Featured Why Do People Go ro Church

I think I am that from when I awake till I go to sleep.

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EWF, don't know why you seem to be hurting so much, but my prayers are with you. I grew up in the church and have definitely seen the good, the bad and the ugly. I have seen both the nicest and most gracious people in the church and, at the same time, seen the meanest of snakes.

Personally, I don't think we need to go beyond #1, as this is a direct command from Scripture. But since you asked, I will answer your questions in 2-4. Hope this is helpful. If not, we'll just have to agree to disagree.


2. To worship in a community of believers. Define what that is exactly please. It means that I worship - not just alone - me, myself and I - but in a community of other believers. We worship as the people of God - not just a person of God. We celebrate the Lord's table together (hence, communion). We take our vows as members seriously when children are baptized - that we will pray for them and help their parents raise them in the faith. That means that we love them, that we volunteer to teach them, host events at our home, etc.


3. To hear the Scriptures preached. I can hear that on Sermon Audio & on my CD's, right? Of course you can. I don't think that it's effective as the pastor preaching to his congregation so that they can be better equipped to witness to a lost and hurt world.


4. To fellowship with other Christ followers. Dont I do that with dialoging with my wife, my brother & my friends who are all Christian? To a degree, yes. But the early church met together for fellowship and the breaking of bread together. In many ways, they lived together. So it means that we pray for - and with each other. Have Bible studies together. Rejoice with each other and cry with each other. Raise our families together.


5. To be the body of Christ to a hurt and dying world.[/QUOTE I think I am that from when I awake till I go to sleep. You can only do so much as an individual. We aren't called as individuals, but as the church.

 

Great quote from Frederick Buechner on the church.

NAVE
The nave is the central part of the church from the main front to the chancel. It’s the part where the laity sit and in great Gothic churches is sometimes separated from the choir and clergy by a screen. It takes its name from the Latin navis, meaning ship, one reason being that the vaulted roof looks rather like an inverted keel. A more interesting reason is that the Church itself is thought of as a ship or Noah’s Ark. It’s a resemblance worth thinking about.

In one as in the other, just about everything imaginable is aboard, the clean and the unclean both. They are all piled in together helter-skelter, the predators and the prey, the wild and the tame, the sleek and beautiful ones and the ones that are ugly as sin. There are sly young foxes and impossible old cows. There are the catty and the piggish and the peacock-proud. There are hawks and there are doves. Some are wise as owls, some silly as geese; some meek as lambs and others fire-breathing dragons. There are times when they all cackle and grunt and roar and sing together, and there are times when you could hear a pin drop. Most of them have no clear idea just where they’re supposed to be heading or how they’re supposed to get there or what they’ll find if and when they finally do, but they figure the people in charge must know and in the meanwhile sit back on their haunches and try to enjoy the ride.

It’s not all enjoyable. There’s backbiting just like everywhere else. There’s a pecking order. There’s jostling at the trough. There’s growling and grousing, bitching and whining. There are dogs in the manger and old goats and black widows. It’s a regular menagerie in there, and sometimes it smells to high Heaven like one.

But even at its worst, there’s at least one thing that makes it bearable within, and that is the storm without—the wild winds and terrible waves
and in all the watery waste no help in sight.

And at its best there is, if never clear sailing, shelter from the blast, a sense of somehow heading in the right direction in spite of everything, a ship to keep afloat, and, like a beacon in the dark, the hope of finding safe harbor at last.

 

Maybe church is not just about what you get out of it, but what you can give. It's clear reading between the lines that you have been hurt in church and I'm sorry about that, but maybe there is someone at church that has been hurt as well and God is calling you to minister to that person. Maybe church is what you can give to those around you.

 

The church is never the building its always the people, but buildings make convent places to meet together. I'm sorry you have never found a good church. It took me 20 years but I know that nothing compared to others out there who have been hurt.

 

I heard this and would like to share it with you... The Church Is Hospital for Sinner, not a Museum Of Saints... And I also included a link to a sermon by Spurgeon called A Visit To Christ's Hospital and if you have mind to check it out... Brother Glen

http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols52-54/chs3070.pdf

 

Brother Steve,

If I was in your situation, I do not know if I would attend what men call a "church" as I know none may actually exist in New Jersey! I live in Columbus, OH and have to travel 3 hours two Sundays a month to go to a Primitive Baptist church that believes in the doctrines of grace. ( I can't afford to travel there every Sunday). Churches that not only teach the pure truth on the doctrines of grace, but also are sound in both practice and order are becoming few and far between these days as was prophesied would happen in the last days when Jesus said, "Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8)

God bless you brother Steve and if it be the Lord's will you find a church that is honoring to God in both faith and practice.

 

The church I go to is Welsh tract Baptist church of Ohio. It was constituted by the Elder who at the time was the pastor of the first Welsh tract Baptist church constituted in the United States- Welsh Tract Baptist Church on Welsh Tract Road in Newark, New Castle County, Delaware constituted in 1746 by the Welsh. Interesting history on it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Tract_Baptist_Church and more here http://www.gpp-5grace.com/graceproclamator/pp0199welshtractchurch.htm. It is the first Primitive Baptist church. It is of the "absoluter" variety. The church it constituted that I attend is a small little flock of about ten folks and we meet in a home of one of the members. Size doesn't, or at least shouldn't matter.

 

House to House... Share with those who are broken

House to House... Share with those who are wounded

House to House... Share with those who are hungry

House to House... Share with those who are thirsty

Share what you listen to... Share what you read... Share what you hear... Share what you see... Share what you believe... You have vast according to what you have posted knowledge of the truths of God... Seek out those who will listen... To me and I have not walked where you have or experienced the trials and tribulations you have been through but surrender and open your heart to the Lord and he will send to you those that will listen and hear... Church is the eccelsia the called out... The people not a building as you well know are the church... Upon this Rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!... Brother Glen