Church is far more than just sitting in a chair or pew looking at the back of a head or at the end wall of the building.
That's not what I said. Please stick to what I said rather than to indirectly accuse me falsely.
Don't you talk to people, enquir how people are, react to their news.
Have you never missed a regular attender and wondered why they are not there>
Never talked with a another about what challenges you about a sermon or talked to the preacher?
Do you know how your presence or absence affects others?
Those are good things, but they are more along the lines of surface relationships at a limited level. That only scratches at the surface of what true fellowship is all about. Most churchianity folks have no clue what it means to be in genuine fellowship with others. True fellowship is dangerous in any culture steeped in the sin culture like ours. We talk about how bad it was in Corinth in ancient times during Paul's day, but the levels of sin today are on a different level with beastiality becoming more accepted, drag queen shows hoste by HBO on satellite and cable, homosexuality on display and made humorous to those who have no moral fiber in themselves, divorce and remarriage still at hign levels...et al.
The amount of secret sin that becomes illuminated in genuine fellowship, THAT is what most chruch-goers cannot countenance. It's lethal to the flesh and to pride harbored within secret lives. I've been planting fellowship groups for over 35 years now, and have seen things that you cannot begin to grapple with in all those warm fuzzy conversation sessions with others, visually missing them if they don't show one or more weeks. Surface relationships give some place for edification by way of encouragement, but it doesn't approach the levels of mutual edification Paul commanded.
However, I'm not at all about dragging people away from the safety found in churchianity. It's warm and comforting to fade into the woodwork so long as everyone keeps their safe distance from them and don't delve too deeply into the personal lives of the majority. After all, the inherent dangers in being torn to pieces by the church gossips is always a looming buzzard in the upper branches of the religious hierarchy that defines the niceties of proper, social distancing of hearts and minds...and secrets. We ALL have them no matter how much of an open book we may think ourselves to be.
By all means, stick with what's safe and properly distancing. Never venture out into the desert without the crutches of religion. Many would find out just how weak their spiritual legs really are. Folks even love feeling that their tithe to their "church" is giving to God...never minding that they're reaping direct benefit from what they call their "giving..."
Please don't assume bitterness in my words. I ministered in churchianity as a preacher and walked away from it along with a few others of fellow ministers. We wanted something more genuine and close-knit, more like a family. Weeding out the dross of religion from one's life isn't as easy as many seem to think. If you feel blessed where you are, then stick with what you're feeling. Trusting ones heart is a fatal flaw in Western Christianity. As an Israeli, raised in Judaism, I've seen many, many flaws in the understanding Westerners apply to their understanding of scripture. The Western mindset is a poisonous blinder when most here read their Bibles...if they study them at all without the crutches of group studies using the usual milk toast and wet noodle guide books that give rise to trivia bits of insights most didn't know about before.
No thanks. Been there, done that. Positive thinking applied to what we have chosen to blindly commit ourselves is a weakness most confuse as godly resolve. Evangelicalism is filled with flaws and dark pitfalls most don't take the time to illuminate for an escape route. Some will fancy themselves to be psychoanalysts, thinking that I've been hurt in churches, or have an axe to grind of some sort. Not at all. When ones eyes are opened to seeing what is not seen by the masses, that's not Gonisticism, it's living a life whereby one gives himself over to Holy Spirit indwelling all true believers and saying, "Lord, wash away all that I think that I know, teach me from your word and through your Holy Spirit, as it is written in 1 John 2:27, and give to me your ways and your thoughts no matter how much higher they are than ours."
He is faithful, but the journey isn't for the faint of heart...
MM
