Anyone know where Christians and only Christians..

[carlos123]

The church would be the group of believers that we make ourselves accountable to

the food would be the word of God

and we would be feeding the people who are hungry for the word

Well....if that is what church is...then certainly I can make myself accountable over the Internet to others, I can be fed the word of God over the Internet, and I can certainly be involved in feeding people who are hungry for the Word over the Internet.

Yippee! Internet church here I come.

This is what I gather. I am not a master theologan

If I'm mislead please correct me

I would rather be with you in church Gerioke than with the greatest theologian of our time (whoever that is). Knowledge by itself puffs up the Bible says and my experience based on discussions with many so-called theologian types leads me to believe that most are more puffed up with an inflated notion of their own importance than full of God with a child like grasp of what the Word says.

And no, I am not saying all theologians are like that or that theology is bad (if we define it as a study of the Word with a view to trusting what God says and being obedient to it instead of an intellectual exercise we engage in to argue over the things of God).

[carlos123]

straight and narrow

Do you think you might find it in your heart to expand that just a whee bit more Gerioke

I am starting to think you might be a one finger typist by the lack of profuse commentary eminating from your posts.

Carlos

P.S. I sure hope you don't have trouble typing as a result of a handicap or something

[Gerioke]

I am pretty much a 1 finger typist

My only handicap is my constant yearning for nostalgia

[Guest Reltih]

I have an idea, reach out... Stop staying at your forums. Join other forums that fit another of your interests (or where you think a lot of people reside that need saving) and try there. Sitting idly and twiddling your thumbs never worked for anybody, ask Noah; God said build the Ark, not watch me make it for you, same with this.

Edited for the semi-colon.

Edited March 30, 2005 by Reltih

[carlos123]

I have an idea, reach out... Stop staying at your forums.

Join other forums that fit another of your interests (or where you think a lot of people reside that need saving) and try there. Sitting idly and twiddling your thumbs never worked for anybody, ask Noah; God said build the Ark, not watch me make it for you, same with this.

All good ideas Reltih. Thing is I don't want to reach out without fellowship to back me up. I can't do this alone. When I get discouraged, when I start doubting God, when I fall into sin, when I need someone to talk to, when I get excited and want to share something, I need other Christians to be there for me as they need me to be there for them.

That's when I bump into my never ending problem trying to find the kind of fellowship where I am free to be myself and free to do what God wants me to do together with others whom I might encourage to do the same things.

Even on Christian forums I reach out and share my heart and WHAM! Some agnostic, or highly theological Christian comes along and robs the thread of God's nourishing life. Rob's the thread of the encouragement that He wanted to provide to all His children through that thread. Instead it is hijacked and taken off in an ungodly direction.

This thread itself has been pretty good I think. At points in this discussion I was thinking to myself..."Oh boy, here we go again...another Christian group rejecting me for speaking what I believe to be God's truth into a situation. It felt like I was going to be shut down. Like someone here was going to tell me .... you can speak anything you want about God but not if it makes this forum look bad or otherwise points to this forum needing to reshape the view it has of itself!". Not that it was my intent to change it's view of itself. It wasn't. But, as so often happens I share something I believe to be true or a frustration I am having with something and people pipe up to counter what I am saying with false ideas. Which leads me to respond on why I think something is not valid. Before I know it we are off into one big discussion and more often than not I end up on the short end of the stick because people don't like my outspokeness or my willingness to tell it like it is no matter what. Or some leader feels threatened by what I am saying and starts to come down on me.

This thread has not gone off in a direction that was not good. I am thankful for that but, that is the exception and not the rule I think. Normally threads don't go this long on this type of topic without degrading into arguments. Which hasn't happened here.

It's not as though I can just go out somewhere and do whatever and then come to fellowship to talk about things as though fellowship was outside of me and I could just stop at it like a car stops to get gas at a pitstop. God wants me and others to work together to do what He wants done. To be involved in each other's lives. To share the burden's of living for God as we all work together to do the same thing.

