What is Wrong with going to Church?

There are days when I don't feel like going, but when I get there I am more refreshed than I could imagine. It pulls me out of the defeats of the day.

heron said:

Buttermilk, did people accuse you of leaving in a huff over one issue or hurt, not seeing how many you had already put up with? I read a little of your other thread, but didn't go as far as details.

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Nope - nobody has really spoken to me about it at all - says it all really

I've seen that happen so many times. I don't know if people are too busy, or don't notice...but whenever I run into someone who left a church, that's their story. Not one person called.

heron said:

I've seen that happen so many times. I don't know if people are too busy, or don't notice...but whenever I run into someone who left a church, that's their story. Not one person called.

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So much for "family" , huh ? That may be much better than the whole group coming over and seeing what's up and pushing for one to come back .

SNPete said:

My personal view is that going to a church can only benefit the Christian. Plus a church is a public presence that can reach out to the community. If nothing else, it is listed in the phone book so someone looking for fellowship, counsel or salvation can simply give the church a call and find someone to talk to. I don’t this as being possible with a home fellowship group.

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Indeed, that is a very reasonable opinion to hold, but it still remains personal, though there is a very high liklihood of agreement on this point. Some may not go to a specific church because the behavior there is aversive to one's spiritual walk -- particular persons who attend may cause involuntary distaste, which opens the door for sin, and church is presumably a place to escape from sin. Others may not go because, like one person I knew, they work six days a week and therefore only have one day entirely free to rest. Still others may not go because the sermon is either ridiculously boring, or contains material one already knows. I am of this latter point: I read voraciously, know my pastor's theology almost, if not better than, he does, and consider the lessons he speaks to be rather bland for my taste, though for others, who don't read like me, the freak, might find this information edifying. One may not go to any church because his place of living does not allow for any expedient reach of a church, or he may not find any church that "clicks" with him.

Ultimately, I find nothing necessarily bad about the Christian who spends the day at home, and this presumably includes sleeping late. Worship is a way of being, and is poorly contained in a single hour once a week. In order to be able to act in such a way that entails the greatest spirit of worship, one must have the greatest physical and psychical advantage possible to be able to prolong and magnify this capacity for worship. And this may include staying home to stay away from agitating persons, or boring sermons; or sleeping late, seeing how sleep is needed for good health.

Moreover, church was much more a perceived necessity at the birth of Christianity, and in places where Christianity is a minority, than it is now, where I am living. The early church was a means of getting away from vehement persecution and finding a growing faith in the presence of others who were fighting the same good fight as oneself. Such is rarely the case now, and here in America and other places that tolerate religious freedom. Hence, there is really no pressing need to go to church unless one finds blessings in the presence of others, or the sermon to be scintillating or fascinating.

My personal view is that going to a church can only benefit the Christian. Plus a church is a public presence that can reach out to the community. If nothing else, it is listed in the phone book so someone looking for fellowship, counsel or salvation can simply give the church a call and find someone to talk to. I don’t this as being possible with a home fellowship group.

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This is not a reason to hold onto the corpse, though!

FLANDIDLYANDERS said:

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This is not a reason to hold onto the corpse, though!

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Ah yes . Good analogy . I will attempt to remember that and say that I wish to throw the *dead* baby out with the bath water .

New_Wineskin said:

Ah yes . Good analogy . I will attempt to remember that and say that I wish to throw the *dead* baby out with the bath water .

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Or leave it there, burial at sea and all that.

Move out from the water to the desert. Try 40 years wondering, get to know the outcasts and villains. You know, where Jesus is.

New_Wineskin said:

So much for "family" , huh ? That may be much better than the whole group coming over and seeing what's up and pushing for one to come back .

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'They left because they were a rebellious spirit or wolf in sheeps clothing. They can still be saved if they come back to church, but thats up to them. We sure aint running after someone who is not really saved. Them leaving us showed they had no part in the truth'

Thats what they would say about a poor little lamb that was driven away.

The unconditional love the church offers and brags about is really a very conditional form of false toleration, not love.

We're fighting a losing battle when most of the church is in hiding from a world that Jesus lives in. They all say how you should never be of the world, but happen to forget we are called to be in the world.

When you whitewash the rotten wood, the termites scramble out with armored white backs.

(You'll have to figure out your own application of this little proverb.)

lismore said:

'They left because they were a rebellious spirit or wolf in sheeps clothing. They can still be saved if they come back to church, but thats up to them. We sure aint running after someone who is not really saved. Them leaving us showed they had no part in the truth'

Thats what they would say about a poor little lamb that was driven away.

The unconditional love the church offers and brags about is really a very conditional form of false toleration, not love.

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Yep . You are either with them or they are against you . I would rather have the latter if that is the choice .

Kill the Church! Murder most holy: Voluntarily euthenize our diseased and dieing body.

To give up what we hold most dear is far more Biblical than clinging to tradition.

God has left the building, now lets destroy the sucker and rebuild our communities.

Yes, kill the church. We must become neo-Nietzscheans and destroy false Christianity in order to unveil the true power and excellence of the gospel. We must declare: the death of the church. In order to do this, we must first kill it ourselves. In order to kill it, we must deviate from it -- for the church is no independent structure, but some weakling that acts as a parasite on whoever it can, sucking their intelligence, integrity, and individuality. In doing so we must create a new church: the church of the individual; a church which only individuals can enter; a church which the crowd as the crowd cannot see.

Erm, u taking the <edit>? (j/k)

Amen, old bean!

Wow, received...erm... ...checking to see if we're listening?

"They left because they were a rebellious spirit or wolf in sheeps clothing. They can still be saved if they come back to church, but that's up to them. We sure ain't running after someone who is not really saved. Them leaving us showed they had no part in the truth." Thats what they would say about a poor little lamb that was driven away.

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How many times have I heard that! Where do they get these ideas?

To give up what we hold most dear is far more Biblical than clinging to tradition.

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Received said:

In doing so we must create a new church: the church of the individual; a church which only individuals can enter; a church which the crowd as the crowd cannot see.

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Now I realise that many Christians may start reacting to the INDIVIDUALISM you promote here, isn't it what Jesus did?
I mean, he send Holy Spirit and he himself buggered off to heaven so that WE would ALL be PRIESTS... while I still think accountabiblity is essential to be a Christian (or samurai/druid/jedi/lego-er/curryeater/artist - as i tend to label myself) this issue of TRUSTING people to be RESPONSIBLE for their OWN SALVATION is the whole frickin point!

EMPOWERMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL COUPLED WITH TRUST-EARNED ACCOUNTABILITY. WITH JESUS.

There's Church.

Yes
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The most enlightening thread ever.

Agreed.

Why do we need individualism -- the flourishing of the individual at the death of the church (or the view of theological fascism wherein the individual is negated by being considered a part of the "crowd" of the church)? Because God makes particular demands for each person, the refusal to follow resulting in sin, the ignorance of (by virtue of being lost in the crowd) a form of foundational despair; and how much truth is there in the crowd? None. "Where the crowd is there is untruth" (Kierkegaard) and this, among other reasons, the sense of groupthink that unconsciously grows there.