- Jul 1, 2013
- 9,199
- 8,425
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
Back in my evangelical days, I met some guys who would attend a weekly study at my Southern Baptist ecclesial community. I discovered that they were a circle of friends who were sort of evangelical vagabonds, joining groups but visiting different communities in rotation. Sometimes they would even attend service at two different ecclesial communities on a single Sunday.Recently, a sister joined our Bible study group but only sporadically. After a few months, we reached out to her because we had heard through mutual acquaintances that she has been attending other small groups and other churches in the area as well.
When the issue was brought to her attention, she responded by saying that church is not just one building or one congregation (which I tend to agree with) but rather it is whenever 2 or more believers come together to pray. She desires to grow and connect with the body of Christ as a whole. Therefore, she attends two churches regularly, is connected to at least three small groups as well as Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), PRISM, and Intervarsity on a local college campus. She says she strongly believes in the body of Christ.
Now, that is all fine and dandy but my view point differs a bit. I believe that though we do subscribe to a concept of the global Church at large, that there is benefit to committing and rooting oneself in a local church, submitting to its teachings, knowing its people, and being known by them as well. However, this seems to fall of deaf ears.
What are your thoughts and how can I speak to this sister about this issue? She comes to our small group fairly regularly but there are times when she doesn't come for months and will sporadically come to our church service.
I expressed my surprise and awe of this to my girlfriend who attended the same community I did. She wasn't the deepest well on the farm, one might say, but she had NO respect for those guys. "They should visit whichever groups they want but commit to one particular [community]," she said. I'd never thought of it that way.
Still, I don't see the problem with this type of behavior. Some people simply have a different aptitude for this and I don't think they should be "corrected" when they're not doing anything wrong.
I'm Catholic and I realize things work differently in my Church but I have been known to sometimes visit a special type of Catholic parish rather than my home parish on occasion. I meet a wider range of people and experience a bigger liturgical variety this way. I don't see the harm in this type of thing.
Upvote
0