but they be the ones that need to be in church to hear the word
For the sake of conversation, that's a phenomenon, f61, that I've been struggling over. If the purpose of the church service is to evangelize, then there's no need for me to attend, given that I am saved and born again. All the saved saints really have no reason to be there if evangelizing the lost should be the purpose for that program and the guy they hired to do all that ministry. That's like going through new employee orientation for a new job, and then hearing that all employees must continue attending new employee orientations each week, even those who know their job and have been there 20 years, knowing inside-out the company policies, etc.
Is it not better and more effective for evangelism to happen out there on the streets, taking the Gospel out there to the world so that, when we come together in the gathering of believers, we can edify one another as Paul stated:
1 Corinthians 14:26 How is it then, brethren?
when ye come together,
every one of you hath a
psalm, hath a
doctrine, hath a
tongue, hath a
revelation, hath an
interpretation. Let
all things be done unto edifying.
How many churches allow for what Paul of Tarsus, an apostle of Christ Yahshua, to actually happen? Evanglising as a part of the programs forces out even more the potential for mutual edification among the believers present in that place.
Some have told me that the people can talk among themselves before or after the 'service', doing all that edification stuff, or leave it outside the 'church' in the 'cell group meetings'. Really? Hmm, that has a rather hollow ring to it, or so it seems. What are your thoughts?
In other words, how do the saints learn to be functional toward one another when relegated to passive silence in the main gathering, also in the midst of evangelization squeezed into the mix of the time allotted for the 'service'? How do they ever get the freedom to function as Paul expressed in the above quoted verse? He said "...
WHEN ye come together,
EVERY ONE OF YOU..." To whom is Paul speaking? Just the leadership, or all the people in Church in Corinth?
I would very much like to hear your thoughts about this, because what I'm reading in scripture, the same scriptures all those churchianity organizations out there claim to believe and follow as best they can (since no 'church' is perfect, which we both agree), why are the people relegated to passivity in the gathering?
You see, I've been a part of what some would term as being an "OPEN CHURCH." There was a book written years ago with that title. I forget who the author was. That book started 'fires' of opennes of some churches, one really large one over in southern California, decades ago. Because the people were allowed to function in the way Paul described, their services lasted sometimes 12 hours on Sundays. The open sharing and edification poured out like a river, with the people not anting to leave. Most would leave to go and get something to eat, and then go right back until it all ended. The elders ensured things didn't get out of hand, and never really had to tell adults to settle down and let others speak. All the adults in that place functioned like adults rather than the children stringent control to silence paradigms seem to assume into otherwise mature, grown men and women.
We had an OPEN CHURCH here in my neck of the woods, and it was wonderful. The place became packed, with people standing in the outer isles, ONLY because of the word of mouth that got around to the community, revealing the openness for each believer allowed to be an actual functioning believer in the midst of MUTUAL edification.
Many of those people came from other, traditional churches with stringent control over their audience and their functionality, and it REALLY ticked off the 'pastors' of those other churches. Rather than to copy that openness, they started using their monetary resources to get lawyers involved to go to the city officials, and thus trying to drum up a legal and political assault against that open church's leadership for such things as violating the local fire code by allowing so many people to be in that place at one time.
Rather than for those 'pastors' (and this is not a smear against ALL pastors) to give praise to God for the people they were overseeing having such excitement at being in 'church', they were jealous and vindictive. The city sent the fire Marshall and police officers to run all the people out on a Sunday morning, and chained the doors closed, with stickers declaring that the place was no longer deemed safe for public use since it was an older facility with LOTS of solid wood walls and furnishings inside. It was very ornate, but declared a fire hazard to any and all.
The enemy uses all kinds of things and people against the people of God if and when there is any danger of the believing populace becoming an effective force against the plans of the enemy of our souls. The enemy even used local pastors...of all people...prompting them to jealousy masked behind a concern for fire safety. Oh, and it turned out that some of those 'pastors' were sitting members of the city counsel...go figure...
Sorry. I did a little side-path venture there...
So, in the scheme of things, what do you see in light of that verse in 1 Corinthians? How do you see that instruction from Paul playing out in the face of modern, and yet traditional, church services handed to us from the RCC? Are we consistent with what Paul instructed, or are we other than what Paul instructed? How do you see it all? You being a pastor, I like hearing the thoughts of other ministers.
MM