With one voice and one heart. Where as a group we end up giving Him the glory by virtue of none of us being the big cheese.

So I need other Christians and they need me. And we need to do the works of God together.

I have tried to get fellowship in the sense of going to your average Christian gathering and pluging in to that. But most average Christians haven't got a clue what in the world I am talking about or what my problem is. They are perfectly content with church as it is. Many don't even read the Bible and rely on their pastor to read it for them. It just discourages me. And makes me feel that I am alone. That's not good.

I know the Lord has his purposes in all this. I sense His Presence and He keeps me going but sometimes I just sit here, in the quiet of my own heart, utterly perplexed. Not sure what to do. I know what I know but I don't know what to do when even the Christians begin to misunderstand me and label me.

Someone even on this thread started to give me flack in a mean sort of way (and no it was not any of the leaders here - they have been like Angels of God compared to most). I just ignored it. That's all I can usually do.

But God did not intend fellowship to be such that I must be on guard, watching over my heart and being careful with what I say lest someone misunderstand me and start giving me uncalled for flack. Nor did the Lord intend for fellowship to be a place where in sharing my heart I open myself up to attack. That happens quite a bit.

I was on one forum where some of the agnostics and unbelievers just piled into me big time. I mean mean like. Real bad. The Lord gave me grace to respond in love. But you know something? That was a Christian forum (not this one) and what did His people do? Basically nothing. They let it happen. In private they told me that it was bad and that the people who were saying what they were saying were off the wall but as so often happens in Christian circles on the Internet it was allowed to go on. Until I just closed down sharing my heart and left that forum. The Lord did provide me with a Christian who I am discussing things by email with though through that forum. So something good did come out of that.

But overall, what happens on forums is not fellowship of the kind God wants, and it concerns me that I can't find a place to share my heart on the Internet with others sharing their heart with me as Christians where we can just let down our hair so to speak and be ourselves in Christ. Without mockers, agnostics, atheists, false teachers, head tripping "theologians", and others coming in and making it difficult if not impossible to share the life of Christ among us with one another.

That's a problem. A need. And something I believe God wants to do something about. This forum and indeed any forum that I have ever been on on the Internet, in their structure and modes of operation, will not provide such a place for Christians to hang out at.

That's why I have it on my heart to start something new. To provide such a place where Christians can let down their hair and be themselves in Christ. By applying church principals, that make real churches more of what I am talking about for some of you, to who we really are. A church online. Whether we view ourselves as such or not.

Carlos

[Guest shiloh357]

I am just curious... What is stopping you from finding a good church home?

[Mark]

So carlo,you dont believe in reaching out to those that come here seeking?

Absolutely I believe in that bloodbought. No question. But reaching out to help those in need who come to Christian forums does not, in my understanding of the Scriptures, mean putting up with sin in our midst in so far as any of us argue, bicker, slanderously talk of each other, go around pronouncing false doctrine to be true, sharing agnostic and atheistic beliefs with each other, and so forth.

I think you are making the same mistake that so much of the Christian world seems to be making these days. Namely equating the need to discipline those in our midst who call themselves brethren but who engage in divisiveness and unrepentant sin with being unloving and alternatively equating attempts to bring holiness into our midst through such discipline with being unwilling to help those in need who might be in the throes of some besetting sin. The two are not mutually exclusive.

...we have a job to do.

Is not our highest calling, even more important than helping those in need, to glorify God in the Church? To uphold his holiness in our midst? Without holiness the Bible says no one will see the Lord. And without the Church acting in holiness to expel wickedness from among us in a righteous way, people will not be able to see the beauty and magnificence of the God we worship.

How can we as a Church help those in need to see the true character of Christ if we allow sin in our midst to go unchallengened, unconfronted, and undealt with? All under the mistaken notion that we must do so in order to minster to those in need?

I am not saying that we should go around trying to find sin under every bushel. That is not what I am saying. Only that we need to start dealing with sin in our midst the way the Bible says to deal with it.

