Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to
My Daily Life and Thoughts while in San Diego |
List of Best Posts
This blog is where I express myself to the world or at least to those who might stop by to read what I post 
. Maybe God will use what I post (I am a Christian and this blog will have a most decidedly Christian bent to it) to good effect in the lives of my readers.
I may turn some of my posts into a book. I may cease blogging here altogether. Who knows. But for now..I am content to post away in this, my own little corner of the world.
Rather than reading through my now lengthy list of posts you may wish to read what I consider to be my very best posts or you can just read the posts that deal with a single subject category that might interest you.
Please know that I am open to any input on any topic I write about. If you have something to say about anything you see written here please....feel free to speak up in the form of leaving a comment or sending me a PM (private message).
And if you are in San Diego and wish to meet the one and only Carlos (that's me)...drop me a private message. I always enjoy meeting one of my readers!
Thanks.
Carlos
PS. If you want to follow my blog such that you will get an email when I write new posts you can subscribe to my blog.
. Maybe God will use what I post (I am a Christian and this blog will have a most decidedly Christian bent to it) to good effect in the lives of my readers. I may turn some of my posts into a book. I may cease blogging here altogether. Who knows. But for now..I am content to post away in this, my own little corner of the world.
Rather than reading through my now lengthy list of posts you may wish to read what I consider to be my very best posts or you can just read the posts that deal with a single subject category that might interest you.
Please know that I am open to any input on any topic I write about. If you have something to say about anything you see written here please....feel free to speak up in the form of leaving a comment or sending me a PM (private message).
And if you are in San Diego and wish to meet the one and only Carlos (that's me
)...drop me a private message. I always enjoy meeting one of my readers!Thanks.
Carlos
PS. If you want to follow my blog such that you will get an email when I write new posts you can subscribe to my blog.
A new type of Church is needed!
Posted 07-06-2009 at 09:21 PM by carlos123
At the risk of seeming to be an absolute Jesus freak or worse to those of you, my readers, who may not be Christians I would like to address this post squarely to those of you who may love the Lord and desire to see the church become all that He wishes it to be.
I went to a Church on Sunday at the insistence of a good Christian friend of mine despite my reluctance to sit in a pew once more while watching someone else practice their spiritual gift in the front while I could do little more than sit and listen.
During the sermon my friend raised his hand to ask a question. A most unorthodox thing to do during a sermon mind you but one which was not at all out of line with the subject I am addressing here. The pastor kindly told my friend to save his question till later and went on with his sermon.
After the church service the pastor came up to my friend to ask him what his question was about which also gave me a chance to ask him a question or two of my own.
Essentially, though in words less immediately confrontative, I asked the pastor why it was that we had to come and listen to him teaching Sunday after Sunday while not being able to exercise our own spiritual gifts and why it was that no church I had ever been to had allowed the kind of meeting that is described in 1 Cor 14 where each one brings something to the meeting? Where the Holy Spirit actually has a chance to lead?
His answer?
He was gifted to do what he did and they preferred to get to know someone before opening up a service in line with what 1 Cor 14 described.
The pastor acknowledged that he himself did not know of any service formatted around the example set in 1 Cor 14.
Not wanting to pursue the matter with him I left it at that.
What would have been the outcome of my pursuing this further with him if not to end up in conflict between his idea of how church should be and what the bible says it should be.
The truth is that most pastors say about the same thing. That for one seemingly good sounding reason after another...the pattern of meeting as set out in 1 Cor 14 is just not workable in practice today...or at least they say it's not.
What if this particular pastor had come to know me very well and had come to realize that I love the Lord and am not prone to exaggerations and extremes of Christian conduct? Would he have then allowed me to interrupt his sermons to share a prophecy? Or perhaps to give an encouragement coming to me while he himself was sharing a prophecy? No, he would not have.
Such a thing is just not allowed to happen in today's church practice. No matter how much they may get to know someone.
While I did not pursue the matter with him it is likely that what he had in mind when he said that they like to get to know someone more is that in time he would have felt more comfortable with my participating in the church service than I was presently allowed to do. That I might have been allowed to give the announcements, perhaps lead a song, even share a biblical thought at an appropriate moment in the service, in time.
But is that what 1 Cor 14 says?
No it isn't!
We need to humble ourselves before the Lord and get back to allowing Him to lead our assemblies through His Holy Spirit. As He did in New Testament times! Plain and simple.
We need to let go of church traditions that are choking the life of God from fully manifesting itself in our assemblies.
Let's look at a 1 Cor 14...
I realize that some Christians do not believe that the gifts of the Spirit such as prophecy and tongues are for today and that they have ceased but rather than getting into a discussion of whether that is indeed the case or not let's look at the kind of meeting that Paul described in 1 Cor 14 to see if the reasons given today against such a meeting are valid for preventing it's re-occurrence.
In 1 Cor 14:1 Paul very clearly encourages the Corinthians to not only pursue love but also to earnestly desire spiritual gifts. Especially that of prophesying.
