State Of The American Church

[Perseus]

try to stay calm.
you have a 'tude already...

This is a general commentary on the "Christian" community in America from what I've seen. If your church doesn't apply to what I'm talking about or you're just interested in sniping from the sidelines with passive-aggressive insults, why bother posting in this thread? How does that have anything to do with the thread topic?

This is targeted towards other people who can see what I'm talking about. If your church is doing good, that's great to hear. It sure sounds like you have no lack of "staying calm" and don't see what I'm talking about at all. Maybe your problem is that you've become a little too complacent if you can't see what I'm talking about, not only in your local church, but at places like here and beyond.

 

[Earlmayknowornot]

someone who doesn't recognize the Cross isn't a believer, are they?
sooner or later you are going to need a congregation.
i wish you the best.

Zone,I see what you are getting at, I have a church that I go to and I lean on them when I need to and they lean on me when they need to. I have nothing against you and your Lutheran belief its out of that that we have ours. I am Congregational Holiness. Not that I trust in my denomination but, I find that they hold true as close as they can to the word. I mean, come on if your looking for something perfect don't look in the mirror and don't look at a church. Look at Jesus.

 

[zone]

This is a general commentary on the "Christian" community in America from what I've seen. If your church doesn't apply to what I'm talking about or you're just interested in sniping from the sidelines with passive-aggressive insults, why bother posting in this thread? How does that have anything to do with the thread topic?

This is targeted towards other people who can see what I'm talking about. If your church is doing good, that's great to hear. It sure sounds like you have no lack of "staying calm" and don't see what I'm talking about at all. Maybe your problem is that you've become a little too complacent if you can't see what I'm talking about, not only in your local church, but at places like here and beyond.

oh i see it dear.
every day.

got the t-shirt.

do you know what the problem really is?
and has been all along?

there's something wrong and ppl just can't figure out what it is

 

[zone]

Zone,I see what you are getting at, I have a church that I go to and I lean on them when I need to and they lean on me when they need to. I have nothing against you and your Lutheran belief its out of that that we have ours. I am Congregational Holiness. Not that I trust in my denomination but, I find that they hold true as close as they can to the word. I mean, come on if your looking for something perfect don't look in the mirror and don't look at a church. Look at Jesus.

i'm not talking about perfection.
talking about staying power.

if you have a church you're happy with that's a good thing.

 

[Earlmayknowornot]

Perseus. Whats wrong with the American church is Romans 7. They do not understand the law of the sin nature and the law of the Spirit ( divine nature). That is the daily struggle of every believer. Study, everyone please study Romans and ask God to reveal. It will change your life and make you to know the value of the cross. We are nothing without the cross.

 

[Earlmayknowornot]

i'm not talking about perfection.
talking about staying power.

if you have a church you're happy with that's a good thing.

Thank you, Zone. My staying power is the cross. Without it I'm done. I have nothing to fall back on. The church can't deliver me only the cross. God bless you

 

[zone]

Thank you, Zone. My staying power is the cross. Without it I'm done. I have nothing to fall back on. The church can't deliver me only the cross. God bless you

deliver you from what?
you are already in Christ, aren't you?

let me know if you listen to the link.
all the best.

 

[Earlmayknowornot]

deliver you from what?
you are already in Christ, aren't you?

let me know if you listen to the link.
all the best.

Zone, as long as I keep my faith in the cross I am delivered and free. I do not place my faith in a denomination. There are no rituals or works that set me free. It is only the cross.

 

[mark54]

Perseus. Whats wrong with the American church is Romans 7. They do not understand the law of the sin nature and the law of the Spirit ( divine nature). That is the daily struggle of every believer. Study, everyone please study Romans and ask God to reveal. It will change your life and make you to know the value of the cross. We are nothing without the cross.

Sadly, in over 30 years of going to church I have never once heard any sermon on Rom 7, nor Rom6:14. As the latter can pretty much be said to sum up the core of Paul's Gosepl of Grace I believe it is a tragedy

 

[mark54]

Sadly, in over 30 years of going to church I have never once heard any sermon on Rom 7, nor Rom6:14. As the latter can pretty much be said to sum up the core of Paul's Gosepl of Grace I believe it is a tragedy

Actually(and I will only speak of churches this side of the pond as I have no experiance of churches in the US) Coupled with the above, since I have frequented Christian internet websites, I now know that ministers will not plainly preach their core denominational salvific belief from the pulpit and the consequences of getting it wrong.(or no one from the UK has so far produced such a sermon from a mainline church in the uk and I have never heard it preached. in 30 yearws of going to church
So if I am honest. If ministers won't preach the core of the Gospel of Grace given to the Apostle Paul, as to why sin shall not be your master for you are not under law but under grace, and they won't plainly preach from the pulpit their core denominational salvific belief and the consequences of getting ti wrong, I'm beginnig to wonder just how much is to be gained by going to church, unless it just to receive the company of other Christians who are all in the same boat, regarding what is not getting preached from the pulpit.
I have to admit, some on the internet have opened my eyes to the true state of poverty of what is preached from the pulpit.(according to their beliefs and the Gospel of grace given to Paul by Christ to preach)

 

[Abiding]

Has there ever been a time in church history the church was
doing well?
Besides a few that were under heavy persecution? Nope! read what the apostles said.
If you want a perfected church dont pray for revival, pray for persecution!

