Why Stay In Church
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mima, that's an interesting idea the person shared with you.
My first reaction was that the idea could be close to the truth. However, one has to follow Christ, and just maybe, maybe, Christ gives someone the grace to stay and witness in an institutional church. People go to prisons to witness. There's no reason why someone may not to stay in an institutional church to witness. However, they will probably get pushed out.
I know, I am a bit overt in my opinion and probably state it stronger than I mean for it to be.
But there is some truth to the idea the person shared with you. |
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---Rod4Him on 11/24/09 |
Yesterday a person visited me who has the following idea.
It is his contention that the closer a person gets to God in their worship and praise and praying the farther away they will get from the denominational church. Several of my friends have experienced being pushed out of their particular churches, and these churches are of all denominations, and for the young and beginning soulwinner can be very worrisome troubling and confusing. |
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---mima on 11/24/09 |
sissy, you said: Being outside the Church, the devil will drag you down even more & you may never get back up.
I got news for you sissy, the devil has taken more shots at me, more than I can count over the last 26 years and guess what? The Word of God says, "HE ALWAYS CAUSES US TO TRIUMPH Through Christ Jesus."
As long as you are yoked to Jesus, in love with Him, wanting to Obey His Word and Do His Will at all cost, God will always give you the Victory through Christ Jesus, Our Lord and Savior. Be encouraged, the devil is a liar. He uses lies when people don't know the word of God and don't obey it. |
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---Donna on 11/24/09 |
joseph, you got your first paragraph right. Since Christ is the head of the church, at the home church, I believe Christ has more freedom.
The home church still has overseers, but they submit to one another also.
I don't claim to be perfectly knowledgable in this concept. All I know is that the institutional church is very lacking.
Notice that this second part of my post lists some of the things that should happen in "church." They almost never happen in the institutional church.
The institutional church is soo organized there's not much room for Christ to work in one another.
The home church may not be perfect, but it's closer than the institutional church. |
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---Rod4Him on 11/24/09 |
We were created for fellowship with God,therefore,God put within humankind the need to connect. The need was put there so we would yearn or desire to connect with God but it also shows up in how we relate on earth toward others. When people stay in a church which actually should be left I think they feel more comfortable with the familar plus they have developed some true friends while there and hate to leave them. Any time we have to start all over again there is a twinge of guilt almost like it is we who failed although the real reasons we had to leave weren't anything to do with us. Change is never easy therefore people avoid it. |
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---Darlene_1 on 11/24/09 |
\\ "Church" needs defined.\\
I think Jesus pretty well defined it. |
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---Cluny on 11/24/09 |
What stood out concerning Rod4Him's defined distinctions is that the home church would have no need for "spiritual" leadership other then the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit within each of the individual participants. For if He is truly present, all things will "be done decently and in order" and that would be a beautiful thing. But, If not, well.....
Structure is critical to any gathering. Organized systems of religion with apostles, pastors, deacons, teachers, ushers, ect. Defines positions of structural authority within the organization, thus providing decency and order, while at the same time providing a set meeting place for the fellowship of a large group of believers, and those who are sick/lost and in need. |
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---joseph on 11/24/09 |
"Church" needs defined.
If the "church" used in this question is the institutional church, I can only answer it from past experience, and from some people I know that stay there.
1) Security, someone else plans the show, all I have to do is watch.
2) It feels good to satisfy a religious feeling.
3) Some friends go.
4) Sincere people don't know what else to do.
5) Try to contribute to a ministry.
6) To get beat up for failing God.
If the "church" is a home type.
