Is today's Churches what the 1st century church had in mind?

[godsgirl]

What is it then, brethren? whenever ye come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done to edification.

That, according to scripture is "church'.

[seamus414]

Are our Churches in the 21st century and their services what Peter and Paul had in mind when they started their 1st century Churches in your opinion?

Everybody says you need to go to Church if you are a born from above Christian, but is today's style of Church services even something we should be attending? Most of it is watered down scriptural preaching at best, with a get what you can get from God attitude, instead of a what can I do for God attitude. what's your opinion on the 21st century Church services, and are they something we should be a part of?

By and large, I do not think the Apostles would be surprised at where we are right now.

HOwever...

I think the Apostles would be shocked at how disorderly and non-liturgical many Christians have become.

I also think they may be surprised at how assimilated Christians have become with the world and society.

[Emanate]

Ron

It is the practices and creeds of the modern church that make me uncomfortable.

[HisLeast]

10 million people with bullhorns blustering. Each of them claiming authority. One says they have exclusive authority from the word, others claim from apostolic succession, others from signs of the holy spirit. Still others claim authority by lack of association with other authorities. All the while telling those of us scratching our heads that finding the truth is as easy as "being in spirit". You can go to a church like mine... where our Pastor teaches with all his might, makes no apology for to the world for the message, and the congregation busts its hump to be a force in the community.... but there will always be those who "know the truth"... that despite our teachings and works, we're nothing but a fraud.

Hence, if real truth is out there, it is utterly indistinguishable from the unending cacophony of pretenders. One could pour one's heart and soul into seeking. One could spend a lifetime reading the texts, studying history, and undertaking mighty works in a humble spirit... and it all amounts to a guess, exercised in fear. Ours is to roll the dice in despair, scrabbling what confidence we can from the bleakest of hopes.

[seamus414]

HisLeast
10 million people with bullhorns blustering. Each of them claiming authority. One says they have exclusive authority from the word, others claim from apostolic succession, others from signs of the holy spirit.

Don't forget us Anglicans who claim that all three have authority! Nothing like an Anglican who tries to make everyone happy.

[HisLeast]

Don't forget us Anglicans who claim that all three have authority! Nothing like an Anglican who tries to make everyone happy.

None were forgotten, including my own non-denominations.

[SpokenFor]

The return of the Apostolic will fix a little of this.

Are you referring to the New Apostolic Reformation?

[crawfish]

The big question is, what is the purpose of "Church"? Is it a place where I go to be fed, or is it a place I go to feed others? Church is, first and foremost, about community; about our responsibility to our fellow man to use our talents to spread His kingdom and serve His people. As such, it's less important to ensure that our particular church obeys all the jots and tittles of the law and more important to make our influence felt in a positive way.

With the prevalence of the megachurches today, that is even more important. If you have a church with 5-10,000 members, where over 500 unchurched and unsaved show up every single weekend, what kind of message would you want to send? Complicated messages that they cannot understand, or grace-centered, baby-step messages designed to encourage them to take that step into the next level? I'd argue the latter, which makes the individual believer responsible for helping his or her small group get more of the "meat" necessary for growth in Christ.

[seamus414]

The big question is, what is the purpose of "Church"? Is it a place where I go to be fed, or is it a place I go to feed others? Church is, first and foremost, about community; about our responsibility to our fellow man to use our talents to spread His kingdom and serve His people. As such, it's less important to ensure that our particular church obeys all the jots and tittles of the law and more important to make our influence felt in a positive way.

With the prevalence of the megachurches today, that is even more important. If you have a church with 5-10,000 members, where over 500 unchurched and unsaved show up every single weekend, what kind of message would you want to send? Complicated messages that they cannot understand, or grace-centered, baby-step messages designed to encourage them to take that step into the next level? I'd argue the latter, which makes the individual believer responsible for helping his or her small group get more of the "meat" necessary for growth in Christ.

I think the Church is: (1) a hospital for the spiritually sick and (2) where people are armed and comissioned for spiritual battle in the mission field (wherever that may be for that person).

The purpose of Sunday service is for the worship of God alone and has nothing to do with one's own "spiritual feeding" or any other issue.

