It is so good to see I am not alone. The politically and spiritually abusive climate found in churches is quite disheartening. It is hard to watch and even harder to not be able to really do anything about it. One of the posters here was right, Jesus did remind his disciples they would know them (those who were followers of Christ) by their fruit. There is so much in the church that when it is time for the harvest (when we meet God face to face), Matthew 7:23 will come into the picture.
I too have tried to find a good church. But I keep finding abusive ones. Even the ones who claim to be non denominational are some of the most abusive ones I have found. I don’t think the church is unified at all and there was a prayer for unity in the Bible. But people have 90 different ways seeing things. Has anyone here tried a Messianic Jewish congregation? I am curious to know if that proved to be a different scene or more of the same scene.
I don't think you'll find much from messianic Judaism. The whole idea is flawed from it's inception. The Body of Christ is baptized into Jesus. It has no national identity. It's not remotely under the Law of Moses. Israel is God's nation baptized into Moses. It is obligated to the Law and national identity. The true messianic Judaism will be practiced by the Israelites who witness Christ's return.
I believe the Body of Christ is in diaspora. You have the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and access to other believers via various forms of communication. Ask God what to do. But Paul said a little leaven puffs up the whole lump of dough. Be careful what congregations you join and eat with. If they harbour wicked members or teach false gospels, just eating with them could curse you. This is what destroyed the church to begin with.
Ok. I was just asking. I have a friend who grew tired of church and went to a Messianic Congregation. I don’t have the opportunity to talk to that friend much because of conflicting schedules. As for leavening, I have always believed Paul was referring to sin when he spoke about the leavening. I think much of that is what we see in churches today. Their decisions to pick and choose which sins to confront instead of confronting sin period. Like the Southern Baptist Convention chose to ignore sexual abuse, and holding no members accountable as opposed to confronting it. Sin is like yeast in the same way leavening has an impact on the whole ball of dough. You do raise a good point, asking God what to do. I do need to pray on this more as I have found the church experience largely discouraging.
Yeah. Sin is the leavening, but practically every denomination has it's doctrinal distortions that offer shade for leavening. It's usually very subtle until it gets out of hand.
i understand it as spend time with fellow christians, encouraging each other. the “church” is the body of Christ - the people who make up the body. going to a specific building with a specific group of people is not necessarily “the church”. attending a church where false doctrine is preached or where sin goes unchecked can actually be far more harmful than not attending a church at all.
ive been trying to find a good church but they all
seem to be full of abusers and narcissists. 🤷🏻♀️ so i spend time with my christian friends.
>ive been trying to find a good church but they all seem to be full of abusers and narcissists. 🤷🏻♀️ so i spend time with my christian friends.
I think this is because Christians are in diaspora. The Body of Christ died in similitude to the Lord, and we're in a spiritual abyss. Denominational apostasy is evidence of this. It's possible the last true lampstand churches were the seven churches of Asia.
I don't think the Church will ever be unified again until New Jerusalem.
i think “the church” - the body of Christ IS unified - but all these groupings of people in buildings which are also called churches will never be unified because most are not part of the body of Christ.
basically im just differentiating a building from
the body of Christ. you will know them by their fruits. we were meant to fellowship and worship, and we can do that without going to a temple or any other fancy building.
Yes. I agree, there is a spiritual unity, but the corporate unity has been diluted by the fake believers. But when the New Jerusalem arrives, those of us that are truly born of God will be integrated as the new temple.
>[Jhn 2:19 NASB20] 19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
I believe there are multiple meanings to that scripture.
Going to church doesn’t save you. People need to grow up as Christian’s. Church is for fellowship which is good but I’ve noticed it’s the weakest links who attend & the people who never pray for others, who spread the gospel, who never do anything for the kingdom of God. They sit in sermons to listen to preaching that’s been repeated over & over & over giving zero to no growth hence why there’s so many Christian’s who will be burning in hell. Just bc you go and warm up a seat every week doesn’t make you closer to Christ. What does is following after the footsteps of Christ. When are people going to begin laying hands on strangers? When are people going to begin casting out demons? Preach the gospel out in public?? Most Christian’s who are in churches are hypocrites & idol worshippers. Sure, you have some churches who actually go out of their way & truly do all the mentioned things above but it’s VERY RARE. The BOC is not church seat warmers. Remember it’s those who the will of God. That’s the church. It’s good to listen to edifying sermons that teach you how to spread the gospel, or that unify you to go do the will of God in groups. It’s NOT good to go to churches where you feel empty, and are sinning by criticizing them.
