I am wondering why there is so much hatred for local churches on this site. It's way out of proportion to the general Christian population.
Christianity is obviously within the context of community. It involves the ordinances of baptism and observing the Lord's Supper, as well as church discipline which is applied lovingly when a member is in sin. All of these things require face-to-face, participatory fellowship.
Here's some reasons I've heard for not being in church fellowship:
1. I know more than the pastors in my area. Well, I've heard this remark from people who don't reflect sound
doctrine, so I doubt that. Additionally, are they willing to drive further in order to attend a sound church, where the
pastor gives decent sermons? I have driven over 30 miles each way to attend a church that was to my satisfaction.
2. All the churches are in biblical error and I am afraid of falling into biblical error. If you listen to people
here, you may arrive at that conclusion. To be honest, many of them are cultists and they are seeking to degrade
Christianity by their false teachings, which sound credible but are not, when examined deeply. I was part of a cultic
group as a young person. I encourage you, if you're a younger seeker, not to fall into the trap they are ensnared
in.
3. I am not physically able. I can sympathize with this one, and in this case, online fellowship is better than no
fellowship.
4. I am a new Christian, and can't find a church. I can sympathize with that one, too. I suggest looking for a
church that is part of a sound association, such as Evangelical Free Church of America, Christian and Missionary
Alliance, and 9marks associated churches. All of those have online church finders. There are many other good
churches besides these; the key word is to find an evangelical church that believes the ten basic points I list in my
profile (deity of Christ, Triune nature of God, substitutionary atonement of Jesus, virgin birth, original sin, authority
and inspiration of Scripture, eternal reward of the righteous and eternal punishment of the wicked, justification by
faith alone, bodily resurrection of Jesus and believers).
5. I have social anxiety and it's hard to be around people. I can relate to that one too. When I first started
attending church, I was very anxious while attending services. Often sweat would be pouring down my face. It didn't
help that the church had a dress code of wearing suits, which made me feel uncomfortable. Nowadays that's not so
common.
6. Someone has hurt my feelings, so I'm not going to attend church. Well, join the club and get over it. I
counseled with a pastor on a sensitive issue and he didn't maintain my confidentiality. For a long while, I took out
my anger on other Christians concerning that. Makes sense, eh? One person, or a group of people, do something, and
I label all other fellowships or Christians as bad? That's the kind of poor reasoning Satan wants us to use to keep us
in isolation. Satan loves it when God's children stay in isolation; they are easy targets that way. He can pick off the
sheep on the periphery easier than the ones that are grouped together.
When I was looking for a church a while back, I looked for a church that showed love toward one another (John 13:34-35), was Christ-centered (Jesus and salvation is mentioned in the sermons), and that the church itself is growing and has a wide variety of ages.
Do I think someone can be a sound, mature Christian and not belong to a local fellowship? I believe God gives extra grace to physically infirmed individuals, and yes they can be sound, mature Christians. There may also be other unique circumstances which cause issues with church attendance.
Do I believe that those who avoid church attendance are growing spiritually? Read Ephesians 4 in regards to the purpose of the church. It says, in essence, that the purpose of the church is to help believers mature. So, if one is not involved in a local fellowship, I don't think they can claim to be a mature Christian.
Some on the site are in rebellion concerning God's command to fellowship, and claim to be mature teachers. Their claims are ludicrous. If they are not well-grounded in a fellowship, you shouldn't consider them to be sources of credible information.
Mainly I would suggest that you want to realize that this chat site attracts a lot of kooks along with good Christians. If you filter your thinking through kooks, then you're going to suffer for it. And, there are a lot of anti-fellowship kooks here. They console themselves into thinking that this is their fellowship, because they don't fit well into the local church due to their kooky conspiracy theories or beliefs. Don't follow their example.
Maybe others can suggest other reasons they've encountered for non-church attendance, and what they look for in a church fellowship.
I understand that by doing this, might make for some rather lengthy postings. Yet, if you insist on using such vainful tactics, in a condescential manner, in your parsing out your inquires, or responses?.....Then you, sir, have won! And such a great victory you have achieved!