 

[zone]

Zone, as long as I keep my faith in the cross I am delivered and free. I do not place my faith in a denomination. There are no rituals or works that set me free. It is only the cross.

the subject between us at the start of this little discussion was the Church.
if you don't really agree the Lord planned a CHURCH, and is pleased to have us join together as a body, just say so.
He said the Church is the pillar and ground of truth.

about Him and the Cross.
i believe Him. i am pleased to join myself to others of like-mind in the body.

rituals or works? oh purleeze.
is that what you deconstruct the Church down to?

then we wonder why threads like this are around:

Re: State Of The (American) Church

 

[BishopSEH]

In my opinion, based on actually getting my hands dirty, there are a number of issues the church as a whole and especially in America needs to deal with. The first I would say is laziness or apathy. Among the many things the Lord gave us is the Great Commission. More than anything this is a call to action and that action is evangelism. Many "churches" talk about evangelism but do nothing to train their congregation on how to actually do it. Its akin to me handing a 5 year old a hammer and tell him to build a house. What you will end up with is a lot of holes and dents but no house. Until the church regains a fervor for evangelism the Church will remain in decline.

The second is disciple maturation. Churches toss out this word disciple but if you ask 100 people to define what a disciple is roughly 85% will get it wrong. Of the 15% that get it right, if you ask then how is a disciple matured, you will get fragments of the answer but it is highly uncommon for a layperson to give a full and correct answer. The goal of evangelism is to make disciples. The responsibility of a Pastor to to provide solid and accurate biblical instruction and to raise up lay leaders to train a new disciple into a mature disciple.

The third issue is that churches have largely become invitational. That is the set up shop and invite the lost to come to them. There is nothing wrong with extending an invitation but it only take you halfway. What do you do when the lost don't accept the invitation to come? The answer is, you go. Go to where the lost are and bring the Lord, through His Word with you. This is called being incarnational. You have heard of the incarnate Christ? Jesus left Heaven and came to us. If we follow His example then we must be both invitational and incarnational.

Its not often I agree with Zone but in this case she is dead on. Revival is not what the church, individually or as a group needs. Revival is a band-aid for a problem that needs surgery. What the Church needs is a reawakening. There are many cases in history when there have been reawakening and generally speaking they effects lasts anywhere from a few decades to a century. Revival generally has a life span of months and in rare cases a year. The great expositer of the faith George Whitfield spear headed one of these great reawakenings and the effort cost him his life. He preached so much and so often that near the end he could barely talk for a few minutes and was regularly coughing up blood.

The last thing I believe needs to happen is the abandonment of the seminary system. Leaders of the Church are meant to be trained by a single master. Jesus as you know trained the 12 as well and many others but His core focus was on the twelve for training purposes. Peter trained Clement. John trained Polycarp and Ignatius. Paul trained Timothy and Titus. They worked and learned in real life and not in a theoretical classroom. On the job training we would call it today.

The final problem is accountability. We are all supposed to be accountable to each other in the faith. When we see someone behaving or speaking in a manner that brings shame to the Name we are called to hold that person to account that they may repent and be healed. Instead we turn away. We might offend them or they might bring our own sin to light or any number of excuses. Dr. David Jeremiah of the Shadow Mountain Church in Southern California explained excuses in one of his sermons. He said, "an excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie". So stop making excuses for why the church is in decline and start applying the truth of God's Word.

Is s not only the responsibility of the clergy to see that these things are done. The church is every single individual that as repented and accepted the gift of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a report that claims the 2.1 billion people today are Christians. How many of them do you think are clergy? The proper ration for a congregation is one Pastor to every 100 members. There simply are not enough clergy to do the entire job. To have a reawakening will require the whole church not just the clergy.

In Christ,

Bishop SEH

 

[revelation_zechariah]

THE AMERICAN CHURCH IS A DEN OF INIQUITY. FILTHY LUCRE IS THEIR MOTTO

 

[zone]

The last thing I believe needs to happen is the abandonment of the seminary system. Leaders of the Church are meant to be trained by a single master. Jesus as you know trained the 12 as well and many others but His core focus was on the twelve for training purposes. Peter trained Clement. John trained Polycarp and Ignatius. Paul trained Timothy and Titus. They worked and learned in real life and not in a theoretical classroom. On the job training we would call it today.

um...i'll stay with seminaries for better or for worse.
at least they all have names and i can check to see what they teach and believe and know about that denom.

one person 'training' another means that one person is passing along his own presuppositions and whatnot.
so where is the accountability in that?

a few men ordaining each other? what if i disagree with their theology?
hmm...no theologians?
no historians or linguists? no colleges or high schools?

i dunno....sounds too NAR-ish to me.