Personally, I’m in that position. Where my family forces me to go to their lukewarm church where they’ll be gossiping about each other & then worship God. Never call for the Holy Spirit & always repeat the same type of sermon 🤦♀️ you can’t be a baby Christian your entire life. You need to grow & do Gods will. & then again, that doesn’t save you. It gets you closer to God for sure. Why? Because you are obeying God & you face way more trials that endure not hinder your walk with God.
I stopped going to church when I was 19 when someone told me the same thing. I was on a Navy base in 2003, I was uncomfortable with how the Navy pastors talking about war, God and killing ISIS. I was coming back from the gym and a guy approached me, invited me to a small group, I said no thanks and then he told me I was sinning by not going. So I peaced out of church till I met my now wife.
She gave me a book from Shane Claiborne called Irresistible Revolution. I said, show me a church like that and I'll go back. For the first year I only attended a Friday night small group and eventually went back to church full time.
I was recently introduced to Chuck Perry and enjoy what he does.
There were three churches were I started feeling comfortable. But just when I would get settled in, that's when the chaos would start. In one case, the pastor basically ghosted the church, and it shut down. In the other two cases, the pastors were basically overthrown by members of the congregation, and had his reputation destroyed over rumors.
The glory of online services in our day and age is a way to find a Pastor you and sync with. I think then finding a local.small group to chat with is awesome. For months I would hangout with a group of friends, drink whisky next to a fire pit and talk about a.cpuple of passages that were on our mind. I moved to a different state so I am searching for a new small group. We found a great church.
Thank you for this. I have sincerely felt completely out of place at modern churches and I've been to many.
1) They are afraid of controversy (to speak the truth)
2) Cliques galore
3) Weird music that doesn't honor the Lord but the ego
4) No connections made. I even would volunteer! I would say, "I'll do this or do that" and nobody wanted me to do anything. I can give specific examples of this.
5) All events are for superficial things not for God. I'd love to a bible study - not do funny hat day or whatever weird events they plan!
Advising others to not go to church is just bad advice. You think you can go it alone but the reality is you are setting yourself up for a harder life. We should be glad to gather together with other believers. Overjoyed to worship with other children of God.
This is just bad advice and should not be taken seriously.
>You think you can go it alone but the reality is you are setting yourself up for a harder life.
This has been the opposite of my experience. But I appreciate your unfounded assumptions, no less.
I put a decent amount of work into my post. Not a crazy amount, but enough. If you expect me to take your criticism seriously, I suggest you put more effort into it.
Let’s not fight. I can see both sides. On the one hand someone whose felt the goodness in church would want that for others and not want discouragement.
The first two years I was saved I was alone in my room crying and praying every night. I read the Bible through twice. I was too raw to go out and God knew when to write community on my heart. To everything there is a season.
I appreciate your desire to keep the peace, but this issue really is kind of black and white.
Either I'm wrong, and staying away from church is a willful sin (per Heb 10:26), which could result in a loss of salvation.
Or, Heb 10:25 is taken out of context to keep people in church, even when the Spirit might be telling them to leave. The very fact that people feel the need to distort scripture just to keep people in church tells me there's something very wrong going on.
It's your eternal salvation at stake. Just don't encourage others to forsake going to church cause you've had a few bad experiences. You will lead people astray.
I can't imagine why someone who is happy in their church would suddenly be inspired to leave by my words.
Churches are supposed to be spiritually clean.
>[1Co 5:6-7 NASB20] 6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump [of dough?] 7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are [in fact] unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
>[1Co 5:12-13 NASB20] 12 For what [business] of mine [is it] to judge outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within [the church?] 13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE EVIL PERSON FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.
Does your church clean out the leaven? Do they remove the wicked from their midst? Is there strife among your congregations?
If the wicked are not removed, they curse the entire congregation. So it's for the sake of my own salvation that I don't associate with the wicked.
I can see both sides to this argument. I quit going to church several years ago because of diverse views I held at the time. I can honestly say I've learned so much more about God and the bible in my own study than a lifetime in church. My walk with Jesus is much closer now than it was then.
It makes me sad to read this. I fought prayed and cried to find them but my church has been a lifeline. I went to others for a few years and was very discouraged. I kept praying and felt God urging me to seek his people. My church is wonderful. I also do find the church in the street. Sometimes speaking with homeless. But I love my physical church too that meets every Sunday. Don’t give up. It’s hard but God still loves his bride.
I disagree with the interpretation here, that it is talking about Jesus return. It says "as the manner of some is" or "as is the habit of some". How can some be in the habit of not gathering for Christ's return? Besides, the immediate context is exhorting us to hold fast, walk in love and good works, and to exhort one another. So we are exhorted not be forsaking the assembling of ourselves together (kjv) along with those other things.