Carlos

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Carlos,

Would the alcoholic, the money changer, the prostitute, etc., be allowed into your room, your presence, as did Jesus allow them into his?

Mark

[Guest angelicvoice]

Carlos

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Edited March 30, 2005 by angelicvoice

[Catsmeow]

Remove the speck in your OWN eye..first.......

i would pray for them ....and try to win them back gently.....YOU CANNOT FORCE ANYONE TO DO ANYTHING .....and have a lasting effect .....

Jesus  is the only one who can change a persons heart  .....not a HUMAN......

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Great post, Angel!

[carlos123]

First off Shiloh I want to THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart my heart for your response!!!! I need these type fo responses. Where fellows Christians see something that may be a problem in me that I might not see in myself and have the love or courage to tell it to me like it is.

I don't want to justify myself for the sake of justifying myself. That is not what this is about. I want to know what the Lord wants and to do it. If God sheds light on something in me that needs to be corrected then PRAISE GOD!

Having said that I am not sure I agree with youir points. Here's why.....

Incidentally THANKS too for not quoting me at length. Make's your response much easier to read .

I guess I am wondering if it would not have been possible for you to "wink" at certain things you don't agree with, that are not salvation issues.  Things like the KJV only stuff,  or letting a woman lead (which is very much debated) and so on.  I mean, you are going to find churches that have certain traditions or protocols, order of worship, style of worship and so on, that may not be to your particular liking.  As long as they are not making these things conditional pertaining to salvation, or as long as they are willing to accept you even though you may disagree, I don't see that as justification for just getting up and leaving.

Let's look at this a bit Shiloh.

Let's look at some of the reasons I have left churches over (or not rejoined them) that you would consider not worth leaving over.....

- women in leadership

- insistence on me and others using only the King James

- lack of willingness to let me or others operate in the gifts of the Spirit

- false teaching such as one needing to speak in tongues as a sign of being genuinely filled with the Spirit

Let's assume for a minute Shiloh, for the purpose of this discussion, that my understanding of the Scriptures with reference to these things is right on? Let's further assume that leadership in these churches was not open to being corrected or to do things in line with what the Scriptures teach in each of these areas.

Would you have me compromise what God wants done because a church is blind, unwilling, or otherwise to seeing what God wants done? God did not say to apply the things he said in these areas in His Word only when leaders agree that they should be applied.

Even if we discount what I have said so far what about my conscience? How could I sit there and encourage other Christians to read the Word, seek the Lord, take what they read at face value and trust God through it, acting on what they have read unless the leaders of a church think differently. In which case they are to subjegate what God says to the leadership's way of thinking. Sure I would encourage them to bring to leadership these things, to prayerfully and submissively iron it out with them, to respect them as leaders, all that but in the end if they did not see the same things from a plain reading of the Word that in the final analysis they would have to subjegate their personal convictions from the Word to those of their leaders. If not in belief at least in practice.

Is that any way to be a church?

Something is really wrong and fundamentally so it seems to me when we as Christians can only trust God and obey and encourage other Christians to do the same, only in those areas that leaders give their blessings to through their own beliefs about what God says.

Jesus said that we are to obey and teach others to obey ALL that He commands us to do. Not some. Not just that which leaders over us think proper for us to obey and teach. But what HE said to do. And ALL of it.

Now lest you think that I am advocating that we all go around and read our Bibles and coming upon a passage which contradicts church practice that we then immediately set about to apply it with others in that church regardless, that is NOT what I am saying or advocating. In my mind that would be rebellious and not pleasing to God.

We should go to our leaders, present things to them, discuss things with them at length, try to reason with them if they don't agree, and otherwise see if there is some way to obey and trust God despite church practice. But what I am saying is that in the final analysis our allegiance is to God and to what He commands us to do. Salvation wise or otherwise. And we are to walk according to His leading. Not according to what our church leaders allow when they do not allow us to obey, implement, or practice what God says and teach others to do the same.

