So our Sabbath rest is also in Him. The goal is to worship the Lord. But, always remember to honor him in joyfulness. Do not think of your day of worship as a duty or something you must do. Let this be a day that you try and relax and let go of worldly things.
On the holiest of days, take the time to surround yourself with His creations. It is a covenant based on the fulfillment of those commands in the person of Jesus Christ. So the new covenant is the law of liberty that brings blessings as we learn to walk by faith. Or proper response now is to enter into that rest by placing our faith and belief in the Lord of the Sabbath who fulfilled the Law on the cross.
Is your Faith Founded on Fact? Have you committed to follow Jesus? What does the Bible say about husband and wife in marriage? God instituted marriage in the Bible. It was never man's idea. After he created Adam, There are a lot of opinions about eating meat. There are plenty of different people with their own ideas.
But what does the Bible tell us? Or even more-to-the-point: What does God say about Skip to content. But most Christians go to church on Sunday instead of Saturday. Why the disagreement? And how do we resolve it? Another persistent question is what day God rested. The Sabbath law was never the way to salvation.
After all, he is the creator of all things. Well, the Apostles indeed attended the synagogues on Saturday. They worshipped on Sunday, as most Christians do today. Do Not Judge The first thing to remember is that it is ungodly for anyone to judge someone based on the day they engage in worship. We are judged by your hearts, not the days of our worship.
If your worship takes place on the Saturday , so be it. Jesus is our Sabbath now. Worship In Joy Remember that whatever day you choose to worship does not matter. Plus we share the services on demand , so I could watch or listen any time during the week via our website or catch the message for free via podcast. You can access almost any church you want, anywhere, anytime. You drive all the way in to connect with three or four songs, hear the message and then head home.
All of that you could almost do by yourself in a much more convenient way. Think about it. Generations ago, the church was a social and cultural hub as well as a missional hub. In addition to faith reasons, people loved going to church because it was one of a handful of options available in a community as well as the main way other than personal devotions you connect with God. And before you think that you can do whatever you need to do as a Christian in the world without other Christians or without the church, here are a couple of reasons I would disagree.
I outline that and much more here. Second, listen to what this young mom had to say about her experience when she started skipping church because of the demands of parenting. You are the church. Remember that. I love being part of a church that is constantly designing experiences with those who are not yet in the room in mind.
Nor can you build it on consumers. The future will be built on Christians who want to serve, share and engage the mission of the local church. Too many leaders spend their time trying to please people who complain much and contribute little.
Second, focus on engaging people in the mission of the church. Nothing is more exciting. Nothing will change the world more powerfully than the love of Christ shared with a world that so desperately needs it. Here are 5 reasons engagement is the new church attendance. And if you want to raise engagement, here are 7 ways to get people more engaged in the mission of your church , so they make the move from merely attending church to being the church.
Third, make sure your church is optimally positioned to accomplish its mission: reaching unchurched people with the love and hope of Christ. That means everything you do needs to work in a way unchurched people can access. We even have that saying mounted on a giant logo on the wall. One good way to check whether your church is ready to reach the unchurched is to see if teenagers love your church services.
Not your alternative service. Your main-open-the-doors-wide service. Not sure if your church is truly positioned to reach unchurched people? These 9 signs will tell you. Please hear me, we need more churches. We need more, healthy churches. And we need churches that are doing a fantastic job at reaching people. Interesting article. As a non-believer, I am concerned with the effort to reach the unchurched.
Is the author referring to proselytizing? Most churches are fake or very weak. Most so called Protestants are really just neo-Catholics. They are pagan polytheists, sabbath breakers, sexists. According to John they have not been born again, they cannot see the Kingdom of God, they think it is in the future Premills. They support satanists Israel. When God makes a Christian, they leave the fake church. Most of the fake churches are mostly fire insurance man made Christians, John The only reason to go to church is to listen to a sermon or have fellowship with other believers.
I can hear much better sermons online and never met a person much less a group who is interested in a daily walk with God. I hear a lot of sermons on the internet or TV and have a daily walk with God.
I have one good friend who also has a daily walk with God and we share our walks and what God is doing in our lives and our reliance on the Holy Spirit.
Never happened. Really love your reply. I became a Christian as a young adult, and rarely if ever heard messages about the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is God living with us as our counselor and guide, He seems like a pretty important person to learn about and to get to know. According to the Bible I read, where 2 or more are gathered is sufficient enough for fellowship.
Fellowship is supposed to be where everyone is a participant, not where just one person talks and everyone else has to have permission to participate. In the early church, people just participated in like manner that non believers gather to a cocktail party. Churches today are tightly structured.
