Comments on: The (Independent) Local Church

By: Free at Last

Free at Last — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:43:05 +0000

Obviously your problem is that you value your game above the “things ‘o Gawd”

By: Don

Don — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:20:25 +0000

@ Richard

or else the church that God shed His blood for is no more than a circus.

I would amend that statement to say that the “Church” Christ shed His blood for will never be a circus…
…the posers and the “In Name Only” counterfeits are circuses by virtue of their very existence. These groups of people who gather to worship the god of their imagination and not the God of all Creation as revealed in Scripture…. are P.T. Barnum, Center Ring, religious performers of the first degree.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:32:38 +0000

@Scorpio: I’ve been in fundy churches with 8:30 and 10:30 services. In my experience 11 am services are more common OUTSIDE fundamentalism, but that’s me.

By: Phatchick

Phatchick — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:43:38 +0000

quote RJW-”The â€œleaderâ€ of the congregation is to be accountable to the people he serves. This can be a double-edged sword. The good of it is the more spiritually discerning in the assembly can challenge the pastor if he goes off doctrinally or is involved in sin. The bad of it is the pastor can become a shoe-shine boy & behind-kisser just to â€œkeep his job.â€

The 3rd option (and IME the most common) is that the “sheeple” (a term used by a friend who’s also a former fundy) have been so indoctrinated about “Touch Not The Lord’s Anointed” that they couldn’t say a critical word about their pastor if you held a gun to their head. One of the worst sins a fundy baptist can make is to say anything against the pastor (youth pastor and head of the deacons also come under this heading in some churches).

By: Jen K

Jen K — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:14:44 +0000

<<>>

RJW, the IFB church I grew up in actually preached that if you weren’t IFB, you weren’t saved. The gospel presented by other churches was a false gospel. Entire sermon series were devoted to the topic of the Baptist distinctives and why IFBs were the only ones who got it right.

During my IFB recovery, when I finally started living my life outside “the compound” (previously I had been an overworked/underpaid Christian school teacher spending about 90 hrs/wk in church/school activities), I was honestly shocked over and over again when I found out where some of my godliest new friends went to church. My mind couldn’t wrap itself around the fact that people who truly knew the Lord went to some of those horrible other denominations.

By: RJW

RJW — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:42:41 +0000

If a church wants to govern itself independently, I don’t particularly have a problem with that. It’s more the lack of accountability and inability to fellowship w/ other Christians that I have a problem with. I mean, let’s face is, we’re going to be worshiping IN HEAVEN TOGETHER with the church down the road who might not be dispensationalists or use the same Bible translation. . .so why not start fellowshipping together NOW??? I don’t get it; I really don’t.

On a practical level, I think for a lot of churches that don’t really believe in secondary separation (I think that’s the proper terminology) anymore, they still practice it because: 1) they don’t want to offend the older/more conservative members and lose financial support. . and 2) “what will people say if we participate with THEM?”

By: Scorpio

Scorpio — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:51:11 +0000

I always found this puzzling about IFBs………If they are so Independant, why do they do everything the same (e.g. Sunday School hour @ 10am, Sunday AM service @ 11am, Sunday night, Wednesday night prayer and service, Saturday night prayer meeting, bus minitry etc. etc. etc. etc…..). If any of them were truly independant, then one of them would have come up with something a little different, say a 9am Sunday morning service so I won’t miss the start of the football game.

By: Richard Sullivan

Richard Sullivan — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:07:33 +0000

The “leader” of the congregation is to be accountable to the people he serves. This can be a double-edged sword. The good of it is the more spiritually discerning in the assembly can challenge the pastor if he goes off doctrinally or is involved in sin. The bad of it is the pastor can become a shoe-shine boy & behind-kisser just to “keep his job.” I’ve seen this repeatedly in Southern Baptist churches and some IFB’s. There will of course be no perfect church but Biblical accountability must be in place or else the church that God shed His blood for is no more than a circus.

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:59:23 +0000

Speaking of charities and fundies, I used to work for a marketing company who had a big SC charity as a client. On discussing marketing strategies with them, we found that they didn’t want to do anything too drastic because they feared they would lose the support of BJU and local fundy churches (who supplied more volunteers that they could ever need). This included things like music and imagery in their videos.

By: JimE

JimE — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:56:44 +0000

“If your ideal of Christianity is a church built on a deserted island” This would never work, Fundy pastors like the limelight too much. Throwing tantrums is the only way they can get others to listen to them. Throwing tanturms on a deserted island just would not be the same.

@RobM,
I have heard this independence labeled as “believer priesthood”. I do not remember that this concept was every taught at my last IFB church that I attended during the 1990′s. In the 1970′s, this concept was taught to me in my teen years at a IFB. IFB circles have reduced this to the following:
1. For sheep the Holy Spirit and a ManOGawd are needed.
2. For the ManOGawd, only the Holy Spirit is needed.