Is s not only the responsibility of the clergy to see that these things are done. The church is every single individual that as repented and accepted the gift of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a report that claims the 2.1 billion people today are Christians. How many of them do you think are clergy? The proper ration for a congregation is one Pastor to every 100 members. There simply are not enough clergy to do the entire job. To have a reawakening will require the whole church not just the clergy.

In Christ,

Bishop SEH

but you practically did away with the clergy.
by doing away with seminaries.

how will i know what any group of clergy teaches?
who will be the lead Apostles or whoever going around making sure the lay clergy teach the right things?

see, in the church i attend, discipling isn't really a separate thing from just abiding and remaining in the faith in the church.
if you are born, raised and grow up and old in the church, you are being discipled.

k...thx

 

[RedTent]

The American Church has Christ, they have received the Holy Spirit, they know to follow Christ not only in deeds but with their entire hearts. When a church comes into an American town,history tells us good follows.

But we can see something is wrong, for there are just as many out and out sinners in church as outside of church. For instance, there is no difference in the divorce rate. Our children have children outside of marriage. There is a very poor example of signs following as we are told to expect.

I think that what is wrong is a misreading of what God tells us through Paul. Paul explains over and over that to follow law without doing it through our praise of God is to do it with no affect in heaven. Paul says we must follow Christ. But people are reading that and saying don’t follow law, and God the Father spoke to Israel never to us. They say only Christ and the Holy Spirit speaks to us.

That is distorting God. The God we are told to follow, when He is distorted so is a false God.

 

[BishopSEH]

um...i'll stay with seminaries for better or for worse.
at least they all have names and i can check to see what they teach and believe and know about that denom.

one person 'training' another means that one person is passing along his own presuppositions and whatnot.
so where is the accountability in that?

a few men ordaining each other? what if i disagree with their theology?
hmm...no theologians?
no historians or linguists? no colleges or high schools?

i dunno....sounds too NAR-ish to me.



but you practically did away with the clergy.
by doing away with seminaries.

how will i know what any group of clergy teaches?
who will be the lead Apostles or whoever going around making sure the lay clergy teach the right things?

see, in the church i attend, discipling isn't really a separate thing from just abiding and remaining in the faith in the church.
if you are born, raised and grow up and old in the church, you are being discipled.

k...thx

Oh ye of little historical knowledge. Did you know that for roughly 400 years the clergy were trained exactly as I mentioned in my post? Probably not do to the scattershot nature of your response. The first seminary was developed by Basil of Ancyra during the 400's and lasted for roughly 1000 years before clergical training went monastic. That is Clergy began to be trained for their duties within the confines of the monastery. It was during this time that the church began its seperation from the Word of God to the traditions of men. This of course lead to the "Protestant Reformation".

During the 16th century, under the authority of Rome, seminaries were reformed at every diocese within the Roman Church. Yes, that's right, the modern seminary is a Roman by-product. Now I am not saying the seminaries are evil in and of themselves. Their concept is a good one but here is the funny thing, they teach in isolation, producing men and women in theory ready for full time vocation service with no practical experience. There is no congregation to keep the seminaries accountable. A student of seminary that challenges the status quo will likely find themselves searching for another school and if there stand was strong enough, blacklisted from all seminaries and marked as a trouble maker.

So except for a brief window during the 400's the Church did not use seminaries for 1400 years. For the first four hundred years clergical training was done in the real world by a Bishop or Pastor one on one are in a small group. It was during these years that Christianity marked unparalleled growth.

Further, you apparantly have absolutely no knowledge of how clergy was and is ordained. Seminaries or today and Pastor's and Bishop's back then do not ordain. Ordination is done by the elders and the congregation of a church in need of a clergyman. The Bishop or Pastor sends along a recommendation of acceptance with the new clergyman as an itinerant, that is a preacher at large.

I did do a search of 3 major bible softwares available to anyone with internet access on seminary. Did you know that not only is seminary not mentioned in the Word but the very concept of seminary is not there. What is there is a Master/student format. First established by our Lord and then carried out by His Apostles and then by the contemporaries of the Apostles and then the the contemporaries of the first generation Bishops and Pastors and so on and so on. Even during the 400's seminary was the exception and not the rule as seminaries were few and small.

I guess before you cling to modern convention you should take the time to look at the pattern for instruction handed down by the Lord instead of a system propped up by men. Again seminaries are not evil in and of themselves. They also do not teach the pure Word but each have their own unique denominational slant. Again, not evil but not pure either. So by all means stay with your comfort zone, modern, church in decline, tradition of men seminaries. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. His way that is.

In Christ,

Bishop SEH

 

[zone]

modern, church in decline

my church isn't modern.

i'll stick with Lutheranism.
you can do your thing.
thanks.

 

[Geometar]

I thought that Lutheranism as also all kind of Protestant churches were new,modern churches...Or i have missed something?

 

[BishopSEH]

my church isn't modern.

i'll stick with Lutheranism.
you can do your thing.
thanks.

Lutheranism? Zorosterism, Taoism, Confusionism, Bhuddism? Christianity, aka The Way according to the Scriptures. It was good enough for the Apostles and its good enough for me. Keep your "isms", again I must say, as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.

In Christ,

Bishop SEH