I'm a Christian

apostolic34 said:

It does me no good to sit in a pew on Sunday, worship to the latest Contemporary Christian whatever, hear the message, discuss it, say "that really applies", then promptly forget what I've heard, treating others with spite or at the least with an attitude that does not attract them to the Christian life.

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Amen. That's where I come from and I'm not going back.

No, you're not the only one on a journey. I think any self-aware person has times when they start looking at themselves and wonder why they believe what they believe and if it seems to be logical.

I've been on a journey with my faith for most of my life. I abandoned the Roman Catholic Church as a teenager, drifted into agnosticism/atheism for awhile, went hard-core fundamentalist as a much younger adult and since then have moved further to the left. There are some things that I take as absolute truth, but the grey areas are the ones that set me to wondering, thinking, studying and trying to make it fit the jigsaw puzzle in my mind. If it doesn't fit with a coherent view, then I toss it. The older I get, the more I understand that things are not as black and white as some would like to make it.

There's no crime or shame in tossing out what no longer fits.

apostolic34 said:

Bump

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OK…. I stopped going to church about 2 years ago. Prior to the last church, I had been very involved in a non-denominational (joyful) church - I was growing, loved the people. Loved their ethics, not always in agreement with the Pastor but I figure if I agree on 90% of the teaching that is good. The people were very respectful of others and their was a lot of personal growth in new Christians, chances for ministry for the elder Christians…. and then I visited a small new foundling church and felt pulled to be there to help. So I left the church I really was connected to and joined this fledgling church. For about a year I met with the pastor for prayer at 5-6 am in the morning. I was there for the hour before the service on Sunday to pray. There to support new Christians and to help in anyway I could. The Pastor just wouldn't stop gossiping. I had addressed it nicely and firmly on a number of occasions. When he would tell me who needed prayer for what - then some personal issue (who had an affair, who had already been divorced or had a drinking problem etc)I would tell him, "I didn't need to know all that" and that I really didn't want to know too much personal stuff about people bc sometimes it made things uncomfortable. I finally asked to have a meeting with him, and explained that he had a problem with gossip….. he stormed out!! So now I didn't really know how to respond, I had asked a few people anonymously what would be the correct action in this case. I was told to go to him and tell him. He really is a very loving pastor, great to the outcast, goes to the homeless, reaches out to drug addicts and the unwanted. So in the whole perspective, he is a great guy and a good pastor with a problem. But it just ripped our relationship apart. He stopped by my house once and apologized (somewhat??) and I have forgiven him I just don't feel like I can be there without him being uncomfortable with me.
I have prayer meetings I go to and I was very active in three different groups for years but one thing after another and those groups all changed their schedules and I work… so now I'm at loose ends. Not getting together with others for prayer makes me feel alone even though my family are Christians. But I really don't want to go back and expose myself to all the politics of church.
So I agree you don't need to belong to a denomination to be saved BUT the scriptures say - there are teachers, pastors, helpers all given for the good of the body. So if God thought enough to give His church teachers and pastors then it makes sense that we should avail ourselves of them??? Correct?
I have been praying about visiting other churches but it is a painful process. I have belonged to 4 different churches over the last 30 years and except for leaving the one to go to the fledgling church it always ends painfully.
Plus I consider myself a non-denominational charismatic annihilist… I don't fit well in many churches. Or at least my theology wouldn't be appreciated in very many places. I believe if you love the Lord with all your heart and try to love your neighbor, be kind, be ready to share the gospel that is what is important. All the theological debates are so much nonsense, the Lord will do as He sees fit anyway. I think sound teaching should be 'what the bible says' and then how people interpret these words differently. Some of it is very important to believe and most of the rest is just what you believe. It is most important to love… God, family, church family and the unsaved, unchurched and even the atheist. Bc Christ died for all of them not just for the church. I try to see unbelievers as pre-saved and share my joy if they can't hear the gospel at least they can see the fruit.
well- anyway thats where I'm at and why I'm not in a church today…. say a prayer for me and mine to find a good fit for our family. (My daughter and her husband joined my old (joyful) church… lol… but since I left I don't feel like I fit there now. Like I left them… IDK… just doesn't feel right??
God bless, andrea

PS: apostolic34 my thought on follower, Christian, fan, love Jesus hate church is, everyone is on a path. That is where they are today. I have friends who bristle at being called 'a Christian" they prefer to be called a follower. I consider myself I follower but call myself a Christian bc its just not important what others think, the Lord already knows my heart. Its just semantics…. one day your an evangelical, the next you might be a Catholic (I know "NO WAY!!!) but you never know how the Lord will call you. You might even become a charismatic non-denomination annihilist…. its just not important what you think… its what God thinks and would you go where He tells you to go? Can you hear Him?

In John 13:35, Jesus said: " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

Consistent displays of God's love toward others trumps all. This is what makes a believer or group of believers effective with and attractive to others. I believe this verse was given as the ultimate "litmus test". When people are close to God they don't feel the need to win because being close to God is winning.

Isaiah 26:3: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee."

I think 1 Corinthians 13 (NIV) would make an ideal, short version manifesto:

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

I went to one great evangelical church and my wife went to another. When I joined the military we were uprooted, and our beliefs changed (or clarified, to be more accurate) over time. Then, we spent four years frustratedly hunting around evangelical/non-denominational churches, finding everything from concert halls to snake-handlers to Republican pulpits to prosperity theologians. Then we went mainline Protestant (Presbyterian church in our case) and never looked back.