What you and your friend are doing is more like the early baby church. How many churches have you visited? How many have you committed to for a few months? How hard did you try to find true believers at those churches? Also there are other things that God wants going on in your life, such as serving people, encouraging others in their faith.
There is a lot of spiritual power in true corporate worship, however I have not seen it in decades. The venue matters. True meetings in scripture were always done in the home where everyone participated freely and only Christ was Rabbi. Where everything is shared and for free.
Each of us has a small amount of discretionary time after sleeping, eating, laundry, working a job, paying bills, maintaining cars, homes, etc.
And this does not even get into the topic of what is the ministry that God has called me personally into. Traditionally the church has been the best place to be to maximize these various things happening in our limited discretionary time. For the small amount of churches I found adequate to attend in the past — they were only 1 or 2 dimensional leaving me with a lot of other stuff in my life undone with limited discretionary time.
He surely has a plan for everyone! Howdy Diana! The problem is that my most pressing need has always been for community — and I have never found it in a mega-church. Their answer to that is to find a small group tp participate in; but I have found that there are MANY ways to screw up small groups and leave them pointless or inadequate. Everything was good at first for the first year and a half but, then things started to go downhill when the co pastors wife wanted to change peoples minds and opinions about voting.
She wanted us to obligately vote for whom she wanted us to. Then when I told her and proved to her that my views and opinions about politics differ very much she started learning and backing off on preaching about politics so much in her sermons.
Then since there were only 4 youths in the church which were her two and my two. I had suggested for them to start up a youth ministry then the pastor wife said no to that to. Mind you, they started out as youth pastors about 10 years ago in South America and they ministered to over youths.
They are constantly bragging about that then why not start one where they are at now? There are perfectly capable people to help bring it alive. So the pastors daughter goes to a different church because their are more youths and she has voiced her feelings about it.
She says that of course she loves her parents and her parents church but, she would rather be at the other church. They have no nursery and no baby changing table. I wanted to know what she meant by that but no response. Btw, I just had a baby and by that time the baby was about 5 months. Because there are going to be distractions. And like I gad mentioned , there is no nursery or no baby changing table.
I literally had to change my babies diaper on the floor many times. Also, what concerned me is that the church only consists of about 15 people when it was including us now it just became smaller. Then before we had left another lady at the church asked for prayer for her hands because of arthritis and prayer for her husband and when she went to the front and brother walked up behind her and began to pray so I felt it in my heart to pray for her as well so I walked up to her and began to pray in a low pitched voice.
I felt like that was so wrong and disrespectful that I decided that was the last straw and I said enough is enough and I left. Then a few days later coincidentally I got a Facebook message from a church organization from the county asking my opinion why people are leaving the churches so I put in my opinion on that. The question was not just to me it was to many people. The co pastor saw my post and showed it to the pastor and called it a bashing towards the church.
When the visiting preacher was there Che said he was going to pray for me because according to him I was possessed because I was crying of joy and happiness. I saw the preacher give a word to my son and praying for him and that was something I was praying about for my kids and I felt like the lord was answering my prayer and that was why I was crying.
I said no I refuse to accept that and I rebuked what he thought about me and I proved him wrong. Apparently I had to give in and make the guy feel good about himself and respect my pastors and lower my standards for their church to look good and stand out.
That was just the end of my attending that church. I totally and completely pray for them but they need to understand why their church is not filled. My son had come to the pastors wife and voiced ideas to try and bring more youth but that idea was shot down as well.
Point blank, that church is run by means of control and not guidance. There is a huge difference between pastoring and control. So spiritually immature teenagers mostly are the judge and gauge of how and what should be taught in a worship service? God does not adapt to culture, rather culture should adapt to God and His Word.
The primary reason why I stopped attending church is this: every church has their own interpretations of scripture and makes those interpretations equal to doctrine wittingly or unwittingly and then forces people to believe it.
WHATEVER happened to sola scriptura where the scripture itself is the boss and interpretations are treated as interpretations and not equal to doctrine itself.
There is too much opinion made into doctrine and not enough just the doctrine. Another reason: Many people in church believe that since you go to our church, that means I own you. They believe they can tell you what to believe, what books to read, what books not to read, what meetings you will go to and if we want to, we can drop in on you at your house anytime we want whether you have anything going on or not.
Church is the House Of God! This has been this way for years. Thank You. I do a lot of reading. I do not disrespect the church. You are correct on this point. I just like more Scripture in church and less man doctrine. If I do decide to go back to church and I happen to be sitting next to you, will I be safe?