1) For fellowship
2) To pray for one another
3) To encourage one another
4) To stimulate one another
5) To help one another, maybe financially
6) To seek God's will together
7) To study the Bible together
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---Rod4Him on 11/23/09 |
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Well, we do have self-serving pastors who misunderstand the directions that the Holy Spirit gave us through our Apostle Paul. But whatever Paul has been given for us works very well in God's love and leading. We might have at least one example, here, of someone who has been judging Paul's writings by how wrong people have misrepresented Paul's epistles. So, it is good to do what Paul says - - but the way the Holy Spirit has us doing this > including Philippians 2:14-16 and Ephesians 4:31-32 about how to love, and Ephesians 5:17-33 for marriage, and 1 Timothy 3:1-10 about who qualifies to be considered for ordination. |
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---Bill_bila5659 on 11/23/09 |
Some leave because there is truly poisonous leadership or they have suffered deep wounds by fellow members. This is understandable, but the key to any decision to leave the church is the same key on whether to join a congregation - prayer.
Pray until you know and if you don't know keep praying. |
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---larry on 11/23/09 |
Cluny: "this is what Jesus founded?"
I think if you read the NT you will see that it was "Paul" who "invented" Churches.like the 7 in Asia Minor!
Jesus set up NO churches,but sent out evangelists to all the world!
It was Paul who thought up Pastors,Elders Deacons etc.. with a whole bunch of rules governing "the church!"
After all he wrote (13 out of 27)1/2 the NT that most preachers quote to support their belief! |
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---1st_cliff on 11/23/09 |
I stay in church because the Bible and God say to - "Do NOT forsake the assembling of yourselves". Yes, all churches have problems, this is because they are full of humans who ALL have flaws. Jesus said that it is the sick that need doctors, not the well. We are ALL human, and ALL have sickness called sin - therefore we ALL need Doctor Jesus to help heal us. Also, the Bible says we are ALL the body of Christ. We can NOT funtion properly without eachother, this is why church is so important. If obedience to God and His Word is not reason to go to church, I don't know what is. |
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---Leslie on 11/23/09 |
I stay in Church because I believe in God.
That's right. No Church is perfect. If you fall, God is there to help you up. Being outside the Church, the devil will drag you down even more & you may never get back up. A Church is not the building. It's the people, some may judge, then they'l be judged by God. In Church is the fellowship and the Spirit. But, one should find God's Church that they feel comfortable in. |
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---Sissy3396 on 11/23/09 |
I don't stay in church, but I have meetings at my house instead. I invite "whosoever will come."
I think we misunderstood the scripture that says, don't forsake the gathering of the brethren. In the book of Acts, they gathered in each other's homes and sold all they had so that no one was in need.
They got together for prayer, worship, breaking bread, etc., Not for taking up building funds, or creating programs to get people into the church, etc., |
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---Donna on 11/23/09 |
Perhaps I do not get enough of bad treatment from the world. So might it be good somehow to go to a church to get beaten up some more from so-called christians? |
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---Eloy on 11/23/09 |
Because this is what Jesus founded.
And no matter how full the church is of hypocrites, there's ALWAYS room for one more. |
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---Cluny on 11/22/09 |
I stay in church for 2 very simple reasons, 1st, Jesus Christ died for the church and therefore I feel that I should consider it very important to Him and secondly, of all the obnoxious, hard-headed, ignorant, unkind people there might be in any particular church I am potentially the worst one there and if God will save someone like me, He surely can do the same for anybody else, right? |
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---tommy3007 on 11/22/09 |
I stay in my church because after my divorce, I prayed and asked the Lord where He would want me to use my gifts and talents. It hurt to much to stay in the church where I worshipped with my husband for ten years.
My church has a burden for the poor, and the community in general. The people I have gotten to know seem genuine, and not fake. My pastor is a humble man, who is true to preaching God's Word, and does not twist the scriptures to suit himself. |
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---Trish9863 on 11/22/09 |
Well, I trust God to do what He wants with me, and now I'm staying in a church (o: I prayed for Him to make me honest and humble so I could connect with real Jesus people who obey Him, and now I find that I am with people who are more real than I am in love and obeying God. And in cases when I have found I had a problem with someone in this church, it could turn out later that I was being paranoid and critical. "It's what you make it, how you take it . . . just don't *you* fake it (o: If anybody can get your goat, you need to get that goat *out* of you, so no one can get it, and get the Lamb of God in there, instead (Galatians 4:19)" (o: |
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---Bill_bila5659 on 11/22/09 |
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