Worthy has changed a lot in ten years ...

[Wayne222]

Worthy can still be a good place. It needs solid biblical teaching or posts on biblical subjects that edify. Instead of reckless preaching to the worthy members. 

[enoob57]

11 hours ago, wingnut- said:

 

Don't leave MG.      

 

I Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Houston is not that big   we'd find her  

11 hours ago, Willa said:

This is being discussed among mods as well.  George is the only one that can change anything.  

I am a watchman and was told that a person must violate the TOS to be reported.  That didn't seem to include strange doctrines and those who claim to be Jesus.  We are supposed to refute those and minister to the unbalanced people.  The biggest problem in my eyes is that new Christians can be swayed by aberrant teaching.  The second is the accusing spirit that has taken hold.  Satan is the accuser of the brethren.  

Each of us needs to guard our own hearts and keep right with God.  We need to forgive quickly.  I am probably one of the people who posts platitudes.  But the Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit.  And I trust God to apply it to those who will receive it. 

I also wish we could curb those who have angry accusing spirits, or roots of bitterness.  There seems to be a crusading agenda.  This is especially true when people are allowed to hijack nearly every thread and insert their agenda.  It turns into a rant.  This has to be stopped.    Some of the people are even popular because their angry accusing spirits attract others of the same ilk.

Nevertheless, this is still the best forum I have encountered.  Some do nothing to protect their members from vulgar horrid attacks.  I have faith that God will persevere here.  We all need to spend more time praying about it and remembering that our enemy is not flesh and blood.

 

 

Yes it is a s/Spiritual battle wherever we are... we love here by God's Word shared and prayer is needed  

9 hours ago, The_Patriot2018 said:

Actually, theres merit to what your saying and yowm. Yes, absolutly false doctrine should be addressed-but all to often, when these types get on, instead of simply refuting the trolls and moving on, we, and I include myself in this, turn it into a huge debate, where we try to shout down the trolls. all that does is feed them and make us look bad. Something to be said about simply leaving a solid, Biblical refutation, and then moving on and ignoring them from that point on. The Bible can defend itself, let the readers read through and make their judgement, arguing with a troll for 20+ pages will not change their mind.

when ever I visit a thread and false doctrine is two or more pages undealt with I insert God's Word and for me the work is done and on to the next...

7 hours ago, Lavender said:

Thanks for that information.  I don't know if things are much different here in NZ.  I thought about online stuff a couple of weeks ago and so I listened to an online sermon from a local church a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately I don't know how biblically sound the Church is.

Most have a doctrinal statement of teaching... just ask for it  

[The_Patriot21]

3 minutes ago, enoob57 said:

 

when ever I visit a thread and false doctrine is two or more pages undealt with I insert God's Word and for me the work is done and on to the next...

 

Indeed, that us indeed wise, i am not saying that we should not refute false doctrine, but rather the opposite! What i am speaking of are the countless pages of inuendos, shouting matches, insults, and endless circles where nothing new has been presented by either side for 15 pages.

[enoob57]

5 hours ago, The_Patriot2018 said:

Indeed, that us indeed wise, i am not saying that we should not refute false doctrine, but rather the opposite! What i am speaking of are the countless pages of inuendos, shouting matches, insults, and endless circles where nothing new has been presented by either side for 15 pages.

It is really difficult to remove the flesh from influence on self... at this point 60 I don't expect the war to cease but I'm winning as it is dying  

[hmbld]

Through all of this, thanks George, mods, watchmen, and all the others for this is the best site. 

[SisterActs2]

People, please don't leave.  There is a solution.  Together, we can pray and ask the Lord to find more moderators and watchmen and I could name some of you right now - but of course it is the Lord who will place it on your hearts, if indeed people's busy lives allow them to do this.  I am sure we all want Worthy to thrive with correct doctrine, helping iron to sharpen iron, lively respectful discussion, thought provoking questions sending us scurrying to the Word to see what it says.  This is what Worthy has done for me - sent me time and again to the Word, seeking to be a Berean!

I want to be corrected, too, if I am wrong.

7 hours ago, Bluebird said:

I might try coming around here a bit again.

Meg, please come back.  I would enjoy reading your posts, I am sure.

[Guest shiloh357]

1 minute ago, Davida said:

The problem isn't the challenging of the false teachings, it's the  ignoring the problem of them.  What has increased is the ignoring the problem, which  only has increased the spread of false teachings in page after page, and thread after thread.    The only reason why it's challenged by the few is,  if not challenged,  the result is 24 pages of unbiblical rants & the twisting of scripture and making the Bible teachings say something it did not say,  to mislead those that come to WCF looking to see what Christianity is about.  When unity is placed higher then Biblical truth -then Sound Doctrine will be sacrificed. 

Exactly, if it were not challenged, there would still be page after page and thread after thread of false teachings being posted and those without discernment giving them a thumbs-up or other positive icon below the post, would only make the false teachers feel validated and encourage them to post more.  

The idea that if we just ignore them they will go away, won't work and has never worked in the past.

And it will damage WBs when new people show up and see these kinds of teachings flourishing and permeating the boards. 

[GandalfTheWise]

I've only been here since August 2017.  Here are my thoughts and observations (after about 6 hours of writing, deleting, re-writing, re-deleting over the past few days).  I think I finally have a helpful post to contribute.

