Church

[myotch]

(double-post)

[redbeardiam]

(04-12-2012 05:13 AM)Ricardo Wrote:  That'swhat,

My first year of Divinity School I was obsessed with the "Primitive Church." That would be the church of Jerusalem from Pentecost until the year 70 AD. What I found out is that this church had as many problems as any other church.

And the churches Paul wrote his letters to? Same thing! Each one had one or more specific issues that Paul was writing to correct.

The idea that things were better "back when" is a Myth.

When a small church is "clicking" it is wonderful! But more often than not it will not last. There aren't enough resources, there is not the full complement of gifts needed to keep the effort going. And then, the risks of small churches going terribly wrong are HUGE.

When a large church is "clicking" it is a wonderful thing to experience. When you can have a Youth pastor who is good, a Pastor for the elderly community, a counseling pastor and a "preaching" pastor, it is a thing of beauty! (There is no reason to expect that any given pastor will have all those talents combined.) And then, the risks of being in a large church, where you cannot possibly meet every person, are also HUGE.

Some of us may understand your quotes of bishops working with their hands as proof-texting. Ghandhi took up spinning cotton. But it was really only symbolic. There were plenty of other people who could spin cotton way better than him.

It always throws me for a lop when I agree with you near-completely. You are our own special SFL snowflake of a heretic.

[Elijah Craig]

(04-12-2012 05:13 AM)Ricardo Wrote:  That'swhat,

My first year of Divinity School I was obsessed with the "Primitive Church." That would be the church of Jerusalem from Pentecost until the year 70 AD. What I found out is that this church had as many problems as any other church.

And the churches Paul wrote his letters to? Same thing! Each one had one or more specific issues that Paul was writing to correct.

The idea that things were better "back when" is a Myth.

When a small church is "clicking" it is wonderful! But more often than not it will not last. There aren't enough resources, there is not the full complement of gifts needed to keep the effort going. And then, the risks of small churches going terribly wrong are HUGE.

When a large church is "clicking" it is a wonderful thing to experience. When you can have a Youth pastor who is good, a Pastor for the elderly community, a counseling pastor and a "preaching" pastor, it is a thing of beauty! (There is no reason to expect that any given pastor will have all those talents combined.) And then, the risks of being in a large church, where you cannot possibly meet every person, are also HUGE.

Some of us may understand your quotes of bishops working with their hands as proof-texting. Ghandhi took up spinning cotton. But it was really only symbolic. There were plenty of other people who could spin cotton way better than him.

I also agree.

A quick read of the New Testament will reveal that churches then were just flat busted. Also, if you read Acts, First Baptist Church of Jerusalem would be what we would call a "mega church." It was huge. Kind of hard to say that large, institutional churches are unBiblical when the first church of the New Testament era was large and became increasingly institutionalized.

Yes, it is likely that the church was organized into cells that met separately in homes, large halls, etc. Contemporary mega churches recognize the virtue in this and most have small groups for pretty much the same reasons.

While there does seem to have been a plurality of elders in most, if not all, churches of the New Testament era, it is also obvious that it was common for teaching elders to be paid. No, Paul didn't accept pay from the Corinthians and that's a great example of someone sacrificing for the greater mission of the Kingdom of God. But it is not required.

[Ricardo]

That'sWhat,

Give me a list of attributes for Bishops.

If a bishop needs to be able to work with his hands, does that means no quadriplegics need apply? If one bishop has time/makes time to work with his hands, does that make this bishop better than one who is too busy with The Lord's work? What about bishops in charge of a region with 500 churches versus another bishop in charge of only 50 churches? Should both work with their hands the same amount of hours?

"earning your own money rather than demanding that others pay for your religious services" is in the eye of the beholder.

I do agree with you that anyone who "demands" anything is suspect. What if they do not demand anything and we are the ones happily contributing? Is segregation of work always bad? Always good?

Is a good bishop, "earning his money" by helping lead a group of healthy churches be paid more than a bad bishop, whose churches are in disarray? should both stop what they are doing for x number of hours per day to REALLY "earn a living"?

We could find prooftexts both for and against these questions.

