Here it is Sunday morning again, I would love to go to church and see some friends, brothers and sisters. But because most my Christian friends are content to go sit through a service for two hours, and looking down the pews at one another, it becomes torture. Surrounded by friends while this one guy rambles on for an hour every Sunday.
How good it is when brothers get together.
I believe that she was talking about 'in addition' to a Sunday service for a Bible study. Not as a substitute for Sunday and all the saints are gathered together.I'm still not sure this matches with scripture, I got it. You're a pastor and such a thread is stepping on your toes for some reason. But such bible studies you speak of don't include the whole of the body, only groups. In 1 Cor 14, Paul was teaching that when all the saints come together there should be shared responsibility. Still, no where in that chapter (the most comprehensive scriptural teaching on church gatherings) does Paul say the Pastor does this or that and everyone else needs to be silent. He emphasizes the role and responsibility of all saints in the service, not just one.
I would hope that you would seek to find another church.Here it is Sunday morning again, I would love to go to church and see some friends, brothers and sisters. But because most my Christian friends are content to go sit through a service for two hours, and looking down the pews at one another, it becomes torture. Surrounded by friends while this one guy rambles on for an hour every Sunday.
How good it is when brothers get together.
When God put moses in charge, who was moses accountable to? (Svt4him)
Not sure where your heading with that, but Moses is accountable to God. As is everyone actually.
A better question would be 'Were the Israelites accountable to Moses?'
They were accountable to God and His Word, whether a person 'followed' Moses or any other Prophet would only be as the Prophet followed God also, not otherwise. Prophets had to demonstrate or prove their words with miraculous intervention. And still, it was not the messenger that received allegiance, but the Word of God itself was what (or Whom) demanded allegiance. And the precept has always been to obey God rather than man.
My concern with the concept of having a "pastor" in charge of a congregation is twofold; the first being that there is of course absolutely no support for such an Office. Most importantly, as this often horrid role has far too often placed such heavy weights on the often faithful person who has walked into such a role, where the pressures that this role has placed on their lives often results in a complete moral failure or even where they have committed suicide, then I would much prefer to see us returning to a more Biblical model where the leadership of the local church resides corporately amongst the Elders.You may have missed the point made in post 127: 'Prophets had to demonstrate or prove their words with miraculous intervention. And still, it was not the messenger that received allegiance, but the Word of God itself was what (or Whom) demanded allegiance' (post 127)
It is true that some of those in pulpits seem to think of themselves as Moses, but a real Prophet was so ONLY because they could verify so with actual prophecies and miracles that came to pass. like parting the Red Sea for instance. And again, the point of the verified prophet was to authenticate the canonization of the message, that is that the message was indeed Gods Word.
Tell me 'who' in a pulpit has the 'authority', the priest/pastor, or the Word of God?
Right, it is Gods Word that is our authority. Anyone who 'claims' to follow God (such as priests/pastors/teachers) must recognize that Gods Word is the authority. Otherwise it is them that do not know who has the authority, and they who are teaching falsehood.
Your arguing that the 'chair' pulpit, or office verifies the truth, that position has a extremely poor track record, historically, and biblically.
How about;That's a shame! What city are you in or near? I might be able to hook you up with a good church. We are about 3,000 and growing.
Here you could praise and worship with many brothers and sisters, all singing pirates the King of Kings! You would here an inspiring message and a call to go out and reach others for Christ. But, you would also have the opportunity to join a number of ministries.
Small GroupsThe reason why we are growing is because of how many people we reach with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sure there is a pastor, yes he is the shepherd of the church, as such he directs things. But what you might not see is the infrastructure, the many many hands and voices that carry out the ministry.
Homeless Outreach
Feeding Ministry
Divorce Recovery
Five different Bible classes (last six weeks)
Woman's Ministry
Men's Ministry
Businessmen's outreach
Job Preparation and search
Missions - a variety of support positions, including trips to 30+ different missionaries we support
Church Planting Team
Community Service Groups
Love to have you come see what the real church looks like -
It can be hard to define what an ideal meeting would look like, but over the past decade or so where our church adopted a seeker-sensitive approach to"Here you could praise and worship with many brothers and sisters, all singing pirates the King of Kings!'' (SimplyPut #123) The OP, and many posts here are not speaking of the 'worship' or 'music' part of an assembly, we are talking about the pastor dominated part, the sermon and everything that's performed by a few up front. Most everyone loves the worship music (many like me, go just for the music). . .
Ideally each reasonably sized congregation should have a few competent teachers as most senior 'pastors' often seem to be less capable of providing solid teaching.I will say as a talking point, that there does need to be someone to lead the flock in teaching, don't you guys think?
Otherwise, how will they learn the Word of God?
I do not see how having an open church service to socializing can take the place of good, solid biblical teaching.
We all know how important the Word of God is. How does the flock learning that fit in to these scenarios? If I may ask.