I think megachurches are a terrible idea and only serve to make lukewarm Christians. Speaking generally here, I think accumulating a congregation of thousands for the purpose of stroking the clergy's ego more than it serves the Lord. There is no reason why a church should exceed 500 to 1000 people per Sunday. ONce that threshold is met, the church should plant a new one.

As a side note, I have a big problem with the churches that have become so wordly that their narthex looks like a hotel lobby and they have special named rooms and a coffee shoppe and the "visitor's center" and all of that (not to mention all of the broadway show staging effects during the service).

[ConqueredbyLove]

Remember in Paul's pastoral epistles to Tomothy and Titus, one of the requirements for any pastor is to teach, and I have seen very few pastors in my life who teach. Most just spout out the same old watered down one Bible verse per sermon messages, promoting their man made doctrines, over reading the word of God after everything they say. Reading one verse of scripture in Church, and then preaching a message, is not teaching. I am not anti-pastor, I'm pro the word of God being taught in church in the original manuscript languages. This is rarely going on in the Church today.

Almost every church I have attended, the Pastors have been excellent teachers!

You say "this is rarely going on in the Church today", and yet I have found the opposite to be true.

The pastors I have known are extremely hard-working, diligent, love the Lord with all of their hearts and are quite the examples to me.

I will be forever grateful to God for giving me such fine, Godly pastors! What a blessing they have been to me and they have been used by God to set the course of my ministry.

I am saddened you have not found the same.

[ServantofTruth]

I don't hide my struggles with the organised churches locally. But i do recognise, when i am wise, that a lot of the fault is in me. As long as the Word of God is there i would be happy to attend.

So many different externals - i'd love just once to attend a mega church. Most near me in the UK are 100-150 members max. I've been to football statium christian rallys though.

Times have changed - i just wish churches were set up as the bible tells us to do it. However some of the strongest christians i know still want to ignore the bible in this area.


Big SofTy

[ConqueredbyLove]

I don't hide my struggles with the organised churches locally. But i do recognise, when i am wise, that a lot of the fault is in me. As long as the Word of God is there i would be happy to attend.

So many different externals - i'd love just once to attend a mega church. Most near me in the UK are 100-150 members max. I've been to football statium christian rallys though.

Times have changed - i just wish churches were set up as the bible tells us to do it. However some of the strongest christians i know still want to ignore the bible in this area.


Big SofTy

Gone are the days of Spurgeon and Alexander McClaren over there...So sad.

[student of the Lamb]

If you ain't gettin you toes stepped on, you ain't in church. That is unless you are a servant of God and giving freely of yourself, following God's laws and doing as Christ commanded.

Our pastor is well trained in greek and hebrews and majored in the Old Testament. He tells us that our church is first and foremost a New Testament church and that the Bible, particularly the New Testament comes before any religious doctrine. He will not allow any doctrine to affect what God has to say to us. He does not hold back on what God has said. Noone in our church will ever say that he has watered down his messages.

We are also very active at outreach as was commanded of us by Jesus Christ and written in the New Testament five times.

I do think that this does make our attendence suffer as people do not want to hear God's whole truth.

[Ron Brown]

If you ain't gettin you toes stepped on, you ain't in church. That is unless you are a servant of God and giving freely of yourself, following God's laws and doing as Christ commanded.

Our pastor is well trained in greek and hebrews and majored in the Old Testament. He tells us that our church is first and foremost a New Testament church and that the Bible, particularly the New Testament comes before any religious doctrine. He will not allow any doctrine to affect what God has to say to us. He does not hold back on what God has said. No one in our church will ever say that he has watered down his messages.

We are also very active at outreach as was commanded of us by Jesus Christ and written in the New Testament five times.

I do think that this does make our attendence suffer as people do not want to hear God's whole truth.

Your church sounds awesome. I have yet to find a church like this, but I'm sure I will some day.

[Emanate]

"He tells us that our church is first and foremost a New Testament church and that the Bible, particularly the New Testament comes before any religious doctrine."

In the New testament times there was no New Testament.

I would disagree strongly that the NT is more important in relevance that the "OT." And that is why I believe the NT church errs today.