Recently I have had some conversations with different people but they all had similar experiences. It seems that church has ruined church for them. At some point in their past they had a bad experience with a church or churches. Either it was boring, too legalistic or just didn't seem relevant to their life. I think this is so sad that we have churches not doing a very good job of communicating the good news of the bible and that they are actually turning people off instead of firing them up.
But, I also wonder why all churches seem to get thrown into one big pot and considered all the same? I was guilty of doing this myself. I had grown up going to churches that were boring and seemed a waste of time and I assumed they were all that way. If you go to a bad restaurant, you don't assume all restaurants are bad and never eat out again, do you? I know most people have been to more bad restaurants than bad churches but they are more willing to keep looking for that good restaurant than they are to look for that good church.
One thing I do know is that my church, Fellowship Church won't ruin church for you. It might not be the church for you but it will show you that there is more than one way to do church and it will at a minimum have you searching for that church that is for you instead of saying "I won't ever go to church".
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3 comments:
Tammara
Our invitation to Fellowship isn't about Shelley and me. Fellowship isn't for everyone and we know that but the point of my blog is that I don't think it will turn you off from the church experience.
Also, Fellowship is a diverse church. That is one benefit of going to a big church. Like our pastor says, "If you don't like one group, there is always another one you can hang out with".
There are young, old, married, singles, bikers and all types. It is definetly not a church of like minds.
I'll second the last sentence.
I've tried the women's groups and we were even a part of a small group for a couple of years. The women's groups aren't my thing. I'd be happy to share that elsewhere if you want to know. I liked the small group, but found the amount of time spent meeting too much. (And really, I only connected with a few from the small group. There were several couples that would be a turn off to me, but since leaving the group I have not seen them. And the ones I did connect with, I see all of the time. Hence, the big church thing does have advantages.)
Now the Bible studies they offer are the absolute best I have ever been to and as soon as Chase is older, I will start back with that. (They are at night -- once a week for like 8 weeks -- from 7p to 8:30p and that doesn't fit my lifestyle right now.)
But, please don't feel like you will disappoint me if you don't like it. You won't. I PROMISE. :-)
(We've invited lots of people and a lot of them haven't come back for whatever reason. We still talk to them and socialize!)
Jeff, I believe tradition has done the most damage in ruining the church worshipping experience. The "we've always done it this way" mentality had squashed biblical creativity so much that the church became irrelevent to an ever-changing world. The world changed around us but the Church stayed the same. The Word of God didn't have to change... just the way in which it was delievered.
Fellowship Church is successful because of Ed's willingness to give the "Good News" to everyone in a creative & compelling way. Also, we focus on giving people the Good News (thru grace) instead of giving the 'fire & brimstone' (thru condemnation) message.
The truth is, Jesus never commanded us to go to church (we ARE the church.) He did however command us to love one another and in order to effectively do that, we must fellowship together - somewhere. We won't always agree, (thus different church denominations) and we won't always like how things are done (thus different worship services) but, the one thing we can all agree on is that without Christ... without the Church... this world would have imploded centuries ago.
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