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[BIBLE]James 5:16[/BIBLE]
Catholic and Orthodox require personal confession to a priest before taking communion. Ideally, a weekly church attender would confess his or her sins weekly to another Christian. This provides a useful framework for holding a Christian accountable (both to himself, by knowing he will have to confess; and to the prist) and may keep many from falling into sin.
Anglican and Lutheran, and probably some other churches offer general confession as part of the Eucharistic service, and often private confession by appointment. This is another way to keep sinners accountable, but it is possible for a person not to participate in the general confession with a full heart, because no personal counseling is required.
The kind of churches I go to, general confession is NOT part of the service and if you want to confess your sins to another Christian, you have to seek out a person to hold you accountable. Because confession is such a personal thing, generally people don't do this unless they have a close personal mentor-like or reciprocal relationship with another Christian, or unless things have gotten so bad that they NEED psychologically to confess to stop being miserable. I do know that really there is only one time I have done this and it was the latter situation--I was miserable and in a mess and I took a youth group leader up on her offer to "be there for you young people." It helped SO much. But it is really, really easy to fall through the cracks in an evangelical church if you haven't formed close relationships with people there. As a busy young parent, I haven't had much success at making close friends at our church although we have been going there for 8 years.
Recently a friend of mine returned to the Catholic Church after spending years as an evangelical. She explained to me that she wasn't "good enough to be a Protestant" because Protestants have to work out so much of their salvation on their own.
Do we low-church Protestants neglect this spiritual caring for our brothers and sisters in Christ by not providing an easy and all-accessable way for them to confess their sins to another Christian on a regular basis?
Catholic and Orthodox require personal confession to a priest before taking communion. Ideally, a weekly church attender would confess his or her sins weekly to another Christian. This provides a useful framework for holding a Christian accountable (both to himself, by knowing he will have to confess; and to the prist) and may keep many from falling into sin.
Anglican and Lutheran, and probably some other churches offer general confession as part of the Eucharistic service, and often private confession by appointment. This is another way to keep sinners accountable, but it is possible for a person not to participate in the general confession with a full heart, because no personal counseling is required.
The kind of churches I go to, general confession is NOT part of the service and if you want to confess your sins to another Christian, you have to seek out a person to hold you accountable. Because confession is such a personal thing, generally people don't do this unless they have a close personal mentor-like or reciprocal relationship with another Christian, or unless things have gotten so bad that they NEED psychologically to confess to stop being miserable. I do know that really there is only one time I have done this and it was the latter situation--I was miserable and in a mess and I took a youth group leader up on her offer to "be there for you young people." It helped SO much. But it is really, really easy to fall through the cracks in an evangelical church if you haven't formed close relationships with people there. As a busy young parent, I haven't had much success at making close friends at our church although we have been going there for 8 years.
Recently a friend of mine returned to the Catholic Church after spending years as an evangelical. She explained to me that she wasn't "good enough to be a Protestant" because Protestants have to work out so much of their salvation on their own.
Do we low-church Protestants neglect this spiritual caring for our brothers and sisters in Christ by not providing an easy and all-accessable way for them to confess their sins to another Christian on a regular basis?
