Please Describe How You See Worthy

[Wayne222]

Worthy is a great place. Getting to know people from around the world. That belong to Jesus our savior. It’s not about winning arguments. It’s about showing Jesus to the members. If Jesus is not here at worthy then it means very little. He is here. Wherever three are gathered together in my name I am there. I hope I quoted it correctly. So we should fear if the lord is here to take it lightly.

[ayin jade]

3 hours ago, OneLight said:

 

I do know how to have a good time, no doubt, but that is not what this thread is about.  When I saw this thread, I took it as a serious inquiry, so I offered my 17 years experience of Worthy.  No matter what today's members think, it is not the same place I first joined.  Discipleship is all but gone.  I'm not even sure if it's around any more.

It is definitely not the same place it used to be. Granted my life is a chaotic mess these days with dealing with things after my parents deaths but even before that I was not finding much of interest here in the past couple of years. 

[Neighbor]

All of life on planet earth has changed over 16 years, especially so in the pandemic world and now the endemic one. It is not going back to what it used to be, not anywhere. It is impossible to reach out to the world by lecturing it. That never did work well anyway.

New methods, new styles, new interactions, all are indeed so very different now than even just two years ago. The message of the gospel is constant, but the sharing of it is indeed different. I think it a good thing myself.

I do not lament for yesterday. I was there for all the lectures and lecturers about life eternal. Never made an impression upon me. It turns out it is all wind until the Holy Spirit turns a person about, that no one saves another person.

What a Christian does is live out the new life once turned about from sin against God to instead  following Jesus. Did Jesus socialize? I suspect he did. He was accused of it it seems to me.

Would Jesus  use a cell phone or a message board today? I suspect he does- through the Holy Spirit leading many a Christian, a person born again, to share of the gospel as they live it not just lecture others about it. It does take time, and that is alright by me too.

Today all is about being social and being an influencer or being influenced. What an opportunity  to share that Jesus is God! I can say that at  4:30 AM  at my spot on earth and it can be  picked up on any time anywhere and chatted about or debated. How very cool that is.

Jesus is God.

 

[ladypeartree]

As one who mainly posts in the " nonsense " threads  I have to say unless you get to know your brothers and sisters as we do in these fun threads  how are you to know what is hurting them ? How are you to comfort them and help them if you only see the serious side ? 

In UNI if I had a problem ( and as a single mum of 4 children doing my degrees it really did happen ) it was NOT to the stern lecturers I turned to it was to the friendly understanding ones   who would be more likely to offer a friendly encouragement than a stern  " work harder "  message Some of us that are more house bound than others may not actually see another soul for days so having someone to joke and laugh with can do far more good for the soul than an argumentative " I am right and everyone else is wrong " type that we see too often in the deeper threads ( YES  I do read most of them but do not feel inclined to debate them with people who just want to be told how right they are )

There are many that I miss especially the ones with the gift of encouragement and joy in their hearts  

[Neighbor]

It just hit me! Thinking ( A dangerous thing to do sometimes) how many people post their  laments against churches because no one socializes no one says hello or gets to know them at church, there is just a lecture from a speaker at a podium and then everybody up and leaves.

While some people on a Christian message board lament that there is socialization going on, nobody is listening to their lectures to us all.

Cracks me up. Lord will you ever get it down right for us?

[OneLight]

When I look through the thread at the time demographics of when each poster joined, I can see that just about every member who has experienced the change, and miss the "old days", are long time posters, unless fellowship is the main reason for being here.  Those who like how the site has evolved have not been here all that long, so they don't know the extend of change that has taken place.  To them, it's basically the same site it was when they joined.  They even express wonder as to why the fuss, which is understandable due to not having gone through the process.

As shown in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, which shows us that everything has it's season, notice that there is a balance in life, which is His design.  It's when this life becomes unbalanced, one way or the other, that we notice something is not right.   If there is too much seriousness and not enough relaxation, we become unbalanced.  The same for the opposite ... too much fun and not enough seriousness, we also become unbalanced. 

This brings me back to my first paragraph above where some feel the unbalance and other don't.  It's time to get back to being balanced. 

[Starise]

16 hours ago, Michael37 said:

We have had a few try to influence the community by using titles and degrees.

There are also those whose authority rests on the fact that they have published a book.

Or been a moderator for 20 years.

16 hours ago, Michael37 said:

Often improvements happen when dissention is discouraged.

There are only a few things any group can do in the face of disagreement. Worthy is unique in that we KNOW the enemy attacks through some members. That's pretty much a given on a public forum calling itself Christian. Attempts to discourage and undermine WILL happen in addition to the other human intricacies involved at times.

Thus far a lot of that has been nipped in the bud thanks to the team here, and many members never see the brunt of it. "Nice" people get ugly when they are not allowed to continue a charade. 

16 hours ago, OneLight said:

Instead of biblical based threads, as it was then, we now see more threads about personal interests, like you would find on Facebook.  What I see Worthy evolving into, and quickly over the past few years, is a Christian based Facebook, not a site where people could learn solid scriptural wisdom and knowledge as it was when I joined.  Due to this, my interest to be involved has continued to wane as time goes on.  Sad as it is, there is no real biblical based web site that I can find as His time draws near and believers become more like the world as they wander from the truth, where their inner fire becomes only a flicker of the past.

