which is what happened. The leadership in that horrible church thought they were doing God a service by making me the scapegoat for the evil that was going on in there. I am not making this up: it was bad.
I believe Jesus when He said I will build MY church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I know that I know that I know I am His, and that I want to do what He wants me to do. But I also know that as soon as we find ourselves doing exactly that, there are enemies...and some of those turn out to be the ones you thought you could depend upon to support you.
So I am waiting for the next step. I have had a lot of time to think. What it seems like to me is we in the West often treat salvation like a commodity that we purchase with a tithe and with our showing up on Sundays, as though God owes us something. We have bought everything else that we can, and now we think we can buy salvation. That might sound harsh, but there is a dividing line becoming apparent between those who serve God and fellow man, and those that seem to constantly serve themselves, overtly or covertly.
We live in very serious times.
It nearly broke my heart to leave because I had been there a long time and got to know and love everyone. As far as I was concerned, I was doing what the Lord was leading me to do, and I still am, it is just that I had to figure out that what He wanted from me was not exactly what I imagined.
Next followed about 15 years of homeless work, as I explored that area of what God has called me to. I met a lot of homeless Christians, and a lot of others who just had such deeply sad circumstances, and it seemed to me that they were being swept under the carpet and ignored by the authorities and also the church.
Even so I was longing for fellowship and what came was informal, twos and threes, under the sky praying together, getting to know each other better and trying to help out there when the needs seemed just so enormous compared to limited resources.
I haven't given up entirely on the local churches, but between the heresies preached from the pulpit as though it is truth, the false authority, the lack of discernable love and/or power of God, and the fact that my name is mud in some places because of lies that were told about me by my original fellowship (mud sticks!) I have just about exhausted all avenues for fellowship.
Finally I am in a place where I wait for the Lord to show me what next. It feels like I have finally found my way down to the bottom of the hole I am in, and everything has gone quiet. Jesus said in the world we will have tribulation, but fear not, I have overcome the world.
So you see, it is not always rebellious people that find themselves without fellowship: it can be the opposite. Jesus made that plain and told us to rejoice and be exceeding glad, if they say all manner of things about you FALSELY for My sake...which is what happened. The leadership in that horrible church thought they were doing God a service by making me the scapegoat for the evil that was going on in there. I am not making this up: it was bad.
I believe Jesus when He said I will build MY church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I know that I know that I know I am His, and that I want to do what He wants me to do. But I also know that as soon as we find ourselves doing exactly that, there are enemies...and some of those turn out to be the ones you thought you could depend upon to support you.
So I am waiting for the next step. I have had a lot of time to think. What it seems like to me is we in the West often treat salvation like a commodity that we purchase with a tithe and with our showing up on Sundays, as though God owes us something. We have bought everything else that we can, and now we think we can buy salvation. That might sound harsh, but there is a dividing line becoming apparent between those who serve God and fellow man, and those that seem to constantly serve themselves, overtly or covertly.
We live in very serious times.
Thanks for sharing a bit of your experiences. That brings some clarity to your thoughts.
I have always found it more beneficial to be a church that has some flaws or differences with what you believe than to be outside of fellowship. (I'm not saying you necessarily are, but people in general.) No church is perfect, as long as there are human beings there and leading it, there will be errors and mistakes. But the focus of any church shouldn't be the pastor or a specific ministry. It should be on the fellowship, accountability and refinement that takes place with others in community. When we isolate ourselves, we miss out on the blessing of encouraging others, and being encouraged by them.
This certainly can be done outside of organized churches, but more often than not these organized churches provide more of an opportunity for ministry.
I have always found it more beneficial to be a church that has some flaws or differences with what you believe than to be outside of fellowship. (I'm not saying you necessarily are, but people in general.) No church is perfect, as long as there are human beings there and leading it, there will be errors and mistakes. But the focus of any church shouldn't be the pastor or a specific ministry. It should be on the fellowship, accountability and refinement that takes place with others in community. When we isolate ourselves, we miss out on the blessing of encouraging others, and being encouraged by them.
This certainly can be done outside of organized churches, but more often than not these organized churches provide more of an opportunity for ministry.
R
i know it from people who attend them...even on this site when you run into someone who has some really weird heresy it is almost a given that they are part of some small fellowship that has mishandled scripture in such a way that they derived a bizarre doctrine from it...either that or they are completely isolated except for following some 'youtube ministry'...i have seen this enough times to notice the correlation...
I suppose it depends on what you consider heresy. I have heard people state categorically that speaking in tongues is not for today, and that there are no more apostles or prophets....and it turns out that is part of some so-called mainstream Christian teaching. How they think that is biblically supportable I can't imagine. Likewise this pre-trib rapture thing that slipped under the radar around the time the JWs started...and now, again, it is plainly taught by well known mega church leaders as though it is Biblical, when it isn't.
Also there is certainly a danger in getting too comfortable around your own bunch of people that even if they told you something outrageous that they believed, you would argue yourself out of it and say naaaaaaaaah he didn''t mean THAT.....because it is easier than saying no, I am sorry you have that wrong.
My observation is that heresies are easier to convince people of, if there are enough people saying amen. Humans are often creatures of habit and if they can be spoon fed doctrine many would prefer that than to open up their own Bible and read what God actually says.
Besides that, broad is the road to destruction but narrow the road to life, and few there be that find it.
Seems to me that in a smaller group it is easier to gently guide each other through the word of God, noticing any wierd little doctrinal tendency that might rise up as they often do. I like the way the early church met in each others' houses, and were able to hold each other accountable in a loving and kindly way. In a big church I would think you could get away with anything and no one would notice.
Also there is certainly a danger in getting too comfortable around your own bunch of people that even if they told you something outrageous that they believed, you would argue yourself out of it and say naaaaaaaaah he didn''t mean THAT.....because it is easier than saying no, I am sorry you have that wrong.
My observation is that heresies are easier to convince people of, if there are enough people saying amen. Humans are often creatures of habit and if they can be spoon fed doctrine many would prefer that than to open up their own Bible and read what God actually says.
Besides that, broad is the road to destruction but narrow the road to life, and few there be that find it.
Seems to me that in a smaller group it is easier to gently guide each other through the word of God, noticing any wierd little doctrinal tendency that might rise up as they often do. I like the way the early church met in each others' houses, and were able to hold each other accountable in a loving and kindly way. In a big church I would think you could get away with anything and no one would notice.