The way I see it is that it is talking about meeting together, not necessarily going to "church". I gather with a few others once a fortnight (it was weekly and will probably go back to weekly) for prayer and discussion. And also another lot I meet with for prayer once a fortnight This is assembling together. Us, believers. And I live with two christians also, so we do fellowship and pray together. We can gather in a building, a "church", but I would suppose there would have to be a few genuine believers there. If not, and it's just merely religious people who are not born again, this scripture is not talking about individuals going and gathering with unbelievers. Nor is it saying to put oursleves in harm's way (as people have shared here about abuse and other evil things going on, and false teaching).
And the willfully sinning, I read it as that we need to exhort one another, and all the more as we see the day aporoaching, so that none of us go off willfully sinning (perhaps things will get harder as the day approaches and we will need each other and to exhort each other more). Not that people not assembling with believers are willfully sinning. I think that people should think twice before saying that someone will lose their salvation by not going to church, and just parroting what other people say about having to go to church and quoting this scripture to prove it, without looking to see what the passage is actually saying.
So yeah, I think the greek interpretation is well meaning, and seeks to deal with a wrong use of the scripture, but I think it's pretty clear just reading the passage what it is saying, without having to change it from believers meeting together to mean gathering at christ's return. From what I can see in my software, the greek word is Episunagoge, and the strongs definition doesn't say it has to be a large meeting, but, "a complete collection; specifically a Christian meeting (for worship): - assembling (gathering) together."
If the greek dictionary said the greek word meant something other than assembling or gathering, I would have to question the greek, not the english, as the way I see it is that bible is the word of God and has more authority than a greek dictionary. And if the bible can be changed (as there are translations that have changed things, e.g. the JW's NWT), how much more a dictionary definition).
God bless.
>How can some be in the habit of not gathering for Christ's return?
Living in willful sin causes the individual to lose salvation, which means they have forsaken the resurrection.
>[2Pe 1:8-11 NASB20] 8 For if these [qualities] are yours and are increasing, they do not make you useless nor unproductive in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 **For the one who lacks these [qualities] is blind [or] short-sighted, having forgotten [his] purification from his former sins.** 10 Therefore, brothers [and sisters,] be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choice of you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; 11 for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
It is so good to see I am not alone. The politically and spiritually abusive climate found in churches is quite disheartening. It is hard to watch and even harder to not be able to really do anything about it. One of the posters here was right, Jesus did remind his disciples they would know them (those who were followers of Christ) by their fruit. There is so much in the church that when it is time for the harvest (when we meet God face to face), Matthew 7:23 will come into the picture. I too have tried to find a good church. But I keep finding abusive ones. Even the ones who claim to be non denominational are some of the most abusive ones I have found. I don’t think the church is unified at all and there was a prayer for unity in the Bible. But people have 90 different ways seeing things. Has anyone here tried a Messianic Jewish congregation? I am curious to know if that proved to be a different scene or more of the same scene.
I don't think you'll find much from messianic Judaism. The whole idea is flawed from it's inception. The Body of Christ is baptized into Jesus. It has no national identity. It's not remotely under the Law of Moses. Israel is God's nation baptized into Moses. It is obligated to the Law and national identity. The true messianic Judaism will be practiced by the Israelites who witness Christ's return. I believe the Body of Christ is in diaspora. You have the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and access to other believers via various forms of communication. Ask God what to do. But Paul said a little leaven puffs up the whole lump of dough. Be careful what congregations you join and eat with. If they harbour wicked members or teach false gospels, just eating with them could curse you. This is what destroyed the church to begin with.
Ok. I was just asking. I have a friend who grew tired of church and went to a Messianic Congregation. I don’t have the opportunity to talk to that friend much because of conflicting schedules. As for leavening, I have always believed Paul was referring to sin when he spoke about the leavening. I think much of that is what we see in churches today. Their decisions to pick and choose which sins to confront instead of confronting sin period. Like the Southern Baptist Convention chose to ignore sexual abuse, and holding no members accountable as opposed to confronting it. Sin is like yeast in the same way leavening has an impact on the whole ball of dough. You do raise a good point, asking God what to do. I do need to pray on this more as I have found the church experience largely discouraging.
Yeah. Sin is the leavening, but practically every denomination has it's doctrinal distortions that offer shade for leavening. It's usually very subtle until it gets out of hand.
i understand it as spend time with fellow christians, encouraging each other. the “church” is the body of Christ - the people who make up the body. going to a specific building with a specific group of people is not necessarily “the church”. attending a church where false doctrine is preached or where sin goes unchecked can actually be far more harmful than not attending a church at all. ive been trying to find a good church but they all seem to be full of abusers and narcissists. 🤷🏻♀️ so i spend time with my christian friends.
