What was church like today?

theological · 19-01-2020 2:48pm #1

I thought it'd be a good idea to create a thread with a positive focus on what we learned at church today or what our services are like. It'd be good to keep discussing and learning from eachother.

I would like this thread to have a devotional focus if possible. If you're a non-Christian and would like to debate a particular point it'd be great if you could create a separate thread. By all means ask questions that are helpful but it would be helpful if this thread could stay on track.

This Sunday we had Vision Sunday. Our church has been setting it's vision for the next 10 years until 2020. I go to a large suburban Anglican church with about 400 people each Sunday. Our vicar preached on Ephesians 4:16 quoted below:

Ephesians 4:15-16 wrote:

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Our vicar used this passage to explain that our church needs to be equipped for the work of ministry to build up our own church and to strengthen and plant others over the next 10 years in a sustainable way. I think I learned that I need to be more entrepreneurial in how I serve Jesus to spread the gospel more widely and to get behind this vision.

What about you? What happened at your church today? What did you learn?

uck51js9zml2yt · 19-01-2020 5:49pm

theological wrote: »

I

Our vicar used this passage to explain that our church needs to be equipped for the work of ministry to build up our own church and to strengthen and plant others over the next 10 years in a sustainable way. I think I learned that I need to be more entrepreneurial in how I serve Jesus to spread the gospel more widely and to get behind this vision.

?

Glad to see that you will all be functioning in all the spiritual gifts next Sunday.

theological · 19-01-2020 7:21pm

I didn't say I'd possess every gift personally! 400 people in a team together should cover a lot between us.

What was church like for you?

uck51js9zml2yt · 19-01-2020 9:36pm

theological wrote: »

I didn't say I'd possess every gift personally! 400 people in a team together should cover a lot between us.

What was church like for you?

You mean the gathering of the local expression of the Church I assume since the Church is neither a building or an outworking of a practice

And I did say "you all" signifying more than one

I know I'm being pedantic but words and their meaning are very important !

And to answer what I think is your question..encouraging with 4 people saying the same thing in different ways having had no idea what the other would say and no program being in place.
I could have said the same as all 4 having been thinking about those things last night but everything was covered by the 4.

antiskeptic · 21-01-2020 7:35pm

theological wrote: »

I thought it'd be a good idea to create a thread with a positive focus on what we learned at church today or what our services are like. It'd be good to keep discussing and learning from eachother.

I would like this thread to have a devotional focus if possible. If you're a non-Christian and would like to debate a particular point it'd be great if you could create a separate thread. By all means ask questions that are helpful but it would be helpful if this thread could stay on track.

This Sunday we had Vision Sunday. Our church has been setting it's vision for the next 10 years until 2020. I go to a large suburban Anglican church with about 400 people each Sunday. Our vicar preached on Ephesians 4:16 quoted below:

Our vicar used this passage to explain that our church needs to be equipped for the work of ministry to build up our own church and to strengthen and plant others over the next 10 years in a sustainable way. I think I learned that I need to be more entrepreneurial in how I serve Jesus to spread the gospel more widely and to get behind this vision.

What about you? What happened at your church today? What did you learn?

Church is generally crap in terms of 'teaching'. And I've been to a few to see if the grass is greener. Pretty light weight stuff in the main. No dealing with the myriad of issues people face into: troubled marriages, ailing health, the struggle with sin within, prayers seemingly unanswered.

Then I started listening to Greg Boyd of Woodland Hills in the States. Bloody heck. I'd seen him a few times here so knew he was edgey. Consider:

- the war-God of the old testament is a projection by Israel onto God stemming from their pagan background. God didn't command slaughter..

- the Bible has error and contradictions. It is God-breath but not inerrant (eg the above point). Yet, the errors and contradictions actually strengten it.

- what prayer is and isn't. Why it is vital. Why it goes unanswered. When was the last time you heard a sermon on prayer amd how to pray. Kind of important you'd have thunk.

Questions posed and addressed which you but never see raised typically. Well worth a check out if dissatisfied with the level of Sunday service. They've a great search function, sermons going back years and all Youtubed.

