Comments on: Disillusioned with the Sunday meeting expression of church

By: Joy

Joy — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:56:33 +0000

I have been a born again believer since I was five years old. I was blessed to attend a bible teaching church that was non-denominational. Being a minority in an all white congregation was difficult, yet I kept attending not because of the bigoted slurs, but because underneath it all the pastor was trully inspired to preach the gospel and disciple his congregation.

He preached the word every sunday and inspired us occassionally with stories from martyrs, and members of the congregation. He tried to keep his interpretation out of it and used what the men and women during the writing and the hearing of the scriptures would have understood the scripture to mean.

I don’t believe I was entertainned at church, but I was well fed. I kept coming back for the substance and fellowship that nourshied my own quiet times during the morning and evening.

I know find myself in a new state attending a new church. The pastor seems to be sweet and god fearing. However, his sermons are quite entertainning. People giggle and laugh and he even gets a couple of shouts when prompted. He tends to preach from the heart and gives many illustrations from his family and other’s families.

However, I find it difficult to follow him because of all of his modern day allegories to families and his lack of preaching to the whole relationship in Jesus. He seems more concerned with the relationships in the family.

It saddens me because there seems to be a wealth of knowledge in the congregation – a former Baptist church- that only comes out if you join the right small group or a attend one of the women’s or men’s midweek group.

For instance he was preaching on Ecc. 10.2 He accurately gave the meaning behind the verse. However when afforded the opportunity to dive deeper into where the expression came from or why the right side would be favored, he simply just said that you know how more people are right handed. So it would be thought that right handed people would be the normal path over the left handed person.

I find myself gaining more knowledge from radio ministries and my own quiet time than the musings of my minister. Please know he is reaching the seekers and those still on milk. I just find myself asking is this where I want to remain? How do I get up on Sunday, as a single, when the only thing I get out of service is coming together in worship through the worship team and saying hello to others I haven’t seen all week.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 01:43:26 +0000

If the point of the Sunday morning is not worship (and I would argue with this assumption), but edification, then the criticism is even more valid and should be listened to seriously. The average service is constructed in a way that speaks “entertainment” and “one way communication” to people, rather than edification (chairs in rows, quiet listening to people on the platform). If the purpose was truly edification, then there should be more thought in how this can be done more effectively. The judgment of “just plain selfish” is misplaced and doesn’t take to heart the needs of the people who attend.

1657

By: Kevin Lewis

Kevin Lewis — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:45:37 +0000

Amen!

By: jaredwhite

jaredwhite — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:24:26 +0000

As a pastor of a local church, I find the attitude in this blog more than a little disheartening. The problem with both the “entertain me” mind-set and the mindset being espoused in this blog is that they are both equally individualistic and self-serving. The people Loren Warkentine were talking about come to be entertained, the writer of this post goes “to be in God’s presence.” Neither one of these is the biblical reason for meeting together as Christians, and both of these reasons are centered around “what’s in it for me?” The only extended commentary on actual church meetings in the New Testament, that I know of, is 1 Corinthians 14. In this text Paul over and over again explains why they are there and it’s not to be entertained, nor to come into God’s presence, nor even specifically to “worship God.” The answer given over and over again by Paul is “so that the church may be edified/built up/strengthened (it’s all the same Greek word; see14:5; cf. vv. 12, 17, 26). Now of course we should go to church to worship God in the sense that all we do should be worshipful to God. But we can (and should!) do that any time. We don’t need to meet together as Christians to do that. Consider these words in 1 Cor. 14: “If you are praising God with your spirit, how can one who finds himself among those who don’t understand say, ‘Amen” to your thanksgiving…You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified” (v. 16). Here’s a picture of a man who is really worshiping God! He’s in God’s presence; he’s feeling the power, God is being worshipped! But Paul says don’t do it unless you can do it in such a way that others are edified.
So perhaps the writer of this post and others like her are missing God at church meetings because they are there for themselves and not for the good of others or the Body as a whole. Instead of sticking with a church and diving into it and working to help make the meeting times more edifying to more people, they keep trying to find that perfect church or just withdraw and give up. I intend no offense to those in such a position, but such actions are just plain selfish and, on a personal note, make the job of local pastors a lot harder!