Granted this does present a problem to being invovled in most churches. A problem I am intimately aware of.

May I suggest something to ponder?

Just maybe our church leaders these days have taken on a role that God never intended them to take on. Just maybe that is part of the problem Shiloh. Not saying that it is definitely part of the problem but maybe so.

Let me explain.....

A leader comes along and says...okay, this is the way it's going to be, you must speak in tongues to evidence the Holy Spirit's presence, therefore I am going to encourage you and everyone you may bring to our church, and everyone in the church to encourage each of us that does not speak in tongues to be filled with the Spiiit.

First I believe that to be a decidedly unscriptural and ridiculous view. But be that as it may let's say that a leader comes along and says that.

Where in the Word does a leader have the right and authority to superimpose wrong belief on his congregation? Salvation specific or otherwise.

I know that in most of the Christian world there is the generally accepted "principal" that if something is not salvation specific that we are to basically ignore what God says as a church and just...welll....ignore it for the sake of unity. I think that is a very wrong and ungodly perspective adhered to mostly in an attempt to maintain a surface unity that would not be able to be maintained otherwise.

God intended leaders in the church to be examples to the flock of godly character. Yes to teach godly doctrine as well. But character being the main qualification needed to be a leader. Today we have elevated the role of leaders to teach sound doctrine and to lead us in that to the point that what they think God says has become more important than their role as an example of godly character.

We view it as being unsubmissive if we do not follow leadership in all kinds of things that God never intended them to authoritatively have the say so in.

So for example a leader says we are going to have Sunday school in this way and to teach this through it. I want everyone to attend and participate. If we decide not to participate or to teach something else in our homes or among our friends in the church WHAM! We are being unsubmisive.

Leaders say okay...we are inplementing this here program in the chruch to win the lost and we want everyone to get involved. If we don't get involved or show that we are likewise winning th lost in an "approved" way WHAM! We are seen to be uncooperative, having an indendent Spirit, or otherwise selfish.

What ever happened to being led by the Spirit? To freedom in Christ? To following the dictates of our conscience as the Lord gives us light?

What ever happened to God's instructions to be of one mind, to strive together as one man, for the faith of the gospel?

When I get with brothers and sisters in Christ to fellowship outside of established church circles I am free to apply whatever God lays on my heart. Without hindrance. My brothers and sisters may not agree with me on a point of doctrine that leads me to do what I do but that's okay. They are not making our agreement a neccessity for continued fellowship.

They may encourage me to do whatever it is I feel God wants me to do. They may even give me sound advice on how to do it better. But they don't obstruct the leading of God's Spirit to my own conscience insisting that I do things their way as many leaders in the church of today do.

Are leaders and how they do things today in the church a big problem? Yup! I think so. The church has lots and lots of problems. So do I. But we, as a church, have to adequately recognize the problems and prayerfull and humbly do something about them if we are to see the church rise to be what God wants it to be. If the way it is being led today is a problem we should not walk around in fear of being unsubmissive by saying that leadership is a problem.

We should act respectfully, submissively in our own hearts, not cause division. All that. But we should also be willing to call the problem as God may see it. If indeed a major problem in the church of today lies in how leaders lead and how they are looked upon among the sheep (sometimes exalting them to the point that they become God in practice if not in fact).

I think Peter said it best when one's knelt before him after seeing God heal someone throgh him. "Rise up for I too am just a man!" or something like that. I wish there were more church leaders who actually practiced the implications of that in our churches and did not just give lip service to the underlying belief.

Carlos

PS. If anyone quotes me please follow Shiloh's example and don't quote me at length. Thanks.

Edited to add the following....

Incidentally to those of you listening in and thinking this may be another Christian argument I don't believe it is. We strongly believe certain things and expressing what we believe but we are not arguing. What is happening is a healthy and needful exchange of ideas that will hopefully lead all of us to become more aware of God's thinking on things (whether that proves me "right" and others "wrong" or vice versa is immaterial and of no concern to me). That we side with what God may think in all this IS!