Oh, and he's a great deliverer. Funny and fast. He's got ADD so flies along spilling ideas out faster than you can process them.

uck51js9zml2yt · 21-01-2020 11:41pm

I can only complain about the preaching 3 Sundays out of 4

antiskeptic · 22-01-2020 10:22am

Madeleine Shy Squirrel wrote: »

I can only complain about the preaching 3 Sundays out of 4

Never a bad idea - different folk teaching. The very worst places I've experienced put all their eggs in one basket. So, if it ain't working, it doesn't work every week.

The sole exception being Fergus Ryan who used to lead Trinity Church Network (formerly FBC). You'd never tire of him.

uck51js9zml2yt · 22-01-2020 8:15pm

antiskeptic wrote: »

Never a bad idea - different folk teaching. The very worst places I've experienced put all their eggs in one basket. So, if it ain't working, it doesn't work every week.

[The sole exception being Fergus Ryan who used to lead Trinity Church Network (formerly FBC). You'd never tire of him. I remember he did the Holy Spirit element of the Alpha Course I did which was a conduit for my salvation. I hadn't a bloody clue what he was talking about but I could sense there was depth to this whole Christianity thing. Indeed, it was his left field unorthodoxy which got Greg Boyd over to speak at FBC, which is how I came across Boyd first.]

I think a central problem is that teachers have their established views and commence from there - never really explaining how they arrived at those views and seldom questioning them. The teacher must appear confident and assured in order to give the flock confidence and assurance or some such.

You don't see vulnerability in the pulpit. At least I never have. Yeah, a nod to personal difficulty and struggle then quickly into message. But digging into own struggle so as to lead those before you who too are struggling? Not a chance. The teacher has to be seen to be leading in being sorted. For how else could they teach? What Maths teacher would talk of their being confounded and not understanding of Maths?

-

The tendency is that those who might have issue with aspects of the theology to leave. If their struggle isn't being addressed they try elsewhere. And those who agree or those who don't question remain. You get an Amish like reduced gene-pool and stagnation. A preaching to the converted as it were.

I don't mean to criticize so much as critique. The mechanism of the way church is done tends in this direction. No questioning and no wrestling leads to surface skimming, as the underlying issues aren't and don't need to be, questioned. We have our settled view, the Bible says it and I believe it. Even though it doesn't work oft times.

Doesn't it make sense that if our view patently doesn't work then our view must be suspect? We pray for the sick. They stay sick or die. We skim over the why that is.

Prayer unanswered. Why? I've never heard much on it, certainly not on a level that helps folk who are really struggling. As Boyd points out, the two solutions a person can turn to is that:

- God doesn't want their bad marriage, their poverty, their struggle with repetitive sin .. resolved. Otherwise he would grant their prayer in that direction. God gets blamed or God is seen to work in mysterious ways - that the person's misery is somehow contributing to God's overall good plan. Good luck sustaining love of God with that. You might, with your Christian hat on, acknowledge God us good. Nevertheless, the person feels abandoned and confused. God, the absent Father. He is omnipotent and nothing can stop his will being done. Yet he is not showing up for me and my problems.

- they haven't enough faith. For if they only had faith as a mustard seed they could, afterall, move a mountain. Since they can't even move their own depression, their faith must be some sub-division of a mustard seed. And so they beat themselves up. Or try to work up more faith: praying more unanswered prayers or have others pray more unanswered prayers over them, reading their bible more or whatever.

[For those who aren't fully convinced of a theology that God loves them unconditionally, there is of course, the added option of God not responding because of their sin. That he is frowning down on them and witholds responding to their prayer because of their sin. And so they try to get their act together. Bit of a Catch-22 that, when the prayer issue is inability to extricate themselves from sin that ensnares them!]

Blame God or blame themselves.

Wonderful!

And you won't hear much of a word preached about what else is to be done. Or even a word that really acknowledges that this is what is going on for those in the congregation. Sympathy, yes. Prayers for, yes. But no teaching another way to view it.

Greg Boyd on sin and how it's to be dealt with here

You see that's the problem. People don't get what they want and leave.
When was the church ever meant to be a spiritual supermarket.
Consumerism is destroying the churches.

Don't get what I want...I leave.
Give me what I want and it leads to a watering hole down of truth and a mega church.

