Church is not a building snippet I wrote recently...

[Fez]

What would be the correct term to use?

You tell us

I'm not the one who's all uptight about calling that building a church. For reasons that are beyond me, some feel it shouldn't be called a church. If "church" isn't the correct terminology for that building, what is?

Personally I don't have a problem with it. I've always known it as church and that knowledge hasn't hindered me one way or the other in my search for the Truth. Labeling that building something other than "church" isn't going to make it somehow holier. It's still just a building where people gather to worship.

The name of your meeting place isn't what's important, it's what you get out of it.

Amen to that

[mizzdy]

If we take the word chuch from the NT to the the Lxx where the greek was translated from the Hebrew we see its the same word God used for those gathered at Sinia, it is always His congregation, assembly or called out people never a building or structure.

Alrighty. I just had to say something respecting your comment mizzdy. I agree. Now...the question is what are we going to do about it??

Anything?

Or are we going to go right along and continue with the whole Church is a building practice while all along knowing it is not in our heads? I don't care what present day Church leaders think or are doing if their practice is not accountable and submissive to what the Word says we ought to do to please our Lord. So again what are we willing to do about this head belief that Church is not a building? How do we apply that?

Carlos

People will continue to call the building a church and well thats ok too after all it is a matter of wordage, my only peeve is that the word written in our bibles is not about a building but the body as a whole and many people do understand that and the ones that continue in the belief the church is a where we go to worship God etc. will find in the end they were not exactly correct in their thinking. The Israelites when it got to far to go to the temple met in homes, outdoors and finally in what would have been the community center turned 'synagogue', its convient, its natural for like minded to gather in groups and hey a building does keep one dry. Personally I believe where two or more are gather, in a living room, a school, a library, under the freeway bridge and in a building designed to hold Gods children. It is the mind set within the individuals who deem what the building is I think, whether they believe God is only in the church or if He is everywhere and does not restrict our worship gatherings to a building. It is always grievous to me when someone says its necessary to go to a building called church to worship and fellowship, God is everywhere, His Spirit is everywhere and we can meet Him in all those places.

[Believer1997]

Have done a close examination of yourself?

1000 times Believer and I still do and will till the day I die. I have been wrong before and will undoubtedly be wrong and corrected by the Lord again.

Perhaps the problems and biases you have had about churches and those who attend them are keeping you from finding a blessing. Sometimes if we've been hurt by others or had a bad experience in a church - we are too quick to label all of them as the 'same'. They are not. We are also taught to forgive those who trespass against us. So maybe an honest look at your own heart would be in order.

An honest look at my own heart in the presence of God and before my brothers and sisters in Christ is always in order. I do appreciate your suggestions Believer but what you call "biases" are nothing of the sort that most Christians think of when I say I can't stand going or getting involved with Sunday emphasizing Churches that primarily meet on Sundays in some building with a cross on top.

My "biases" are nothing less than my belief that we Christians are not living with integrity before the Word. That there are things we ought to be doing but are not and that anyone wanting to apply all of God's Word to how the Body ought to be will meet with derision, misunderstanding, condemning judgment, condescending attitudes, and otherwise from the very one's who call themselves by His name and are supposedly disciples of Christ.

Present day Church leaders are some of the worst. They more than anyone are responsible for the baloney that much of Church is in North America compared to what it ought to be (and no...my mom did not drop me on my head when I was young and no I don't have a problem with authority and no I am not unwilling to be submissive and no...add whatever other label or problem you might care to superimpose on me to bypass the possibility that God has given me grace to see what so many seem so blind to).

Christians all claim to believe that the Word is the Word of God for us today but when confronted with things we ought to be doing, from Spirit led vs leader led meetings to head coverings and a multiplicity of elders vs one head honcho we call a Pastor today...well that is a different story. Their claim is shown to be nothing more than a bunch of hot air. Even when they run out of biblically plausible reasons to deny doing what the Bible says many, many Christians go around trying to find another excuse for ignoring the Word instead of being obedient to what it says to glorify God.

It's utterly ridiculous. Many know nothing of dying to self or following Jesus. All they know is easy believism which allows them to think they are Christians and can claim the benefits of eternity just because they go to some building on Sunday's and belong to a "Church" or have said a sinner's prayer. Oh they won't acknowledge such of course. I mean that's unbiblical but by their lives that is what they testify to really believing.

Jesus would have strong words for the multitude of Churchians who sit as spectators at the spectable of Church without acting and being the Church.

So no...I don't think I have a bias at least in the bad sense of that word. I think my eyes have been opened to the joke that Church is compared to what it ought to be. And to the unwillingness and deception on the part of many who call themselves Christians. Many of whom probably are not.

I mean those people that Jesus says to that He never knew them in the end got to be somebody right (Matthew 25:41)?

