Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I just could not believe how they couldn't help him get a pair of shoes to wear. Since that experience I have visited churches where there was nothing about helping others. Our works do not save you, it is through Salvation through Jesus Christ. What I am talking about is, we have a responsibility to do something as Christians to help our local communities... we will never show Christ to others if we don't even get out and do things... and he not just what we do, I am talking about how we present ourselves... The Fruits of Spirit seem almost lost in many congregations. That can be found in Galations 5:22-26. Jesus did more than pray for others, he helped others and that is what he wants us to do.
I can still remember the sting of asking the youth pastor at the church we attended for 2 years for a recommendation for my children to attend a private school that required it. He told he wouldn't help my children because he had only been there for 4 months. I tried to find someone to help us but no one cared enough to do so... it was always, I don't know you... We were there but we weren't important, my children weren't the pastors kids or staff's. One old core family had a child who would yell at my daughter and accuse her of trying to shake the choir risers when my daughter was trying not to fall off of them... it was all strange... big advertisements on their internet page of how they will have a acts ministry, nothing in the 2 years... asked if there was a way I could make meals for others.. No , I was told there is nothing like that but when the pastors wife became ill, they went in droves with love fixing meals for them... they needed the help but for others who are regular people , NO.. when we needed help the most they made us out to be strange for asking.
We don't go to a church like that now. It is all about getting out and helping others.
One more story, my husbands grandmother is recluse in Pompano Beach. I called a church denomination that is known for having a Stephens Ministry, where they get out and visit those who are home bound.. I called a church not far from them.
The answer I got was NO, we won't go over and help her. They didn't do anything like that... She had no way of getting out too and asked if they would help her get to church.. no they wouldn't but they would pray for her... same with the no recommendation, they said they wouldn't help in that area but would be happy to pray for us.
Here is a video I love and it really explains my feelings.
Has this been building up, or did you really not realize most churches are not about living what Jesus taught?
They are businesses, the pastors are many times Developers and General Contractors that want to build bigger buildings in the race to have more members than the next demonation.
I hear alot about what everyone else isn't doing, while they drape themselves in the churchianity governmentallity.
The message of Christ was to sell all that you have. Give to the poor, and then follow Him.
Few can do that. Especially in America and the Western mammonized countries.
There is nothing more dissatifiying to me than a church that can preach and preach about what to do with your self. How to make your relationship stronger with God by having a objective and then listing down on a syllabus what you will explore on how to become a whole person and how to have the money you need and you dreamed to the end. I am so tired of the self concept these days and feel a movement in my bones about HOW the only way to change is to get back to what God intended for us to do... to see things they way God sees them and to be as God wants us to be... to be a doer of the Word, to spread the GOOD NEWS that JESUS is the son of God and he DIED for us and that we have through all the trials and tribulations here we experience on a daily basis that there is HOPE , that we have a ETERNAL HOME with HIM that is not of this earth and an eternity with him...
We are the church and we carry those words within ourselfs and lets sound it out to others!
There are so many people who are hurt and torn and the church body should be a place that provides a place for people to become healed no matter what the situation with no judgement passed.... If we can not even reach out to the hurting and the lost with whom you sit on a pew with, you are doing nothing. It is annoying in my bones that there are church bodies like this, who don't even bat an eye about not helping others... Tender mercy, compassion and grace are the very core of who JESUS is.
The church is supposed to be a beacon of light shining in a community to carry the message but it gets all messed up... Congregations thinks that as long as they write a check, that they have done their duty... there are congregations who feel as long as they DO church on Wednesdays and Fridays with the trappings of what they have traditionally have had and provided the workers to do but HAVE NOTHING ELSE... what are we doing?
If you can't provide meals to people in your church family because there isn't one but can for core people in the church... if you can't call someone to say, " Hey I wanna help you out" If you can't show joy and love one to another but just feel that the church you attend has an exclusive core group and no room for anyone else, that being inclusive too having the pastor preach on who he thinks is the local weirdo and how it was wrong of them to do this or that, but that it is ok as long as you don't mention their name... what are we really teaching then? What are we being? We aren't being as Christ would call us to be. We aren't showing HIM to others.