Where does it leave room for saying what God is saying. Paul said he was a steward of the grace of God given to him for them. That's what we need on the pulpit ,week on week.
"From God..to me...for you"

If we have that, peoples lives will change.
I purposed a long time ago to read the Bible without prejudice and let God show me what it's saying. Doesn't say I don't study but I leave my preconceptions at the door.
I spoke for 12 hours in India to pastor's. Took me 4 months of preparation. Every evening.

antiskeptic · 22-01-2020 10:45pm

Madeleine Shy Squirrel wrote: »

You see that's the problem. People don't get what they want and leave.

Or don't get what they need and leave. Or to put it another way, they want nourishment, find the offering lacks it and seek elsewhere.

There doesn't appear to be a mechanism of testing performance. If the teaching is poor, unambitious, boring, repetitive there isn't really any way to raise the issue. I'm not talking about some stuffy old setting, this is the case even in progressive churches.

Don't get what I want...I leave.
Give me what I want and it leads to a watering hole down of truth and a mega church.

Greg Boyd's church sounds big enough, I'd guess a 1000 or so at service. Which majes it mega enough. But the last thing you could accuse him off is watering down the truth. He strikes me as a miner of it in fact.

Assuming people leaving arises because they are consumerist is just that, an assumption.

I was just bored to tears. Heard the same level stuff, the same truths time and time again. But what about depth? What about truth below the truth? Are we to suppose we've exhausted the Bible?

Where does it leave room for saying what God is saying. Paul said he was a steward of the grace of God given to him for them. That's what we need on the pulpit ,week on week.
"From God..to me...for you"

What God is saying and what the 'teacher' says God is saying are two different things. A weak teacher in the pulpit is like a weak teacher anywhere. Surely in the course of your school/college education you encountered a gifted teacher, one who inspired and exposed facets you didn't even dream where there to see. I went from solid D grade in maths through college to straight A after encountering such a one.

And I'm merely stating my finding church generallylike that. And I've been around a few. Which is not to say there aren't gifted preachers - Fergus Ryan given as an example. But it seems far from typical.

And so, just as schools fall short in subjecting pupils to dull teachers, for it is such a vital role, so too do the churches seem to fail in their installations of those who teach the flock.

If we have that, peoples lives will change.

I've heard the gospel message take up more Sunday sermons than I can shake a stick at. You wait expectantly on a Sunday morn, hear its going to be a gospel message (more or less standard issue simplified), and let your mind wander...

I've never heard a drilled into sermon of length talking about prayer, what it is and isn't about and why it very frequently isn't answered.

I purposed a long time ago to read the Bible without prejudice and let God show me what it's saying.

What happened?

Doesn't say I don't study but I leave my preconceptions at the door.
I spoke for 12 hours in India to pastor's. Took me 4 months of preparation. Every evening.

Good for you. My comments relate only to my own (and my wifes) experience. We went around the evangelical and more pentecostal houses and it was the same everywhere. She was a bit more enduring than me, so we persevered longer than I would have but even she had to face into the fact of the matter. We go occasionally for the community aspect. But not for the teaching.

Thinkingaboutit · 25-01-2020 4:20pm

Heard a Low Mass this morning, Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, with a Commemoration of St Peter. A weekday and Saturday Low Mass generally has no sermon, and there was a bigger congregation given that today is church cleaning. The Acts of the Apostles ix. 1 - 22 sees a fearsome, fanatical, and skilful persecutor becoming a 'vessel of election' as the Lord told Ananias in a vision (for this man is to be Me a vessel of election).

theological · 26-01-2020 6:47pm

I was at church at my fiancée's church this weekend which was great. We were looking at the breadth of God's love and how the Samaritan woman was loved by Jesus and brought to salvation as a result. The challenge I took away from this was that we need to get to know people on a genuine level rather than coming to them with a predefined agenda.

hinault · 29-01-2020 6:49pm

Today being the Feast Day of St.Francis De Sales, we learnt a lot about him today

http://www.extraordinaryform.org/masses/0129StFrancisdeSalesDoctorM20.pdf

ChrisJ84 · 03-02-2020 9:13pm

In the middle of a series in Judges, and have hit the story of Samson in the last couple of weeks. Sunday past was Judges 14.