Apostolic - no, you're not the only one on a journey. And you're right all the trappings of faith mean nothing if real faith doesn't exist. Doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the popular music, ministries or books - but they are meaningless without the cross and the empty tomb. While they may not contradict scripture, they do nothing for people who do not follow Christ. I understand people can easily get wrapped up in and ultimately wind up following the culture of a church, and that is not Christianity. I struggled with some of that myself at various times in my journey.

Our church, while decidedly evangelical in nature, is also very bible based. The traditional creeds and traditions come from the book, and our teachings do as well. IMHO, that helps keep us grounded in the truth of Christianity.

Prayers for you that God will clearly show you the next step He would have you take on this journey to Him.

WolfGate said:

I understand people can easily get wrapped up in and ultimately wind up following the culture of a church, and that is not Christianity.

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That's a great way to put that. There are some churches that, in order to be accepted [socially], you have to conform into this certain likeness (and I'm not talking about a Christ-likeness). IMO.....that's not a church----that's a club.

d.

apostolic34 said:

Although I am separated from the United Petecostal Church for a number of their errors, I still believe that Rev. Stoneking had a point. He is also graceful to a fault (I'd met him several times). But if he encounters (what he believes to be) error, he moves on after he (in love) confronts it. He does not occupy his time endlessly with it or beat it mercilessly over the head. Neither did Christ. Also, let's keep these threads separated from one another, ok?

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I accidentally posted that to the wrong thread.

Hetta said:

I agree with what my 17 year old son said to me yesterday. He loves Jesus but he cannot stand the church.

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Except the bride of Christ is the church. You can't love Jesus and hate his wife. The church is filled with imperfect people, just like you, but that doesn't mean that you should tap out and not love the church, or be involved in the church.

Hetta said:

I agree with what my 17 year old son said to me yesterday. He loves Jesus but he cannot stand the church.

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I'm saddened by this comment. Yes other Christians are going to disappoint us. We live in a fallen world and the church will never be perfect. We have an enemy that seeks to destroy all that God made to be good and he fights tooth and nail. But Jesus LOVED the church. Jesus sacrificed his life for the church. The bible says the church is "the bride of Christ". Jesus is the head of the church. He created it, leads it, loves it, died for it. And when we say we don't like his church, we spit on Him.

There is another thread on the site - I don't recall where to find it, though - that quotes a famous fellow as saying something to the effect of "I like your Christ, but I don't like your Christians." I get why people say this. There are a lot of hypocrites and disingenuous Christians out there - those who are "out there" praying on the street corners, making a spectacle of themselves, not living what they preach, and certainly not living up to what I think the Bible calls us to.

We are a fallen people, trying to represent a perfect Christ. The world will judge Jesus on what they see in his people. Sad, but true. But this is all the more reason to live our faith authentically, to be teachable in Christ, to be deliberate in our Christian growth, and to be humble...I think humility is the key. When the world sees us screw up as Christians, for us to acknowledge this and admit to them and to ourselves that we are not perfect people, I think we would draw so many more into an interest in our faith.

But when we expect ourselves and others to be perfect and call them out on every little imperfection, that is causing dissension, strife, and disjoining the BoC. When we have people using shallow cliches, it looks disingenuous. When we disembody the BoC, or remove Christ as our head, we show the world a religion that they will hate - even from within. These things are sin, imo, and we will all be accountable for the image of Christ that we show to the world and to each other.

We need to accept each other's imperfections, be kind and gracious, bearing with one another in love....real love, not just some shallow facsimile of it.

ValleyGal said:

There is another thread on the site - I don't recall where to find it, though - that quotes a famous fellow as saying something to the effect of "I like your Christ, but I don't like your Christians."

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Gandhi said that. The full quote is "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

But when we expect ourselves and others to be perfect and call them out on every little imperfection, that is causing dissension, strife, and disjoining the BoC. When we have people using shallow cliches, it looks disingenuous. When we disembody the BoC, or remove Christ as our head, we show the world a religion that they will hate - even from within. These things are sin, imo, and we will all be accountable for the image of Christ that we show to the world and to each other.

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What do you mean by "disembody the BoC?" How is that done?

We need to accept each other's imperfections, be kind and gracious, bearing with one another in love....real love, not just some shallow facsimile of it.

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Wouldn't accepting one another's imperfections include accepting those who find comfort or encouragement in what you might think are "shallow cliches?"

Wouldn't accepting one another's imperfections mean being kind, rather than judgmental, to those who have been damaged by other Christians and thus eschew the institutional church?

CG, I am not discussing this with you in this thread. It's A34's thread, and I was simply responding to the previous poster.

Annnd, cue the dissension! Lol

And when we say we don't like his church, we spit on Him

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So, really, you are going to can beat up a 17 year old who is trying to find his way as a Christian? When my son said that, my heart leaped, because the pivotal words for me were "I love Jesus ..." I can't remember him ever saying that before, and I had tremendous gratitude that he felt and also verbalized his love for Christ.

Again, he's 17. He doesn't know about "the church being the bride of Jesus". He is not well read on the Bible, but he is finding his way and figuring out what he believes and who he is. Anyone who slams a kid of that age, a kid who is owning up, out loud, to loving Jesus - but having struggles with church life - well, they are exactly the reason why my son dislikes the church (and mine too).

Talking about "spitting on Jesus" is sheer hyperbole btw. And disgraceful.