[That'sWhatItSays]

I don't understand, Ricardo, what is the "Lord's Work"? Last time I checked, most churches expected volunteers to teach children's church, teach a Sunday School class, run a bus route, do visitation, clean the church, work the nursery, etc....Christianity is all about some sacrifice and service. It is the job of Christians to render their service "as unto the Lord", and not for mere money.

If a Bishop is in charge of 500 churches ( a preposterous position to place oneself in, by the way), then he needs to quit lording his work over everyone and empower some more leaders in the church. "And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." 2 Timothy 2:2. A guy who makes a career out of running a church and never commits anything to any other men is in violation of the spirit of I Corinthians 12-14, where there are diversities of gifts in the church. If there are no other Christians in the churches of these so-called Bishops mature enough to deliver Biblical messages or assume a modicum of leadership, then we don't really have a "church", but a "ministry" of one man. That is what we have today all across the world. The ministries of thousands or even millions of men who refuse to commit anything relating to leadership to anyone else because THEY are the "men of God" in perpetuity. And millions of Christians who have been brow-beaten and brain-washed (I include myself in this group, not making any personal attacks) into buying it.

A quadriplegic probably would not make a good bishop, Ricardo, sorry. The qualifications of a bishop seem to imply that he is an able-bodied individual, at least in terms of being able to teach, rule his house, and show hospitality. I wouldn't dogmatically say that he couldn't, however. The passage in Acts 20 seems to imply that a quadriplegic, in the old days, was the type of person that the Church was called to care for.

[Elijah Craig]

(04-13-2012 09:47 AM)ThatsWhatItSays Wrote:  The qualifications of a bishop seem to imply that he is an able-bodied individual, at least in terms of being able to teach, rule his house, and show hospitality

I think you are the first person I've ever encountered that connected those requirements to being "able-bodied." If physical health was so important, why didn't Paul just come out and say it? And, why did he routinely speak of having a thorn in the flesh and imply that he had poor eyesight? Wouldn't he disqualify himself if that's what he meant?

[That'sWhatItSays]

Paul got old, and was seeing the normal course of physical deterioration. That's not at all what we were talking about....I'm just pointing out that the passages in II Thessalonians 3, Acts 20, and I Peter 5:2 strongly suggest that able-bodied leaders in the church should work to provide their own bread and help support the feeble.

I've never studied the scriptures to find out whether quadriplegics could be bishops!

[Ricardo]

That'sWhatItSays,

God has given his people different gifts. If we have in out midst a world-class pianist, would we have him play the guitar instead?

I have known excellent Youth Pastors who ended up being lousy general pastors. (Their talent was really with youth.) Many pastors who are great at preaching end up destroying a church because they do not have a clue about finances. And the church parishioners expect mistakenly that a good preacher is qualified to administer a church. Especially in small churches it is appalling what pastors are forced to do. Most pastors barely took one or two semesters of Pastoral Counseling, and are supposed to know the intricacies of substance abuse, depression, obsessive/compulsive disorders. It is no wonder that so many cases come up of pastors that simply botched issues brought to him, be it a rape of a minor in the church, a clinically depressed person.

It would appear as though you do not really understand the role of modern bishops. It is understandable if you come from an IFB church that not only has no bishops but generally despise denominations that do have bishops.

I had the privilege of meeting bishop Dom Helder Camara ("When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9lder_C%C3%A2mara

Helder Camara was the fartherst you can imagine from someone who would "lord it over someone else."

While I was just one of four or five thousand persons listening to him for four hours straight, he had the gift of making each one of us feel he was talking only to me. I have also met a couple of Episcopal bishops who were also gifted.

Don't get me wrong, I've met some really lousy bishops also. My complaint about your proof-texting is that, IMHO, you are making emphasis on the wrong issues.

Sort of like if in the passage of the great commission we made emphasis on shaking the dust from our sandals. Yep, there again, someone with no feet would have to be dragging some sandals behind his wheelchair, so he could shake the dust if appropriate.

Same with "Husband of one wife." (If the wife dies, does he have to resign, or re-marry immediately?)

You've got to read scripture in perspective.

I don't have much hope of convincing someone whose moniker is "That'sWhatItSays." It would seem as though you already know what it says, what the correct translation is and what the correct interpretation is.