Samson is definitely not a simple Sunday school hero and in many ways is quite a repulsive character, completely ruled by his impulses. One phrase in particular from our pastor was a keeper: "What would God have me do, to his glory, with this desire that I'm feeling?"

But yet, God uses Samson to fulfil his purposes. Verse 4 is extraordinary, where it says that these things happened because God was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. Lots to chew over!

hinault · 03-02-2020 9:47pm

Sunday Mass celebrated the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but the priest's homily at Mass concentrated on Simeon and his going to see the infant Jesus at the Temple.
The point being that the Holy Ghost encouraged Simeon to do what he did.

hinault · 03-02-2020 9:49pm

This is a useful resource

http://www.extraordinaryform.org/masses.html

antiskeptic · 29-02-2020 9:35am

One in a series on tuning into (or hearing from) God. Hearing from (rather, not hearing from or having spotty reception) God must be one of the biggest dilemmas facing Christians, certainly modern Christians - what with a clamour of the modern world.

Who hasn't heard prayers seemingly aimed at the ceiling? And who hasn't had a sense of praying to the ceiling - wondering why they come back marked 'return to sender' (or a 'mailer daemon - undeliverable message' for you younger types). Or wondering ' where (or "where the feck", when we are angry with him) is God in all this?"

This particular sermon starts out with a insightful 'experiment' to show us both the clamour and the place of Gods voice within the clamour - the clamour drowning out his still, soft voice.

He goes on to pinpoint the problem (or rather our problem) as fleshliness. We are used to thinking of the flesh as a battle with lust, greed, selfishness etc. And we compartimentalize our battle with the flesh so. He reframes, showing the flesh is much more mundane and much more pervasive in our lives.

As usual, a high energy, amusing delivery, words and ideas tripping over themselves (Greg is blessed/cursed with ADHD). Being that way inclined myself, I like the speed, although some won't.

A challenging message too in there on xenophobia, stretching even to our tendency to seek like minded churches (with a resulting groupthink) and a reason for the multitude of Christian denominations. A Catholic in a Nigerian church? An Pentecostal in a Catholic church? An Evangelical is a high CoI church?

Whereas Jesus preached and lived xenophilia, loving and seeking out the stranger and outcast, whether Roman, Samaritan, leper, tax collector.

Don't be put off by the 'send us some money' commercial at the start. A church needs money and you'll quickly see that this appeal isn't in the televangelist category.

This is the video (which adds to the enjoyment - he's like a man plugged into a 220V socket) but you can also save data and listen to a podcast too.

Tuning into God. New Normal

branie2 · 01-03-2020 6:20pm

It was good, as per usual

antiskeptic · 03-03-2020 5:30pm

Another good one from Greg Boyd on the matter of belief vs faith. He cites a picture given by C.S. Lewis on the matter.

Lewis is down in his shed and it's totally dark. The only light there is, is a sunbeam shining in through a gap at the top of the door. He observes the light beam and the dust particles illuminated by it and the small patch of floor it shines upon. Thats all he sees - looking at the beam.

Then he steps into the path the beam and his gaze follows it out the gap. He can see leaves on trees gently moving in the breeze, and beyond that, the light of the sun. He feels the heat of this ray of sunlight.

Greg takes it up. Looking at from without and looking along from within.

A couple fallen in love. The person looking from outside, say a neurologist, can talk about the hormone activity and the parts of the brain affected and the dopomine rush and why the person in love is effectively a drug (dopomine) addict for the duration. They, like a drug addict, don't see as the neurologist sees. They see an idealized beloved. A perfection. They see things that no one else sees.

But no matter how much you look from the outside, you cannot experience what it is to be in love. You have to stand in the light beam.

Belief, he points out, is standing on the outside looking at. The athiests are like the neurologist, wanting a breakdown into things that can be understood mechanically, logically, rationally. And Christians can do that too: there are propositions they firmly believe. Christ died on a cross. They are declared righteous by God. Etcetera.

They believe them rationally, often aided by moments spent in the beam.

But to stand and live in the beam is another matter. That is what faith feels like and is. To "walk in the spirit" is to stand in the lightbeam or to be in love. To occupy, in other words, a different space and to experience that space in a way that can never be accessed by mere belief.