1. There is a solid core community of people here that I've come to respect.  This is especially true of the Chat, prayer, and fellowship communities.  Sadly, my schedule and activity level right now preclude me from spending much time there.  I would not hesitate to recommend this part of the site to anyone... but...

2. I've seriously considered leaving this site because of the potential embarrassment and damage to my reputation of having any association with the conspiracy theories, extreme sectarianism, and manipulative and unspiritual behavior of some of the more prolific and forceful posters on this site.  I'm not talking about outsiders and cultists but rather Christians and long-term participants here.  I've not recommended this site to anyone because of this nor have I mentioned to anyone that I participate here.  The main reason I keep coming back is to help people who are struggling in their walk with God.  For the past few months, my participation here has been mostly, "well, let's just take a quick look and see if anyone needs some uplifting and encouragement today" and "well, I suppose I'll do one more post...."  Honestly, at times, the main thing that brings me back is just to help one more person before I call it quits.

3. My opinion is that most of the "defending" the faith and truth I see on here is ineffectual.  Much of it is reactionary, sinks to the level of the worst type of arguing, uses excessive quantity to make up for lack of quality, and defaults to personal attacks when it is not effectual.  To be completely blunt, much of what I see on here is largely a zealous parroting of sectarian indoctrination masquerading as a profound understanding of the essential doctrines of Christianity.  There are only a couple people here that I've come to respect greatly on this point and sadly they don't post much.  I see little insightful, discerning, and effective cutting straight to the heart of the matter and dealing with it.

4. The solid "salt of the earth" Christian majority here are being browbeaten into submission and withdrawal by a few loud cliques (and I am referring to Christians and "insiders", not outsiders and cultists).

If this site is to grow and improve, it needs to value and treasure and encourage good old solid spiritual maturity, experience, and wisdom.  There are simply not enough posts that reflect the life experiences of those people who've been solid serious Christians who've come to know God intimately from a consistent walk of decades.  Anyone can quote a few bible verses, parrot back their church's indoctrination, quote the latest book or website they read, recite some facts and answers to arguments that they've read, etc., but far fewer people can give solid godly counsel and guidance based on a lifetime of walking with God.  On another Christian site that I frequent, one of my favorite posters is an old Greek Orthodox sister in Christ.  I often tune her out when she talks about doctrine, but she often has so much practical wisdom to share from having spent decades walking with God coupled with a genuine love and concern for each person she responds to, that I've gained many insights and learned much from reading her posts.  She's a person who would have been run off this site.  My impression is that some here would probably think it is a good thing that people like her would not be allowed to freely post without being confronted for her each and every doctrinal error.  I think that as long as doctrinal purity is valued more highly than spiritual maturity and godliness, this site will reap a sad harvest of a sea of posts dedicated to rehashing centuries of Christian fighting over particular doctrines and ineffectual wordplay focused on being right rather than producing a plethora of posts dedicated to showing what God has done (and is doing) in our lives.

The bottom line, does WCF want to be known as a place where people can come and read post after post of what God has done in people's lives,  finding years, decades, centuries, and even millennia worth of experiences from hundreds of posters?  Can they come here and see plain examples of how to walk with God from people who are doing it and talking about it?  Or do we want to be a haphazard cut and pasted and paraphrased collage from a random collection of websites and books dedicated to witch hunting to find the devil who is thought to be hiding in most churches or rehashing arguments and debates that have been going on for decades or centuries?  Seriously!  What will God use more?  A ton of people sharing post after post of the things that they've seen God do in their lives and other people's lives?  Or a loud minority presenting a sloppy disorganized mass of apologetics, sectarian bickering, and conjectural polemics that is often lacking in basic Christian behavior?

 

 

[enoob57]

49 minutes ago, GandalfTheWise said:

 I think that as long as doctrinal purity is valued more highly than spiritual maturity and godliness, this site will reap a sad harvest of a sea of posts dedicated to rehashing centuries of Christian fighting over particular doctrines and ineffectual wordplay focused on being right rather than producing a plethora of posts dedicated to showing what God has done (and is doing) in our lives.

I know there are areas where Godly living people are divided on certain Biblical themes... but my take on maturity and God likeness is 

2 Tim 3:15-17

15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
KJV
what other guide do we have other than Scripture to know what Godliness is? Just because there are issues where we cannot be sure it seems we have no other source...

[GandalfTheWise]

In case anyone is interested, here's a quick bar chart of the number of posts in each category from the main page.  This is in order of number of posts as appearing on the main page as of when I hand copied the numbers a few minutes ago.  I grouped the video categories together.

 

 

Here's a pie chart with the largest groups shown and the remainder combined together.

 

Of course, the various ages of various groups and how they were broken apart and created historically makes a direct comparison of numbers problematic.  However, it does give a good representation of what a new user first clicking on the site will see with regard to available posts to read and their location.  It'd be interesting to break this out by posts by time frames such as since 1/1/2018 or in the past 6 months, 12 months, or two years to get a sense of the activity levels.  However, it would probably be challenging to try to generate those numbers from the user front end of the site.  It would also be interesting to see things in terms of number of views and other such stuff as well as seeing what types of things lurkers and new users tend to go look at.  However, that's probably a matter of spending a fair amount of effort in the backend digging through the database and logs underlying the site.