There is deception galore in the visible Church. I have talked with leaders and uncovered beliefs that they have which are downright ungodly. I just talked with one leader of a well known and popular ministry just last week who when push came to shove literally told me that the Bible is a matter of individual interpretation such that we should not view the commands within it as...well...commands but rather as inspiration. Utter baloney and this guy is a leader in his circle of Christian influence! And the sheep just take it all in and put them on pedestals as though they speak for God!

I am utterly and completely disgusted with the form of Church most often found in North America and Churchians and would as soon have nothing whatever to do with Christians ever again if I had my way. But of course not all Christians are that way. You are right about that. And I don't look at individual Christians that way or I wouldn't even be here again. But I can pretty much tell after a few minutes of serious talk about Christ with a so-called Christian I meet in real life as to whether I am talking with a real believer or yet another Churchian who allows others to do their thinking for them and does not have much of any real relationship with the living God themselves.

Carlos

How sad. It seems you are painting Christians who attend an organized church with a wide brush. Perhaps you do not mean to.

[carlos123]

People will continue to call the building a church and well thats ok too after all it is a matter of wordage...

It's much more profound than that mizzdy. That's like saying that calling a homosexual union a marriage is just about wordage which implies that it's really not that big of a deal.

We stand or fall by our words which express our beliefs which in turn dictate our actions and what we do. Jesus said that we will be judged by every idle word we utter and the impact of those words on those around us.

If one believes that God is in that building with a cross on top and nowhere else (as He is in that building) then one's belief will greatly affect how one acts outside that building. For in the building one will at least pretend if not actually be holy in the presence of God but outside the "Lord's House" one will tend to do as one pleases for they are not in the Presence of God who resides in that building after all.

I know that is somewhat simplistic but that is how many so-called Christians think. From taking off one's hat in the "House of the Lord" to baptisms and otherwise happening in the building...that is considered Church by a great many professing believers and that is indeed how they act. Like that is what Church is all about and where anything of any real spiritual significance happens.

So our words about Church and what they express about our beliefs has a tremendous impact. I think most of us are just too blind to see that. So accustomed to believing a lie that we all but ignore the truth in practice if not in our intellectual theological belief with the result that the status quo of how Church has been since we were born continues with counless Churchians going to a building and feeling all good about themselves that they went to be with God for a couple of hours on Sunday.

Carlos

[carlos123]

How sad. It seems you are painting Christians who attend an organized church with a wide brush. Perhaps you do not mean to.

On the contrary. I mean every word I said Believer. Granted that my words are an expression of what I have experienced in my 52 years of life with about 35 of those being a Christian but still...that's a whole lot of experience in various Churches so I am not entirely off the wall in what I say I don't think.

I'll give any Christian around me the benefit of the doubt. Absoluutely. In real life when I meet Christians I don't immediately start thinking...oh, oh...here's another Churchian. Not at all. I don't think anything of them really. I just talk with them on the trolley or wherever I happen to meet them but let me tell you there are a lot of weirdo Christians out there.

People who I would be and am embarrased to be associated with.

I think about the only hope there is for me to find the kinds of Christians that were present in the New Testament is to see some get saved and help them see the New Testament fresh without them having time in established Church circles to get "ruined" by the form of Church as we practice it today.

Thing is I can't do it alone. I mean I have in the past gone witnessing door to door alone but that's not the best and it's difficult to say the least. So I don't know what to do exactly but that's the way things are.

Carlos

[Guest man]

Matthew 13

24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field;

25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.

26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.

27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’

28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’

29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.

30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

[carlos123]

The Lord spoke very specifically to me last night about my dealings with Christians. I'd like to share more of what the Lord did in my heart last night in view of some of the things I said here but am wondering if it is possible to link to my blog post through this forum somehow. I don't want to repeat what I said there and there is no sense in doing so.

I don't know if things have changed around here from when I was here two years ago but in reading the signature restrictions it appears that unlimited URL's are now allowed within them. Is that right?

Is there a place where I could put the URL of my blog within my profile such that one's interested in reading about the Lord's interactions with me might be able to find my blog address?

Whatever you may think about why I want others to see my blog the simple truth of the matter is that I want to share what the Lord does in my life and the best place to do that is through an external blog since this is not the only place that I frequent online.

If that is not possible then if it is not currently against the rules and you are interested in reading what I said...you can PM me I guess.

Thanks.

Carlos

[Botz]

I think most people realise that the word used in the bible as church means an assembly:

Philemon:1 Paul a prisoner of Jesus Christ and Timothy our brother unto Philemon our dearly beloved and fellowlabourer 2 And to our beloved Apphia and Archippus our fellowsoldier and to the church in thy house 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

It just happens that it has evolved in our own language to more specifically mean a church building...and the people are called the congregation or assembly. It gets a bit confusing when you read the word 'church' in the Bible and equate it with a building which it isn't.

I prefer to refer to a place of worship as the 'meeting place' or 'the building' and try to use words in a correct context....but I have no big worries about it...I would make a much stronger case for not calling the L-rd, 'Jesus Christ'...but that is for another time.