You are correct Mike. Staying out of church is not the answer. I love your enthusiasm. Love Mike. I think that Protestantism really needs to get back to the basic 5 solas and stop adding, adding, adding more and more and more STUFF.
Your response leaves me asking a few questions. Assume that each of the following is an open ended question. If you start with number 1 then you nullify the whole concept; if our authority is that our spiritual authority comes from scripture alone then it does not come from the 5 solas.
This is what the author of Hebrews was writing about when he told us to assemble together. You do bring up some very good points Daniold. I do agree with you in regard to Hebrews I really should come out of isolation.
It can be said like this. Without Christ there is no scripture. Without scripture there is no knowledge of Christ etc… The 5 solas is a basic summary. To me, Romans makes clear that Salvation is free. Next thing is my opinion. There are 2 forms of faith. One form is salvation faith. The faith we act on in receiving the free gift of salvation. The other form is the Christian walk faith after salvation.
The Christian walk faith is where the work comes in. I do agree with you that many may have differences of opinion on the 5 solas however, the 5 solas would be an excellent foundation for putting an end to much Protestant quagmire. Thank you for spending time with me Daniold. Sincerely, Mike. Not trying to be too wordy. Just wanted to say one more thing about the 5 and why I think we the Protestant churches need to get back to it. They are already well known of by many for centuries.
Why do Christians talk so much? So many lost people not actually happy. I had to scroll forever to get to the bottom from all the Christian diarrhea. Yes different church have different interpretations on what is or is not acceptable activity.
The lines are drawn to protect not make us unhappy. Our good works are to be a result of salvation, not the means of salvation. You Are The Unhappy One. You Do Not Know Everybody! So Sad. Take Christmas Pay or the Day Off? I Am A Real American. Ease up Michael. Put the sword back in your sheath Peter. Love the other Mike. The worship day was and will always be on the 7th day from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. The days we use on our calendar are not mentioned in the Bible.
It is the Roman Catholic system that satan has used in seducing people to think that sunday is now the new day of worship, but that is a very big mistake that will lead many to eternal death. The Law of God is unchanging and it was given to man, to mankind, to humanity from the beginning. That is why God gave Adam and Eve the law verbally for reading and writing did not exists yet, but eventually God gave the written word to believers, but this Law was not only for the Hebrew for it was given to Adam and Eve in a perfect world and after the fall because of sin and the condition that human had deteriorated to the point that they were more and more disobeying God and so call saw the need to deliver the believers out of bondage and to re establish the law to the people who had forgotten, especially the Sabbath law that points to who God is and also make sure to write the word Remember so that this and the next generations would not forget or forsake this Holy Law, but they still forgot and forsook it because they went after strange gods.
This continued till Jesus came. Never once did Jesus or the disciples declare any changes in the Sabbath Law. Some quote bible passages to make a point, but fail to understand what they are quoting. An example of this is found in Colossians , but fail to realize that the sabbaths mentioned in that verse refers to the sabbaths of the ceremonial laws that were part of the sacrificial system that pointed to Jesus as the Savior, but the Sabbath of the 10 Commandments points to Jesus as God and Creator of Heaven and Earth and everything else that is good, for God did not create satan or demons or sin.
The Catholic system admits themselves that you can search the scripture from Genesis to Revelation and not once is the worship of sunday sacredness mentioned or made especially not in the New Testament.
God Himself would make it very clear in any changes if He would have deemed something needed to be changed, but God being perfect and whatever comes out of the mouth of God is perfect and God wrote a perfect Law for all to keep. This is such an easy topic yet satan as deceived the world to believe something else. It is the transgression of the Law of God that got us all in trouble in the first place.
God is calling a people to repent and be cleansed from transgression so that they may be ready for His second coming which is very soon. Prophecy is almost all fulfilled and the three angels messages are being preached.
Google the Three Angels Messages and understand what is at stake. In John the disciples realize that Jesus does not need their affirmation. Look at politics and poll numbers, look at speeches that glorify accomplishments and look at pastors that measure their mark by how many books they sell.
Like you said Giles … the Catholic Church and many others have created a system of codependency. Just as when my daughter asked me, Why do you love me?
It is measured by our obedience John To our Lord and creator. People are not attending church Buildings as much because their God is setting them free by enabling them to see the truth found in 1 John … that He is our teacher and we do not need another.
We corporately are just lazy and would rather have a sugar coated sermon than read it for ourselves. We corporately are just stupid and would rather be lied to by the media networks. I am a born-again Christian. I have pastored a couple of small churches.