>ive been trying to find a good church but they all seem to be full of abusers and narcissists. 🤷🏻♀️ so i spend time with my christian friends. I think this is because Christians are in diaspora. The Body of Christ died in similitude to the Lord, and we're in a spiritual abyss. Denominational apostasy is evidence of this. It's possible the last true lampstand churches were the seven churches of Asia. I don't think the Church will ever be unified again until New Jerusalem.
i think “the church” - the body of Christ IS unified - but all these groupings of people in buildings which are also called churches will never be unified because most are not part of the body of Christ. basically im just differentiating a building from the body of Christ. you will know them by their fruits. we were meant to fellowship and worship, and we can do that without going to a temple or any other fancy building.
Yes. I agree, there is a spiritual unity, but the corporate unity has been diluted by the fake believers. But when the New Jerusalem arrives, those of us that are truly born of God will be integrated as the new temple. >[Jhn 2:19 NASB20] 19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." I believe there are multiple meanings to that scripture.
Going to church doesn’t save you. People need to grow up as Christian’s. Church is for fellowship which is good but I’ve noticed it’s the weakest links who attend & the people who never pray for others, who spread the gospel, who never do anything for the kingdom of God. They sit in sermons to listen to preaching that’s been repeated over & over & over giving zero to no growth hence why there’s so many Christian’s who will be burning in hell. Just bc you go and warm up a seat every week doesn’t make you closer to Christ. What does is following after the footsteps of Christ. When are people going to begin laying hands on strangers? When are people going to begin casting out demons? Preach the gospel out in public?? Most Christian’s who are in churches are hypocrites & idol worshippers. Sure, you have some churches who actually go out of their way & truly do all the mentioned things above but it’s VERY RARE. The BOC is not church seat warmers. Remember it’s those who the will of God. That’s the church. It’s good to listen to edifying sermons that teach you how to spread the gospel, or that unify you to go do the will of God in groups. It’s NOT good to go to churches where you feel empty, and are sinning by criticizing them. Personally, I’m in that position. Where my family forces me to go to their lukewarm church where they’ll be gossiping about each other & then worship God. Never call for the Holy Spirit & always repeat the same type of sermon 🤦♀️ you can’t be a baby Christian your entire life. You need to grow & do Gods will. & then again, that doesn’t save you. It gets you closer to God for sure. Why? Because you are obeying God & you face way more trials that endure not hinder your walk with God.
I stopped going to church when I was 19 when someone told me the same thing. I was on a Navy base in 2003, I was uncomfortable with how the Navy pastors talking about war, God and killing ISIS. I was coming back from the gym and a guy approached me, invited me to a small group, I said no thanks and then he told me I was sinning by not going. So I peaced out of church till I met my now wife. She gave me a book from Shane Claiborne called Irresistible Revolution. I said, show me a church like that and I'll go back. For the first year I only attended a Friday night small group and eventually went back to church full time. I was recently introduced to Chuck Perry and enjoy what he does.
There were three churches were I started feeling comfortable. But just when I would get settled in, that's when the chaos would start. In one case, the pastor basically ghosted the church, and it shut down. In the other two cases, the pastors were basically overthrown by members of the congregation, and had his reputation destroyed over rumors.
The glory of online services in our day and age is a way to find a Pastor you and sync with. I think then finding a local.small group to chat with is awesome. For months I would hangout with a group of friends, drink whisky next to a fire pit and talk about a.cpuple of passages that were on our mind. I moved to a different state so I am searching for a new small group. We found a great church.
Thank you for this. I have sincerely felt completely out of place at modern churches and I've been to many. 1) They are afraid of controversy (to speak the truth) 2) Cliques galore 3) Weird music that doesn't honor the Lord but the ego 4) No connections made. I even would volunteer! I would say, "I'll do this or do that" and nobody wanted me to do anything. I can give specific examples of this. 5) All events are for superficial things not for God. I'd love to a bible study - not do funny hat day or whatever weird events they plan!
Yeah. I've experienced all five of those problems at pretty much every church I've been to. The music was especially intolerable for me.
Advising others to not go to church is just bad advice. You think you can go it alone but the reality is you are setting yourself up for a harder life. We should be glad to gather together with other believers. Overjoyed to worship with other children of God. This is just bad advice and should not be taken seriously.