The argument that changed this site was the cry of too much policing going on.  People complained that threads were locked when fights broke out so that the thread could be cleaned.  Members were "hurt" when they go banned from threads.  Some members, when they outright refused correction over an extended period of time, got banned.  All this caused an uproar from membership, which we don't see today.  Worthy's policies have become much like what we see in society today which is resulting is letting the criminals go free, police strongly restricted from doing their jobs, courts throwing out cases or even prosecuting, those who wish to do damage are allowed to do so unhindered (just look at what many cities have become).

 

 When it comes to member I think it's generally a case by case basis. A few things I like: The site allows us to be mostly who we are and we have interests. I say that as a person who seldom if ever goes to my Facebook. I don't care for Facebook because for me I like to go deeper and it's all shallow, filled with bots and click bait, and one sided.

To me it sometimes seems as if the 'brains' of theology think it's a great place to talk down to the rest of us. We do have a few like that. At least that's how it often comes off to me. On any given day I can look at the areas new comers are allowed to see, and it's duking it over theology. That's why I said I believe we are too inward focused. We need more outward focus and for all the right reasons. Old men cross pollinating theology won't cut if folks. That sounds judgemental and maybe it is. 

Jesus didn't reach people with theology. And I dare say noone saved will say they were reached through 20 pages of bible thumping. God has to reach them first. We can either help or get in the way. 

I think it's great a lot of people are here for fellowship and I also realize many are shut ins or not close to a decent church, so Worthy is a place to go where they can find like minded people. I find myself mostly going to the more jovial sections of the board, which outsiders can't see which I think is unfortunate in some ways because they only see that main section where people occasionally fight and where long winded posters end up. Christians are boring, we talk about theological differences all day, and we never have fun. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here is how I see policing, and it's only my opinion. It can keep the world out of our forum and we are supposed to be in the world as examples. Imagine a room where the world enters and almost immediately they are told we don't want them here because we disagree with them. Is that ministry?? There are limits and we have a TOS already. This is where wisdom enters in. Jesus talked with disagreeable people and people who were not believers. If you want a closed system then we might as well say  this is a closed Christian only site, which I think diminishes greatly our potential effectiveness. 

16 hours ago, Slibhin said:

Like anyone is going to answer this question other then in the positive. Maybe you should track down people who left and ask them if you want a full or balanced answer. I did a search on review sites, not that there's much out there about this Ministry, and here's what I found as the most common observations: (My opinion in brackets)

- Cliqued up (I agree)

- Hostile (Sometimes)

- Claims of sock puppets (No idea if this is valid, I've not personally seen any evidence)

- Bullying moderators with lack of accountability (Some of them)

- Hypocrisy and double standards. Some people are heavily moderated, others can get away with murder. (I agree)

Is this the worst Christian forum I've been on? No, not really. For the most part however these forums exist mainly as an exercise in mental massage, an information bubble and echo chamber. They often claim to be a ministry but I seldom see any ministering actually happening. They are full of people constantly being told they are right and become unglued when faced with contrary views because they spent so long being constantly affirmed.

There you go. If you really want an answer to this question, don't ask on this forum. Ask where people can be honest without having to worry about retaliation, and likely anyone who doesn't like it here has left.

I think you might agree most sites have a combination of these, some more and some less. 

The Christian way does not encourage echo chambers. We should all be prepared to give an answer, so yes this is a short coming and maybe this will help.

Doctrinally we should also be flexible to allow a brother or sister who sees something differently to feel comfortable saying it within the confines of our faith.

We often roll with some things, so I'm not saying it's all bad,  and at other times problems happen. Hopefully maturity will prevail. Discussion happens when people discuss in general discussion and stop writing reams as the accredited "teacher". Discussion happens with two or more people in smaller settings.

I appreciate your views as an outsider.

 

 

[Starise]

2 hours ago, ladypeartree said:

As one who mainly posts in the " nonsense " threads  I have to say unless you get to know your brothers and sisters as we do in these fun threads  how are you to know what is hurting them ? How are you to comfort them and help them if you only see the serious side ? 

In UNI if I had a problem ( and as a single mum of 4 children doing my degrees it really did happen ) it was NOT to the stern lecturers I turned to it was to the friendly understanding ones   who would be more likely to offer a friendly encouragement than a stern  " work harder "  message Some of us that are more house bound than others may not actually see another soul for days so having someone to joke and laugh with can do far more good for the soul than an argumentative " I am right and everyone else is wrong " type that we see too often in the deeper threads ( YES  I do read most of them but do not feel inclined to debate them with people who just want to be told how right they are )

There are many that I miss especially the ones with the gift of encouragement and joy in their hearts  

This is why I don't believe that area should be so closed off. Let everyone see it.

It seems like a back room. I recently had a person in the pavilion say the can't see "what's for dinner" so I posted some pics over there. Why can't they see it too? 

I have enjoyed greatly our exchanges there. No it isn't deep stuff, but fellowship does not involve reading chapers of scripture back and forth, it's about us being us and enjoying each other's company. And no, that format doesn't fare well with everyone.

 

[ladypeartree]

I thought that section was open to everyone ????  I know some of it requires a password such as the ladies forum / mens forum etc but for the most part I was not aware that others couldnt join in 

[Starise]

People in the pavilion are sandboxed. It was only recently I realized they are not privy to it. The area is labled as only for persons agreeing with our statement of faith. Yet we have a few with access who do not agree with our SOF already.

I think lighter discussion with unbelievers could be very helpful if they behave themselves.

Frankly if I was sandboxed like that I would not stay in it. If they make trouble, well that's something else.