I have a degree in Biblical Studies from a well-known Bible college. I love the corporate worship very well and the corporate anointing. I am a balanced mature believer and love being around people. However I havent found a church that I fit in or am fully accepted in. At this point in life I go to fellowship and serve. But I dont get to do that.
No one at any church I go to wants to be around me outside of the Sunday service or be my friend. I have tried for years at many churches and it just doesnt happen. I have also tried to serve at churches for years. They sometimes say they know I have a calling and they plan to have me serve in some way in some kind of ministry bu they just keep dragging it out and making excuses as to why they wont let me yet.
They lie to me and give me the run around all the time. I would be happy just handing out the bulletin but they wont even let me do that.
Churches just will not let me serve in any way. So being that I cant serve or make friends with anyone I dont have a reason to go to church. And I think a lot of other people are in the same boat. Most churches are just social cliques and an elite club. If they dont like you enough they wont let you be part of their elite circle and they dont fully accept you.
And then there is all the crazy stuff coming from church leaders. Stuff that is just nonesense. It is no wonder people dont go to church anymore. All most churches want is someone to sit there, shut up, give tithes and worship the church leadership. They dont make people feel included or part of anything bigger.
Total waste of timing going. I can say unequivocally our church has never treated people like that though. I have been a member of my current church for 3 years. Outside of church not a single soul has called me with the exception of the pastors wife.
They just left the church in July this year to do another ministry. Not one. My question today is:. Where is the church?
Forget about the concerts and events. Forget about the socializing and cliques and clubs. Where is the church for those who are unable to attend? A member 3 years in a church, people have my number, and not a single soul has called me. Mary poured oil on Jesus feet. She did what she could. Not a group effort but alone, aware and lead by the Holy Spirit. Go and do likewise. Have you reached out to others? God has put you in a unique position of having the time to reach out.
I do agree that we as a church are not reaching out as much as we can but we all have to take a look at ourselves and ask God what He wants us to do. Maybe God would have you reach out to a mother of little kids who works full time and has a husband who gives her little support in all areas of her life.
Maybe God would have you reach out to another shut in by phone or mail. Until we realize that we as the church are all here to serve, not to be served, Gods ultimate mission will not be in full motion.
We need to stop looking at our own needs and look to what we can do for others. It truly is better to give than receive and that is not just monitarily that is in every area of life.
My church did not reach out to me when my husband died but a few close friends were there. When my daughter died at 8 years old, people from my small group reached out to me but after a couple months everyone has to get back to there own responsibilities.
But I reach out to others now in their grief and loss. God has a place and purpose for each of us. We need to turn to Him and have Him help us figure it out and we need to realize that everyone here is human and we all make mistakes and drop the ball. We all need to really look in the mirror a lot more in the light of Gods promises.
He will never leave us or forsake us. Do we really need to go to Church? No and yes.. One day, Corporate Attendance will be outlawed.
Furthermore, we really need to edify and be edified. Nothing will ever replace that need to serve, Faith only grows from our serving others, and God hears the prayers of His faithful. Our Need to be together with others just like Cells of The body, as Free Radicals can be very damaging to the body so can free radicals can be damaging to The Body of Christ.
We are totally dependent in our spiritual health to be able to worship in unity as The Heart so beats, so should we. As liberals attempt to erase American history their bigger picture goal is to erase the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Go and make … not go and build were the instructions. Paul was a free evangelical radical. There are so may differing opinions in the body of Christ that the only folks that this 60 year old Christian has energy to be United with is my believing immediate family and the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Apostle prophet pastor teacher evangelist are gifts given to the church by the Lord according to Ephesians 4. They are for the purpose of bringing the body of Christ to full maturity. So yes we need them. We forget that every person in the body of Christ was gifted by God to minister to each other, not just those in the offices you mentioned. At every gathering, people contributed, not just the pastor.
Church service now is a joke. One man does the talking while every other member of the body of Christ does nothing. But in 1 Corinthians we read that every member contributes his or her gifts for mutual edification. Carey Nieuwhof, sorry to say but the reason why you are so free on Sundays is because you are not into the great commission. Look at the number of people going to hell and you will see the huge amount of work not being done.
Online services are not enough because you know too well people are too busy on Facebook and pornography to spare time. Anagkazo the Greek word to compel people from Luke should guide you. Your message here is opposite of this scripture. Repent and come back to True Christianity.
Rather it is if we have the right attitude then it will make more sense. Their ears are tickled by motivational speeches or political ones. They hardly are encourafged to open a Bible. Basically the churches have faield to teach the truth.