I am frankly tired of people talking the talk and never ever doing nothing other than fill seats to get money and treating a body of church believers who walk in and fill the seats as just a body and asking them to give of them their money in order to meet a huge goal in the church..
If we can't be doer's of God's word and just say I will pray for you, those are empty words... You need to reaccess your life and think hard about what you are doing...where you are going.
W live in a self society, we need to learn to not be, this is not the nature of Jesus Christ... A outline that is seen on a screen isn't going to give you the cure and how to heal up... Jesus does and we as people are his hands and feet . We are to show who he is and if you won't, you are missing a great opportunity..
I leave this with you.. I use to go to church where a little boy went who did not have a pair of shoes he owned. This little 5 year old would wear his sisters pink flip flops and on cold days he still wore them along with his too small sweat shirt and pants that had holes in it and was pilled up... I looked around and could not understand why NO ONE WAS HELPING HIM... this was a small church... they had done a project every Christmas where they made stocking filled with toys and candies for all the kids who came to church.. I was hoping they were going to do something for this little boy. Since he was not in school, he was often overlooked.
... I cried so hard and had enough of it.... The pastor and his wife were sweet and I never though questioned them why they had not done something to help this precious child. If you took one look at this child, you would want to just pick him up and love on him. I was told often when the church van had come to get his sisters when he was younger, he could not go because he was too young... and he would run after the van, wanting to come to church. This child never once frowned, he was all smiles and just a beautiful thing...with a cotton top and the bluest little eyes and here he was, with no shoes of his own...
I still don't understand why no one helped him there and can't analyze what they were doing wrong,I do know they could have done more.
I did though go out and buy him some clothes.
I went to Target and bought him shirts, pants, underwear, socks, a jacket and shoes. When we left that church to move to another state, I asked them to think of him and his sisters. I was worried and still worry... If I had stayed there, I would have opened up a clothes closet ministry. There was a huge need...
We need to stand in the gap for Jesus. If someone ask for a couple of bucks for gas, do it. If someone ask for your help in some way, do it... We live in times where people are hurting... hey even if they don't ask and you see a need, do it... We need to act locally, we need to show Jesus to others...you aren't being a good stewart if you just think writing a check out to give to charity through a denomination is enough... God expects more.
There's way too much of this going on, but the more I see it , the more IITimothy comes alive
"And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25 KJV)
One of the very real reasons why "churches" disobey, "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only," is because they have another law in effect. They demand those that attend their gatherings, "Be ye hearers of the word only." Just try to do anything in their meetings, like the commanded, "exorting one another" and you'll find out soon enough what else the ushers are there for!
You were potentially a deliverer in their midst. If only they could be freed from their unbiblical clergy/laity mentality! The phrase, "Go to church" is nowhere in the Bible. It is something we are. When Scripture says, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together," it is about ourselves assembling, putting together the pieces that we are with one another. In Greek what we are not to forsake is the episungogos of ourselves. That is, we are 'not to forsake 'staying on top of (epi) the altogether (sun) leading (gogos)' of ourselves!" Exhorting one another is "calling one another to come close to God and each other." This has all been replaced with other mediators in defiance of the 1st commandment and all the one-anothering of Loving one another as yourself is not allowed. We're just audiences for professional preachers.
What "lordship" is to the individual believer, the "headship" of Christ is to the gatherings of the believers. I went to church, but the Church wasn't on the program!We must meet without human headship, preventing whoever would take over our meetings from doing so in order to honor the presence ot Jesus as head of His body. I don't care how knowledgable or gifted the man on stage is, he's not the body of Christ, and JESUS WANTS HIS BODY BACK!!! Being the many membered body of Christ when they meet seemingly never occurs to them. The reason the Church has so little impact on the world is because the Church has no impact on the Church!
Alas, God spoke that in end times, churches would be without Him. We are witnessing this before our very eyes in today's times.
How it saddens me to realize that many believe more in the denomination than they do in Christ! And the really sad part is that they don't even realize it!
I pray that we can rally once again and reclaim Christ and find the love for our fellow brethren. Yet I know that in reality this will not happen.
I just keep my eyes heavenward and be ever watchful, not daring to allow my light to go without oil.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
