Church History Thread

[DragonFox91]

Was reading some history on individual church congregations that start strong & healthy but over time die due to low membership.

What happens many times is the church acquires new leadership. There's usually a shift in theology, a straying from the Word that had built it. The congregations become spiritually apathetic - maybe most in the congregation always were, the pastors were just good at still keeping them in the fold. But as it changes, they leave. The apathetic don't see a point. Those who know better knows it's not healthy. The church dies.

I've seen this happen in my own life. It's very sad, the death of a church congregation. The cracks are on it before it starts to fall apart. But God sees it & isn't surprised. He says some seeds grow strong at first then get choked on the thorns. There are some bad ones that grow up, but you'll recognize them by their fruit. A bad tree produces bad fruit.

 

[sampa]

It's interesting b/c what the scandal would be in the present time is the age gap between them.

I wonder how much of a scandal it really was tho, b/c evidently marriages got going fast. I have no doubt it ruffled feathers & I'll be honest, I can see why - they had sworn before God no marriage, they were now being hypocrites. But was it more a loud minority that was outraged. That's one thing I've really been learning the past couple years, is how much everything's just written by the winners, the loud, the smoothest-talker, or the mob.

It's encouraging to hear not everyone who marries marries in their 20s. Thanks for sharing that!

Agreed, it was an encouragement to me. They both definitely had a learning curve coming into a marriage together after having vowed purity and singleness before God. I'm sure there was an internal struggle and habits to change once they were joined together.