They have failed the people. Whose fault is that? People should be taught by both explicit teaching and by example that the Bible is our spiritual authority; or other words every thing that is taught from the pulpit should be supported well with Bible passages backing up what they are teaching.
Every pastor should understand that though they may be teaching truth, that the hearer, if not checking out if it agrees with scripture is then going to listen to another speaker. And if that other speaker is more charismatic and appealing to listen to, they will be convinced by unbiblical messages. The only way to get truth into peoples souls is to show them that your teaching comes straight from the Bible. Whatever happened to the 5 solas of the reformation?
Well if I went to a church that accepted all the non-Biblical beliefs like so many churches do today it would be a waste of time. Jesus was more compassionate than any other, but He also told those He healed to go and sin no more.
A sin is a sin and He tells us without repentance of our sins we will not be forgiven. No one is perfect but the Bible is very clear on what is a sin and an abomination to God. The local Churches are doing anything to put people in pews and not preaching the basic foundation of the Christian church.
God does promise riches, but not necessarily money. Jesus was misunderstood when He talked about His kingdom.
That Kingdom is not of this world. The preacher should talk about what sin is and how to overcome sins not condone sins. He should convict us and tell about the blood of Jesus redeeming sinners from their sins. And The Bible should be taught not compromised. Your why we needed Jesus ….
Try staying in your lane and just worry about you. On the other? Why does it always come down to hating on LGBT people? If I consistently committed adultery or was a habitual liar and the Church told me it was ok that would be just as shameful.
There are absolutes in the Gospel and in the end God will judge each us on our actions of the heart. And how we believed in His Word and lived our lives. No one is good only God.
Know God deeply and stop relying on some few verses you have decided to accept in the Bible. I feel sorry for you that you have to come onto this site and display the kind of mentality that turned me away from Him back in the 80s.
That being the hateful and excessively judgmental attitude the Religious Right had back in those days. Going to leave it at that and go back to walking my own route with Him now. That is all. The underground small home churches in China can teach us in USA a lesson. Faith is a gift from God.
I agree with you, My brother is a missionary to Myanmar. He started a Bible college there. He had to come back to the US. The persecuted believers know what it is to be a church together and in prayer and battle together. I am guilty of this and until we realize and accept this will we see progress..
The Church as you call it has made you weird…. I stopped going to church in for being burnt out when opportunity knocked having to move for a new job. So I invited them in and just loved their coming over for lessons.
I went to the LDS church, so I could have their missionaries come over. I enjoyed their visits more than church. I was having church at home with them. Experimentally speaking, church at home does work and is more engaging. The pre-existence, 3 heavens, the temple and priesthood stuff, well, I just kind of ignored it. They certainly got the whole Christian living thing down and everyone takes turns giving talks. At the church level, no one is paid so everyone participates.
I cut off the missionary visits here after a year and a half which is the only value-added thing with this church. There is nothing wrong with anyone there. I have no desire to go back to a regular church. If church were what it claims to be, Christians should definitely be in church! But church, as practiced now, is merely an institution devoted to self-perpetuation and to assuring its middle-class, nuclear-family membership that it is doing the right thing.
Greetings at the front door will be obviously forced; no one is going to ask him for his visitor contact information; no one will talk to him at the coffee hour! This is so beautifully said. Notoriously anti-religion though the man was, the late great Lemmy Kilimister said it well in this verse:. A good little do bee, absolutely, but not so much a good person who tries to walk with Christ as best they can. Which church? Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, universalist Unitarian,Pentecostal?
Do we pick a church that fits our own doctrine? It also seems the chirch goes in the direction of the pastor. By the way the Church in America will never be persecuted. I believe the church in the U. S is nothing like the early church,it has turned into a self serving entity. Jesus said many times motive matters, so why do church do what they do and why to people go?.
I would like to end this by saying I love Christ. Church biographical name. Definition of Church Entry 4 of 4. Frederic Edwin — American painter. Examples of church in a Sentence Noun This is the oldest church in town. I didn't see you at church last Sunday. He is a member of the Catholic Church. Recent Examples on the Web: Noun This is tied both to my upbringing in the Catholic church and the 21 divisions that come out of Dominican Afro-Indigenous traditions. Rasmussen, baltimoresun. First Known Use of church Noun before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1 Adjective before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1 Verb 14th century, in the meaning defined above.
Learn More About church. Time Traveler for church The first known use of church was before the 12th century See more words from the same century. Phrases Related to church go to church separation of church and state the Church of England. Style: MLA. Kids Definition of church. Get Word of the Day daily email!
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