To walk with God rather than to believe things about God. This is how those who walk in the spirit do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. They would no more countenance the lusts of the flesh that a person in love would hurt the beloved. It is not through effort we avoid and flee from the flesh. It is by standing in the sunbeam.

This isn't to diminish belief, but the level on offer is more than belief. Boyd points, rightly, to Hebrews 11:1. Faith the substance. Faith the evidence. But substance and evidence brought about, not by empirical evidence, but by standing in the light beam.

Thought it was an excellent way to distinguish the difference.

realdanbreen · 04-03-2020 10:27am

Anyone on here ever wonder why Jesus/Allah etc only appeared on the scene (and in a small patch of the middle east at that)around 2000 years ago and did not make themselves known to the billions of people who lived and died prior to that? It just doesn't make any sense at least to me anyway.

Peregrinus · 04-03-2020 10:49am

realdanbreen wrote: »

Anyone on here ever wonder why Jesus/Allah etc only appeared on the scene (and in a small patch of the middle east at that)around 2000 years ago and did not make themselves known to the billions of people who lived and died prior to that? It just doesn't make any sense at least to me anyway.

A. I think you're in the wrong thread for this.

B. Because if God is going to intervene in history, then he has to intervene at a time and place, because that's how history works. You could ask exactly the same question no matter where or when the intervention took place. Why not Palestine about two thousand years ago?

antiskeptic · 04-03-2020 1:13pm

realdanbreen wrote: »

Anyone on here ever wonder why Jesus/Allah etc only appeared on the scene (and in a small patch of the middle east at that)around 2000 years ago and did not make themselves known to the billions of people who lived and died prior to that? It just doesn't make any sense at least to me anyway.

Further to the above. Jesus had a mission and accomplished it. No need for him to come back until the fat lady sings.

realdanbreen · 04-03-2020 1:21pm

Peregrinus wrote: »

A. I think you're in the wrong thread for this.

B. Because if God is going to intervene in history, then he has to intervene at a time and place, because that's how history works. You could ask exactly the same question no matter where or when the intervention took place. Why not Palestine about two thousand years ago?

So the billions of people who lived and died before his arrival, where are they now assuming that you believe in the hereafter?

antiskeptic · 04-03-2020 5:42pm

realdanbreen wrote: »

So the billions of people who lived and died before his arrival, where are they now assuming that you believe in the hereafter?

"Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness".. says the Old Testament. In other words Abraham was saved.

The model of Abraham's salvation (says the apostle Paul, the guy tasked with explaining how Christianity works) is the same model which worked in Jesus' day and today.

In other words, the same model of salvation spans all of history: before/during/after Jesus.

In other words, the same opportunity for salvation was/is available to people before, during and after Jesus.

Abraham never heard of Jesus. He didn't have to, to be saved. Nor does anyone else. And so the Muslim, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the cultural Christian, the atheist .. has the same opportunity to be saved.

In other words, every lost person who has ever lived and will ever live can be saved. For there are only two classes of persons in existence in God's economy: the lost and the found. They are the contents of the box. All the rest is packaging

Can't say fairer than that.

smacl · 04-03-2020 6:26pm

realdanbreen wrote: »

Anyone on here ever wonder why Jesus/Allah etc only appeared on the scene (and in a small patch of the middle east at that)around 2000 years ago and did not make themselves known to the billions of people who lived and died prior to that? It just doesn't make any sense at least to me anyway.

Mod: Off-topic for this thread. As requested in the opening post, please restrict your conversation on this thread to what you learn't at church today or from services.

theological · 29-03-2020 11:14am

I'm really thankful for church on YouTube. It is sad not to be able to meet together, but the internet is a very useful tool for keeping in touch.

We were looking at Matthew 17:14-27 and we were learning that God wants us to see that Jesus is on His throne in uncertain times. We see that Jesus rebukes the disciples for their lack of faith, but the encouragement is even if we have a small trust in Jesus and what He has done for us we will be able to stand our ground in times of trouble.

This is a good encouragement in times like ours where it is very easy to be panicked and worried about the future. There is one who guards the future, that is our Lord Jesus Christ. That is a good resource of strength to keep the Christian joyful in uncertain times.

What was church like today?

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