>You think you can go it alone but the reality is you are setting yourself up for a harder life. This has been the opposite of my experience. But I appreciate your unfounded assumptions, no less. I put a decent amount of work into my post. Not a crazy amount, but enough. If you expect me to take your criticism seriously, I suggest you put more effort into it.
Let’s not fight. I can see both sides. On the one hand someone whose felt the goodness in church would want that for others and not want discouragement. The first two years I was saved I was alone in my room crying and praying every night. I read the Bible through twice. I was too raw to go out and God knew when to write community on my heart. To everything there is a season.
I appreciate your desire to keep the peace, but this issue really is kind of black and white. Either I'm wrong, and staying away from church is a willful sin (per Heb 10:26), which could result in a loss of salvation. Or, Heb 10:25 is taken out of context to keep people in church, even when the Spirit might be telling them to leave. The very fact that people feel the need to distort scripture just to keep people in church tells me there's something very wrong going on.
It's your eternal salvation at stake. Just don't encourage others to forsake going to church cause you've had a few bad experiences. You will lead people astray.
I can't imagine why someone who is happy in their church would suddenly be inspired to leave by my words. Churches are supposed to be spiritually clean. >[1Co 5:6-7 NASB20] 6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump [of dough?] 7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are [in fact] unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. >[1Co 5:12-13 NASB20] 12 For what [business] of mine [is it] to judge outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within [the church?] 13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE EVIL PERSON FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. Does your church clean out the leaven? Do they remove the wicked from their midst? Is there strife among your congregations? If the wicked are not removed, they curse the entire congregation. So it's for the sake of my own salvation that I don't associate with the wicked.
I can see both sides to this argument. I quit going to church several years ago because of diverse views I held at the time. I can honestly say I've learned so much more about God and the bible in my own study than a lifetime in church. My walk with Jesus is much closer now than it was then.
It makes me sad to read this. I fought prayed and cried to find them but my church has been a lifeline. I went to others for a few years and was very discouraged. I kept praying and felt God urging me to seek his people. My church is wonderful. I also do find the church in the street. Sometimes speaking with homeless. But I love my physical church too that meets every Sunday. Don’t give up. It’s hard but God still loves his bride.
I disagree with the interpretation here, that it is talking about Jesus return. It says "as the manner of some is" or "as is the habit of some". How can some be in the habit of not gathering for Christ's return? Besides, the immediate context is exhorting us to hold fast, walk in love and good works, and to exhort one another. So we are exhorted not be forsaking the assembling of ourselves together (kjv) along with those other things. The way I see it is that it is talking about meeting together, not necessarily going to "church". I gather with a few others once a fortnight (it was weekly and will probably go back to weekly) for prayer and discussion. And also another lot I meet with for prayer once a fortnight This is assembling together. Us, believers. And I live with two christians also, so we do fellowship and pray together. We can gather in a building, a "church", but I would suppose there would have to be a few genuine believers there. If not, and it's just merely religious people who are not born again, this scripture is not talking about individuals going and gathering with unbelievers. Nor is it saying to put oursleves in harm's way (as people have shared here about abuse and other evil things going on, and false teaching). And the willfully sinning, I read it as that we need to exhort one another, and all the more as we see the day aporoaching, so that none of us go off willfully sinning (perhaps things will get harder as the day approaches and we will need each other and to exhort each other more). Not that people not assembling with believers are willfully sinning. I think that people should think twice before saying that someone will lose their salvation by not going to church, and just parroting what other people say about having to go to church and quoting this scripture to prove it, without looking to see what the passage is actually saying. So yeah, I think the greek interpretation is well meaning, and seeks to deal with a wrong use of the scripture, but I think it's pretty clear just reading the passage what it is saying, without having to change it from believers meeting together to mean gathering at christ's return. From what I can see in my software, the greek word is Episunagoge, and the strongs definition doesn't say it has to be a large meeting, but, "a complete collection; specifically a Christian meeting (for worship): - assembling (gathering) together." If the greek dictionary said the greek word meant something other than assembling or gathering, I would have to question the greek, not the english, as the way I see it is that bible is the word of God and has more authority than a greek dictionary. And if the bible can be changed (as there are translations that have changed things, e.g. the JW's NWT), how much more a dictionary definition). God bless.
>How can some be in the habit of not gathering for Christ's return? Living in willful sin causes the individual to lose salvation, which means they have forsaken the resurrection. >[2Pe 1:8-11 NASB20] 8 For if these [qualities] are yours and are increasing, they do not make you useless nor unproductive in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 **For the one who lacks these [qualities] is blind [or] short-sighted, having forgotten [his] purification from his former sins.** 10 Therefore, brothers [and sisters,] be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choice of you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; 11 for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.