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If you have not personally attended a PROTESTant service you would not know what it is actually like.

I did...once. As an ignorant teenager. Intuitively knew it was a sham then. Don't know why but I felt compelled to genuflect when leaving the "service" Oh the looks I got. LOL

You can't tell much about the entire body of evangelical belief and practice by showing up to only one service ever. I went to one Catholic service, ever. It felt positively evil, all those dead ceramic faces staring at me. I went to a Baha'i temple once too. Felt the same evil. So if intuition is a valid guide, as you suggest, what should I think?

BTW, I have attended literally thousands of Protestant services, Independent Baptist, Reformed Baptist, Southern Baptist, Primitive Baptist, Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, Lutheran (Missouri Synod, EV Free), Pentecostal, Nondenominational, Messianic, Methodist, Christian and Missionary Alliance, and so forth. In all of those the only ones that ever seemed to go off the rails in terms of failing to present regular, high doses of Scripture were a small handful of either a) mainline liberal churches focused on liberal pablum and larges doses of loud, unintelligible music (mistakes which I avoided later), or b) some of the fundy Baptist churches that had gone to a circus motif (mistakes which I also avoided later).

In all of the others, Scripture was served up generously, repeatedly, and with practicality. Spend 10 years in most Protestant fellowships, and you will have more exposure to the Scripture than you'll know what to do with, and at a level of depth that goes beyond public recitation, but encompasses a complete contextual understanding, followed up by an application to one's life. We don't just scan the text and call it done. We always ask, how does this teaching affect my life in Christ, my relationship to God, my relationship with my wife, children, family, friends, neighbors and even strangers (this forum being no exception).

At my present church we are going over 2 Timothy. The theme is endurance. We do a congregational reading, or else have one or more designated readers. Then comes the sermon, where the concepts of the reading are unpacked for us. Then we are challenged to find some specific way to implement those insights into how we live before God and each other. One of the happy consequences of this is we are not only doctrinal well aligned with Scripture, but we are also heavily invested in doing good, both to each other, and to those in the community who we can help one way or another. Christian love, expressed. It is evidently the work of God, and as CS Lewis once said, nothing God does is a sham.

Peace,

SR

You can’t tell much about the entire body of evangelical belief and practice by showing up to only one service ever. I went to one Catholic service, ever. It felt positively evil, all those dead ceramic faces staring at me. I went to a Baha’i temple once too. Felt the same evil. So if intuition is a valid guide, as you suggest, what should I think?

While growing up Catholic I always had the notion something didn’t quite add up. I’ve had the same experience in several other churches. It wasn’t until I read His Word that I could identify the problems.