I also posted this on the Reformed/Protestant board, but thought there may be some here who also may have some insight...
Some of you may remember me... I posted before under 'IamThatHero' (but I forgot my password, so I had to make a new screen name).
I asked before about if there were any churches out there that were both calvinist and charismatic... and I got some great replies. We even saw one we're interested in... Sovereign Grace... but, there are none near us.
We moved here (to NW AR) about 10 months ago. We've visited so many churches we've lost count. We stayed at a Messianic church for about 3 months. It was a great experiance and we are still in contact with them, but it's in another town and the drive is just longer than we want to make (plus nobody from the church lives up here, so there's no one to fellowship with outside church without having to travel). Now we're at an Assemblies of God church. We've been there about 3-4 months. They are new to the area, having started the church in April. Aside from the Armenianism, which we can live with most of the time... they are so focused on "growing the church" and "getting the numbers in" that we are going crazy. Not that we aren't for people coming to church or people coming to God to begin with... but we're feeling they are more about quantity than quality here. And the worship there... we don't feel like we've really worshiped in a corporate sense in such a long time. And their style of music drives us crazy... it's like lounge style christian choruses. And the pastor team (which is a father/son team) is fine and all... but they and their wives, well, we get the feeling they are nice and kind to us and even others because they "have" to be and because they want to get the "numbers". We have made a couple of friends though, otherwise it may have been easier to move on. I suppose even if we do start looking for another church again it's not like we have to cease forming the friendships that we've started. It's just easier to establish real meaningful relationships with people you go to church with and see at least once or twice a week regardless of whether you have time to outside that. And it's just that we've pretty much visited all the local churches that would be potentially what we'd be looking for. Where we're at used to be two very small country towns, but they are now merging and becoming a fairly decent sized small city. Churches here are generally small country type (several very pentacostalish type churches) and a few larger ones representing the major denominations.
We have thought about the possibility of starting a home Bible Study group with the hopes that Sovereign Grace would decide to plant a church here in a year or two. (that's what happened to one they just started in N.C. they had an established Bible study group of like minded people who really wanted a church like Sovereign Grace... and they finally got theirs). It sounds like a good idea to me... but my husband is feeling very unsure of his ability to get something like that going and keep it going. He's concerned with being able to keep it going when he travels several times a year for work. I told him it's not like someone else couldn't host the study in their home when he has to be gone... and it's not like others can't share the responcibility of leading the study... or we can simply take a Wednesday off when he's gone if we have to. Also he's not sure of himself in other ways. He tends to be a debator... no really meaning to be, it's just how he is naturally. There are few people he agrees with and he's afraid of people not being able to handle how he is. I don't think he's so bad... he's just very passionate about his faith and he doesn't like to compromise (another reason he has a problem being where we are).
I'm really not sure what we should do or when we should do it. And whatever it is we should do I'm not sure how to be encouraging to my husband at times when he's reluctant to do something.
I don't know. Any thoughts?
Some of you may remember me... I posted before under 'IamThatHero' (but I forgot my password, so I had to make a new screen name).
I asked before about if there were any churches out there that were both calvinist and charismatic... and I got some great replies. We even saw one we're interested in... Sovereign Grace... but, there are none near us.
We moved here (to NW AR) about 10 months ago. We've visited so many churches we've lost count. We stayed at a Messianic church for about 3 months. It was a great experiance and we are still in contact with them, but it's in another town and the drive is just longer than we want to make (plus nobody from the church lives up here, so there's no one to fellowship with outside church without having to travel). Now we're at an Assemblies of God church. We've been there about 3-4 months. They are new to the area, having started the church in April. Aside from the Armenianism, which we can live with most of the time... they are so focused on "growing the church" and "getting the numbers in" that we are going crazy. Not that we aren't for people coming to church or people coming to God to begin with... but we're feeling they are more about quantity than quality here. And the worship there... we don't feel like we've really worshiped in a corporate sense in such a long time. And their style of music drives us crazy... it's like lounge style christian choruses. And the pastor team (which is a father/son team) is fine and all... but they and their wives, well, we get the feeling they are nice and kind to us and even others because they "have" to be and because they want to get the "numbers". We have made a couple of friends though, otherwise it may have been easier to move on. I suppose even if we do start looking for another church again it's not like we have to cease forming the friendships that we've started. It's just easier to establish real meaningful relationships with people you go to church with and see at least once or twice a week regardless of whether you have time to outside that. And it's just that we've pretty much visited all the local churches that would be potentially what we'd be looking for. Where we're at used to be two very small country towns, but they are now merging and becoming a fairly decent sized small city. Churches here are generally small country type (several very pentacostalish type churches) and a few larger ones representing the major denominations.
We have thought about the possibility of starting a home Bible Study group with the hopes that Sovereign Grace would decide to plant a church here in a year or two. (that's what happened to one they just started in N.C. they had an established Bible study group of like minded people who really wanted a church like Sovereign Grace... and they finally got theirs). It sounds like a good idea to me... but my husband is feeling very unsure of his ability to get something like that going and keep it going. He's concerned with being able to keep it going when he travels several times a year for work. I told him it's not like someone else couldn't host the study in their home when he has to be gone... and it's not like others can't share the responcibility of leading the study... or we can simply take a Wednesday off when he's gone if we have to. Also he's not sure of himself in other ways. He tends to be a debator... no really meaning to be, it's just how he is naturally. There are few people he agrees with and he's afraid of people not being able to handle how he is. I don't think he's so bad... he's just very passionate about his faith and he doesn't like to compromise (another reason he has a problem being where we are).
I'm really not sure what we should do or when we should do it. And whatever it is we should do I'm not sure how to be encouraging to my husband at times when he's reluctant to do something.
I don't know. Any thoughts?
