Posted on 08/30/2021 2:16:10 PM PDT by 11th_VA
Churches are like people. Each has it's own personality. And different churches attract different people. As long as Christ is preached, it's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Megachurches can offer discipleship courses and training that a small church cannot. Megachurches often have entertainment facilities, gyms, sometimes even bowling allies, that can serve as an outreach ministry to bring people into the church to hear about Christ. They will usually have a lot more activities outside of the service where you can get to know people.
You don't get to know everybody in a megachurch the way you do in a small church. But you can go to a small sunday school class and get to know people there. If you're active in one or more of the ministries, the choir, visitation, room at the inn, etc you get to know the people who participate in those classes and ministries.
When are a long time pastor step down, The elders of the church had the wisdom to have guest teachers and elders teaching for almost 2 years before they hired a new pastor. By the time we got a new senior pastor everyone happily received him.
Do you really believe that as long as Christ is preached it’s necessarily a ‘good thing’?
Christ can be ‘preached’ in a lot of different ways.
(When I first arrived on the scene here, I was called all kinds of names because of the interpretation to which I adhere.)
Freepers do the usual stupidity
This is a large church
It’s not a mega church
People talk so much shit here without being informed
They see a headline and their own bigotry talks hold
Words form and it’s off to the races...
Rabid
Most is seethed in anti Protestant opportunism
Oh look prods are squabbling ...I’ll condemn ..
Reality
This church is liberalizing because it’s grown exponentially and has a huge Kali influx ....
It’s not my cup of tea but it’s nearby...
And I know attendees
I am a Christian ...I’m not big on most churches and fewer denominations and frequently ill confess I’m not terribly impressed with folks online who tout their Christianity
In business it’s fair warning....someone requires prayer at a lunch meeting
Caution
I was raised urban southern Baptist somewhat brimstone ....
Catholic Church is hugely in trouble right now
Most Protestants too
Some mega churches so detested here are very conservative and given how much some here hate them tells me how ignorant those writing about them must be
Everyone can’t drive to Booger Hollow to attend missionary Baptist ...
“Everyone can’t drive to Booger Hollow to attend missionary Baptist .”
Sure they can.
A friend goes to a mega-church and I would attend with him. There was no chance he would ever meet one of the pastors. He never met anyone there. He couldn’t give you a single name of a congregant.
He’s been going there for 8 years.
What does he do the rest of his time?
Watches Bill Still videos
OH! Maybe we could achieve a ‘meeting of the minds’. (I really like Beth.)
They need a Mississippi Squirrel Revival!
Coward let’s his woman fight his fight
So, no-one threw down a glove and demanded satisfaction?
Megachurches are a bad idea. It’s like the difference between sandlot baseball and the national teams whose wealthy, pampered players take drugs and abuse women.
There is too much riding on maintaining the massive overhead in a megachurch, and the mission gets crushed in the struggles over power and money. Often there’s some illicit sex in the mix, as well.
That’s a generalization simply inaccurate
I went to a church in the late 80’s had 300-400 members, avg attendance was 275 range. One or two deacons who lived for money decided the pastor who was full time and lived in a parsonage was making too much money. This pastor worked his butt off visiting members in hospitals, nursing homes and shut ins. He drove hundreds of miles weekly on church business. That being said this pastor wanted his way on church direction and would pack the right committees with his people to get his way. This was a time bomb.
The pastor packed one committee too many and two money hungry deacons turned all but one deacon against the pastor. The lone hold out told them they would split the church down the middle and their secret meetings were wrong and in violation of the church constitution and the Bible’s instructions for such issues and he would take the side of them in the process. He stood alone.
The congregation got wind of the coup and group of lay members called the deacons out on their activities during a Sunday morning service and all hell broke loose. The lay members essentially wanted to know why the constitution of the church and scripture was not being followed and the deacons and their supporters went insane. The pastor to his credit said nothing but just recorded the spectacle. He was threatened with physical violence by the deacons supporters. Still he said nothing. The lone deacon was asked his opinion and he told them what he told the deacons, follow the church constitution and Christ’s teachings for approaching a member of the church with charges and that none of these things had been done and it was wrong and would be a disaster for the church.
The debacle finally ended and that evening the pastor resigned and the deacons and their families and supporters whopped and shouted with glee. The lone deacons prediction was right, the church split down the middle. Any member who left the church who had been deemed to support the pastor was dismissed between 150-175 members were kicked out of the membership rolls. The pastor started a new church but moved on within a year. Most of those dismissed ended up forming a church and it thrived with them purchasing land building a church and educational facility and all the while souls being saved. The lone deacon ended up at this church and is still there and it’s growth has been phenomenal.
The original churches numbers declined steeply. In the mid-90’s this same bunch of deacons ran off another pastor and kicked out more members. It’s now on life support and the current pastor whom I know had the same run in with the deacons and stood his ground and the congregation turned on these deacons and shut them down. The church however is dying a miserable slow death. It was organized in 1842 but probably won’t see it’s two hundred year anniversary. I witnessed this debacle and it still hurts to remember what happened that Sunday morning. Churches can get nasty real quick and easy if you get away from the mission saving souls and following the Word.
predator’s can into any institution...you are right when the church try’s to be more then worship and teaching the biblically basics it risks loosing focus and being a victim to the predatory world out side.
The problem with churches is it’s full of sinners. Often unrepentant sinners. Good news can’t flourish with bad news being the topic of choice.
Yeah, just... stop.
I warn you as a Brother: DO NOT court the curse of Michal, daughter of Saul. She scorned the zealous worship of David before the Ark, and went to her grave BARREN.
EVERY church format can be abused.
I can get a bunch of blue hairs in for an old-time hymn sing and a sermon and abuse the sheep.
Don’t fall for the lie that ONLY certain formats are abusive; that’s laying a trap for your soul, prepping you to think you’ve got a legitimate basis of criticism, when you haven’t.
God’s not built His Church “one size fits all”; He’s built it “all sizes fit One.” To the extent that a congregation is bent on exalting The One, and preaching His Living Word, THAT congregation will bear fruit for The Kingdom whether or not there’s drums, smoke machines, colored lights, and a worship pastor with purple hair.
Well do the scriptures ask, “Who are you to judge another man’s servant? Before his own Master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the power of God will make him stand.”
And again, “You. Why do you judge your brother? Yes, you. Why do you despise your brother? You, he, and everyone else wull surely stand before the judgement seat of Messiah.”
.
Romans 14. Read it as if for the first time.
All the big congregations I’ve been part of have home fellowship groups as a foundational element.
Yeah, it’s hard to catch up every Sunday with the same people out of a crowd of 3000. Human behavior helps; folks tend to sit in about the same place, week in & week out. But you’re not going to cultivate deep relationships unless you get into that home group context. By and large, folks I know who’ve attended big churches for any length of time and come away sour; ether the church was compromising, or they never became part of a home fellowship group.
Give Pastor Andy Woods, Sugar Land Bible Church a try: slbc.org will take you to the main site where you can peruse archives of his Sunday School lessons and sermons. He is currently finishing up a fifty plu episode on the Rapture. His is a ‘Bible based’ approach to Christian living. I think he is still President of the Chaffer Institute Bible College. Havign limited mobility, I attend his church via the Internet.
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