The prophecy Paul was speaking of was that gift which allowed a person to speak in the place of God to bring edification, exhortation, and consolation to those assembled (1 Cor 14:3-4).
Paul also speaks of tongues and makes the point that prophecy is superior to tongues to bring edification to the church unless there was an interpreter present in which case it was equal to prophecy in it's capacity to edify, exhort, and console the church.
It is very clear that Paul was not speaking of one person doing the prophesying or speaking in tongues. He describes a meeting where two or three prophets would speak and two or three tongues speakers would speak subject only to an interpreter being present.
Essentially a meeting where all would have a chance to follow the promptings of the Spirit to use their particular gifts to edify the church.
Why is it that such a framework for a meeting where the Holy Spirit actually leads through the respective gifts present in the Body has ceased to be?
Is He not present among His people today as He was then? Does the Body have less gifts of the Spirit than it did then?
I daresay that the gifts of the Spirit are still around and that God is the same God today as He was in the Body during New Testament times.
The problem is that we, the Body, have elevated a tradition of having one person get up and exercise his gift every Sunday to the point where that is all the church we know. Most of us do not know any different and we go along with this tradition as though that is all that can ever be expected of a church meeting as a basic framework of how church should be.
A new type of church (perhaps more correctly the old type of church) is needed today if the church is ever to be what God intended for it to be. The way we do church needs to change to that which it was in the New Testament.
Where every Christian was free to exercise their spiritual gift at the prompting of the Holy Spirit within them for the edification of the whole.
I am not saying that church meetings become a free for all and that there is no place for one person to get up and give a needful and instructive teaching but if such a pattern of church has crowded out anything else and become the only pattern we follow there is something wrong. Somehow the pastoral teaching gift has been made to reign supreme over all the others. Somehow our churches have ceased to be a place where the Holy Spirit actually leads through the various gifts in the Body like a skilled conductor leading the members of the band to play a beautiful symphany and more like a place where we all go to sit and listen to one person telling us what God thinks over and over again, Sunday after Sunday.
I have yet to hear of one valid and biblically sound reason why the form of church meeting described in 1 Cor 14 should not be allowed today.
Does anyone know of any such reason? Why do churches today not allow this?
Carlos
I went to a Church on Sunday at the insistence of a good Christian friend of mine despite my reluctance to sit in a pew once more while watching someone else practice their spiritual gift in the front while I could do little more than sit and listen.
During the sermon my friend raised his hand to ask a question. A most unorthodox thing to do during a sermon mind you but one which was not at all out of line with the subject I am addressing here. The pastor kindly told my friend to save his question till later and went on with his sermon.
After the church service the pastor came up to my friend to ask him what his question was about which also gave me a chance to ask him a question or two of my own.
Essentially, though in words less immediately confrontative, I asked the pastor why it was that we had to come and listen to him teaching Sunday after Sunday while not being able to exercise our own spiritual gifts and why it was that no church I had ever been to had allowed the kind of meeting that is described in 1 Cor 14 where each one brings something to the meeting? Where the Holy Spirit actually has a chance to lead?
His answer?
He was gifted to do what he did and they preferred to get to know someone before opening up a service in line with what 1 Cor 14 described.
The pastor acknowledged that he himself did not know of any service formatted around the example set in 1 Cor 14.
Not wanting to pursue the matter with him I left it at that.
What would have been the outcome of my pursuing this further with him if not to end up in conflict between his idea of how church should be and what the bible says it should be.
The truth is that most pastors say about the same thing. That for one seemingly good sounding reason after another...the pattern of meeting as set out in 1 Cor 14 is just not workable in practice today...or at least they say it's not.
What if this particular pastor had come to know me very well and had come to realize that I love the Lord and am not prone to exaggerations and extremes of Christian conduct? Would he have then allowed me to interrupt his sermons to share a prophecy? Or perhaps to give an encouragement coming to me while he himself was sharing a prophecy? No, he would not have.
Such a thing is just not allowed to happen in today's church practice. No matter how much they may get to know someone.
While I did not pursue the matter with him it is likely that what he had in mind when he said that they like to get to know someone more is that in time he would have felt more comfortable with my participating in the church service than I was presently allowed to do. That I might have been allowed to give the announcements, perhaps lead a song, even share a biblical thought at an appropriate moment in the service, in time.
But is that what 1 Cor 14 says?
No it isn't!
We need to humble ourselves before the Lord and get back to allowing Him to lead our assemblies through His Holy Spirit. As He did in New Testament times! Plain and simple.
We need to let go of church traditions that are choking the life of God from fully manifesting itself in our assemblies.
Let's look at a 1 Cor 14...
I realize that some Christians do not believe that the gifts of the Spirit such as prophecy and tongues are for today and that they have ceased but rather than getting into a discussion of whether that is indeed the case or not let's look at the kind of meeting that Paul described in 1 Cor 14 to see if the reasons given today against such a meeting are valid for preventing it's re-occurrence.