Does your bible have the Doxology at the end of the Lord's Prayer? How did you decide to keep it/take it out? (What does it say?)

[That'sWhatItSays]

Sorry, Ricardo, I am not using the term Bishop in a sense of traditional, institutional church. I'm just using it as the King James term. Whether you want to use the term elder, overseer, superintendent, etc...the idea was the role, not the title.

I've been considering church from a more anti-Institutional Church perspective, so I have even less use for the Anglicans or Catholics than I do the Baptists. Just being honest. I understand your theological background has led you down a different path, and I'm not going to debate that. Darrell had started a thread about why church sucks. I'm suggesting church sucks because "we" don't do it right. The Baptists as they originally were founded in England and Holland in the early 1600's had it more right in principle than any principles I hear coming from Baptists today.

Again, I think everyone on SFL would enjoy and profit from reading "Pagan Christianity" by Barna and Viola, and maybe "Re-Imagining Church".

"That'sWhatItSays" refers to the verses in the Bible that we never use in fundamentalism, such as 2 Corinthians 10:1 ("gentleness" might as well be an apostate word) or 2 Corinthians 11:19-21. I still consider the scripture alone to be our guide in the faith, and not the authority of any church body.

[Ricardo]

(04-14-2012 06:52 AM)ThatsWhatItSays Wrote:  I still consider the scripture alone to be our guide in the faith, and not the authority of any church body.

Can't be done. The only reason we have a bible is BECAUSE of the authority of church traditions.

Question: How did you decide to take out the Didache from your canon?
Answer: You (we) depend on our specific church tradition.

I have visited every possible flavor of church out there. I still do. I have been part of quite a few experimental churches. (Most of them failed, for one reason or another. But one of my fondest memories was a nondenominational church we organized at a large company I worked at. Many of us in modern USA spend more time at work, with co-workers, than with our own families. Many of us spend 10 and 12 hours at work, then commute one or two hours back and forth. Which means, we spend only two or three waking hours of every day with our loved ones. We end up closer to our co-workers than our own families. In our neighborhoods most of us have no clue what the name of our neighbors are three houses down. So rather than trying to recruit members in our neighborhoods it makes more sense to do so at work. I got really close to my work-church members. I believe we were a true blessing to each other, we helped each other through some pretty major crisis. I know we grew as individuals, and in the Lord.

The concept of a neighborhood church has lost much of its original reason of being. (How many churches do you pass on the route from your house to your church?) Have you visited each one of them? (Try it.)

I can find flaws in any and all churches faster than they can say "welcome, is this the first time you visit us?"

And after many, many years of doing just that, I've changed to a policy of "Take what you need and leave the rest." There are too many problems with the churches I've chosen to be part of, to continue this game of looking for the problems in their churches. Jesus mentioned this several times when talking about the speck in other people's eyes, as well as throwing the first stone.

Most sermons out there would not survive if brought to a Homiletics 101 course. Not just proof-texting, but bad exegesis, bad analogies, bad logic. You name it, I've seen it. in 95% of all sermons I hear. But then there is that one pearl or two, that if I open myself to what God may be trying to tell me through this pompous windbag I'm listening to, BAM! God sneaks up on me!

And those extraordinary moments have happened to me regardless of what church I'm visiting: live churches, dead churches, Baptist, Methodists, Catholic, even Mormon and Jehovah's Witness churches. YES, I disagree with many of these churches. On the other hand, I disagree with EVERY church about one thing or another.

I think we would all agree that the church is not a collection of saints. There will be assholes in each and every church we visit.

I disagree with just about every list of requirements, minimum checklists of beliefs that most churches post as their "If you want to join us, THIS is what you need to believe."

If we try to pray without ceasing, which I believe most of us do, we also have to be looking at every encounter we have it the light of what God could possibly be trying to teach us through this encounter.

Please do not try to put one model or another of church as "better." Each type of church has its good and its bad points, be it strict hierarchical, congregational or anything in between.

I spent two years going strictly to a Quaker meeting. In silence. No bible, no hymns, no sermon. (Nothing to tear apart.)

It was just what I needed at the time.