Our Gov shut down all public meetings from March to end of June, we were all online during that time, now back to gathering, but have 2 services, one masks required, other voluntary!
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Baptist Distinctives. How does your life reflect them?
- Thread starter 1689Dave
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1689Dave
Well-Known Member
Can you be saved and not align with scripture? Possibly but the distinctives are what scripture teaches on certain topics necessary to have a true church among other things.
Are only Baptist churches then true NT churches?
1689Dave
Well-Known Member
Many Christians are mixed up in visible institutional business franchises they call churches. The true Church is where any two or more meet in Jesus' name. And it becomes invisible when they dissolve the meeting.
We are commanded to meet and gather as the local body, correct?
1689Dave
Well-Known Member
When possible. Paul went long stretches apart from fellowship.
We have started back. No masks required. There are restrictions like every other pew is closed, the congregation is not supposed to sing, we do not socialize in the church, etc.
The problem with this is it makes me feel like I am the studio audience for the church show being aired on TV and streamed over the internet.
I am considering even more that our churches have become too dependent on infrastructure and "professional" ministries. What if we had taken a NT position? How would our worship look if the churches were congregations that gathered at homes? During this time, I do not know that COVID-19 would have had such an impact on local churches.
Anyway, that's a different topic for another thread. It is just something that has been on my mind for the past few months.
atpollard
Well-Known Member
You can't have one without the other. Just look at Roman Catholicism praying to Mary their Co-Redemptrix for the souls of their dead loved ones trapped in purgatory.
[just kidding ... mostly]
We are still 'supposed" to be wearing masks and staying apart, but churches exempted from that!
atpollard
Well-Known Member
While true, that is not a "Baptist" distinctive.
Many small churches are a collection of "fiefdoms".
Actually, I have a funny story about a Church I attended. If anyone wanted to do anything, they were directed to someone who was older than dirt and had been in charge of THAT MINISTRY for decades. The matter would then need the approval of the "Elder" that they answered to who would need the permission of the Pastor. If what you wanted to do was in any way different from what hasn't worked for the last 10 years, then someone along the chain would veto it as "not how things are done here".
On the other hand, if you just grabbed two other people that wanted to help and did something without asking, the leadership was too lazy to bother doing anything except offer suggestions about how you should be doing things differently. When I eventually became "elder" over the Children's Ministry, my #1 job was to be the person that everyone had to bring suggestions to about how all of the teachers should be doing something like they did back in Long Island or Ft.Lauderdale or Chicago and I would listen and ignore them so that they were not harassing the people actually doing the work. That was MY assigned "fief".
If you had no intention of rolling up your sleeves, then I didn't care what you thought OTHER PEOPLE should be doing.
While true, that is not a "Baptist" distinctive.
Many small churches are a collection of "fiefdoms".
Actually, I have a funny story about a Church I attended. If anyone wanted to do anything, they were directed to someone who was older than dirt and had been in charge of THAT MINISTRY for decades. The matter would then need the approval of the "Elder" that they answered to who would need the permission of the Pastor. If what you wanted to do was in any way different from what hasn't worked for the last 10 years, then someone along the chain would veto it as "not how things are done here".
On the other hand, if you just grabbed two other people that wanted to help and did something without asking, the leadership was too lazy to bother doing anything except offer suggestions about how you should be doing things differently. When I eventually became "elder" over the Children's Ministry, my #1 job was to be the person that everyone had to bring suggestions to about how all of the teachers should be doing something like they did back in Long Island or Ft.Lauderdale or Chicago and I would listen and ignore them so that they were not harassing the people actually doing the work. That was MY assigned "fief".
If you had no intention of rolling up your sleeves, then I didn't care what you thought OTHER PEOPLE should be doing.
Just left a similar situation.
People were so entrenched in history, that at one gathering a 90 year old lady grabbed a table to drag it back to where it had always been used in the past.
She was irrationally irate that the room furniture placement had been changed.
that is not churchWhile true, that is not a "Baptist" distinctive.
Many small churches are a collection of "fiefdoms".
Actually, I have a funny story about a Church I attended. If anyone wanted to do anything, they were directed to someone who was older than dirt and had been in charge of THAT MINISTRY for decades. The matter would then need the approval of the "Elder" that they answered to who would need the permission of the Pastor. If what you wanted to do was in any way different from what hasn't worked for the last 10 years, then someone along the chain would veto it as "not how things are done here".
On the other hand, if you just grabbed two other people that wanted to help and did something without asking, the leadership was too lazy to bother doing anything except offer suggestions about how you should be doing things differently. When I eventually became "elder" over the Children's Ministry, my #1 job was to be the person that everyone had to bring suggestions to about how all of the teachers should be doing something like they did back in Long Island or Ft.Lauderdale or Chicago and I would listen and ignore them so that they were not harassing the people actually doing the work. That was MY assigned "fief".
If you had no intention of rolling up your sleeves, then I didn't care what you thought OTHER PEOPLE should be doing.
atpollard
Well-Known Member
[Matthew 18:20 KJV] 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Jesus would probably disagree.
[1 Corinthians 1:10-13 KJV] 10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and [that] there be no divisions among you; but [that] ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them [which are of the house] of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. 12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. 13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
So would Paul.
As the OP is now on a 6-month vacation, this thread is closed.
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