In 1 Cor 14:1 Paul very clearly encourages the Corinthians to not only pursue love but also to earnestly desire spiritual gifts. Especially that of prophesying.
The prophecy Paul was speaking of was that gift which allowed a person to speak in the place of God to bring edification, exhortation, and consolation to those assembled (1 Cor 14:3-4).
Paul also speaks of tongues and makes the point that prophecy is superior to tongues to bring edification to the church unless there was an interpreter present in which case it was equal to prophecy in it's capacity to edify, exhort, and console the church.
It is very clear that Paul was not speaking of one person doing the prophesying or speaking in tongues. He describes a meeting where two or three prophets would speak and two or three tongues speakers would speak subject only to an interpreter being present.
Essentially a meeting where all would have a chance to follow the promptings of the Spirit to use their particular gifts to edify the church.
Quote:
1 Cor 14:26
What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.
What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.
Is He not present among His people today as He was then? Does the Body have less gifts of the Spirit than it did then?
I daresay that the gifts of the Spirit are still around and that God is the same God today as He was in the Body during New Testament times.
The problem is that we, the Body, have elevated a tradition of having one person get up and exercise his gift every Sunday to the point where that is all the church we know. Most of us do not know any different and we go along with this tradition as though that is all that can ever be expected of a church meeting as a basic framework of how church should be.
A new type of church (perhaps more correctly the old type of church) is needed today if the church is ever to be what God intended for it to be. The way we do church needs to change to that which it was in the New Testament.
Where every Christian was free to exercise their spiritual gift at the prompting of the Holy Spirit within them for the edification of the whole.
I am not saying that church meetings become a free for all and that there is no place for one person to get up and give a needful and instructive teaching but if such a pattern of church has crowded out anything else and become the only pattern we follow there is something wrong. Somehow the pastoral teaching gift has been made to reign supreme over all the others. Somehow our churches have ceased to be a place where the Holy Spirit actually leads through the various gifts in the Body like a skilled conductor leading the members of the band to play a beautiful symphany and more like a place where we all go to sit and listen to one person telling us what God thinks over and over again, Sunday after Sunday.
I have yet to hear of one valid and biblically sound reason why the form of church meeting described in 1 Cor 14 should not be allowed today.
Does anyone know of any such reason? Why do churches today not allow this?
Carlos
Total Comments 4
Comments
-
Actually - isn't that pretty much the goal of the Assembly of God?
I too am more of a free lance faith person. I don't like church services as I feel out of place. I often disagree with what they say and two way communcations of differing opinions are rarely welcome. I respect others' faith and am open to new ideas, but I rarely feel it works both ways.Posted 07-15-2009 at 11:42 AM by MissNM
-
Yeah...I've heard that the Assemblies of God are more like this than other churches. I haven't been to one of their Assemblies here so it's tough to say if they truly are that way.
The problem is more broad than just what I mentioned in my post though. It's not just that the modern form of Church meeting stifles the relatively free expression of the Holy Spirit's gifts...it's that the whole Church structure and form that we have come to have in modern times is very much unbiblical in it's traditions and customs.
The way pastors are appointed, the role of women in the Churches, a lack of Church discipline, the tendency of Church members to not be involved in each other's lives, continuing denominationalism...on and on it goes. The whole form of Church is off base.
In my opinion and experience...trying to bring about change from within it is all but hopeless. It doesn't work or so rarely so that it might as well be hopeless with respect to affecting the Church as a whole. I have become convinced that the only way to bring about effective change is to start something new.
New wine doesn't fit into old wineskins type of thing.
The problem is trying to find other Christians who want everything the New Testament talks about and who are willing to do something about it themselves. Without waiting for others to do something first or without relying on pastors or other "professionals" to bring about change. Finding such Christians is rarer than finding gold on the ground!
CarlosPosted 07-15-2009 at 12:42 PM by carlos123
-
I totally agree with your assessments.
There needs to be a church where Spiritual Gifts are manifested throughout the body of believers. Most churches are too worried that falsehoods will arise, and not having the desire nor strength to deal with them, they want to make sure you are totally brainwashed into their theology and doctrines.
Are you feeling called to start a church Carlos?Posted 07-19-2009 at 12:38 PM by HotinAZ
-
I don't know how I missed your comment HotinAZ. Sorry about that. The problem I sometimes approve comments without paying attention to what post they are attached to such that after they are approved they...well...disappear among the hundred posts I have so far.
Anyway I don't particularly feel "called" to start a church. The need is there though. And whether called or not...as a Christian I have a duty to do what seems best to do by God for His greater honor and glory.
So if starting a new church is the only way to free the believers to be all they can be in the Body...start a new church I will.
However...I have found a home group recently where the leadership is willing to allow believers a greater degree of freedom than I have ever seen allowed. Very much in line with I spoke about. I am getting more involved in this home group rather than starting something new myself.
We'll see how it goes but so far it's been fantastic!
CarlosPosted 08-20-2009 at 02:00 AM by carlos123
