Amen, Terry! I hope to hear more soon. This was my
experience in a church at home also. Such places are few and far between. Izzy
-----Original Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Terry Clifton
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2003
9:43 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [TruthTalk] differences
You asked about differences, comparing the
institutional church with home church. They are many, and I cannot
think of them all at one setting, but I will point out the most obvious.
If you study the New Testament, you will never find
reference to a building fund, or even to a building. You will find that
the Church at Jerusalem met mostly outdoors, and those in other cities
(Thessalonica, Ephesus, Galatia, Corinth, ect.) met in homes.(Rom.16:5,
1Cor.16:19, Col.4:15, Phil.2 and so on.) There was no church house
until around 300 A.D., when emperor Constantine converted to Christianity
from paganism and brought the temple with him. Why he had the audacity
to take what was pleasing to God and change it into something that pleased
men is hard to figure, but from then on we had meeting places, the more
ornate, the better.
Before long, people are calling these meeting
places "the Church". I have been guilty of it as have most
people, but it is a terrible lie. It is not a Church and it is not
God's house. The Church is a living organism, not an
organization. It is a spiritual house, made of living stones.
Jesus is the corner stone, the apostles are the foundation, and every saint
is a living stone, part of that spiritual house that continues to
be added to daily.
Please note that there are no
"Clergy" stones between the foundation and the living stones, and
please note that the Church is composed only of saved persons. Lost
people make up a large part of what we call the church today, partly because
we bring them there hoping they will get saved. If we did it correctly,
we would lead them to a relationship with Christ, then bring them to a
meeting of the Church.
If you were invited to a gathering of the Church in
NT times, you would find what Paul described in 1 COR.14:26 "When you
come together, each of you has a song, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a
revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification."
In other words, every saint takes part. It is not a performer on stage
and an audience in the pews!
If you are invited to any mainline church in
America, you will not find this. Try interrupting the preacher.
Tell him you disagree with him, and see how fast the ushers swoop down on
you. What you will find, in all probability, is that you are handed a
program as you enter. Nothing spontaneous will happen, everything is
planned. You will be seated facing the pulpit. The preacher
occupies the pulpit, the choir is seated behind him. The music minister
tells you what song to sing, they make the announcements, have another song,
maybe a choir special, followed by the offering, then the message. The
preacher talks or screams for twenty minutes, followed by three verses of
"Just as I am" and you are out the door by 12:05 at the
latest. You do not know the names of eighty percent of the other pew
dwellers. All you know about them is what the back of their head looks
like. Two hours later, you cannot even remember what the preacher
talked about. That's church, in God's house. A worship service.
Remember what Paul said in that verse. It's
all about "edification". We do not meet in our home for
worship. We worship our God every day, all day, starting with prayer in
the morning and ending with prayer at night, with a few short ones sprinkled
in during the day. We worship by being obedient, by loving our neighbor
and our fellow saints and our enemies, by caring about those who hurt, and
helping those who need help. When we meet, it is to celebrate God's
goodness and to encourage each other.
We are free to do things like buy a tractor for a
Christian orphanage in Slovakia because we don't have a pastor to pay or a
building to maintain. Any spending is on those in need.
We meet across a table, eating a full meal, looking
each other in the face. I know their problems, their good points and
their faults, and they know mine. We are Brothers and Sisters in
Christ, Family...................... of God.
(It helps to have a good Christian wife who
sees her cooking and cleaning as part of her reasonable service.)
Well, I can see that I have gone on too long, and
not said a tenth of what I wanted to share with you, so I will wrap it up for
now.
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