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This topic was spurred by another argument with my dad, here’s the offset:
He was chastising both me and my partner for not being “active enough” in the “LOCAL church” (emphasis needed). I told him that most of my spiritual and interpersonal growth comes from an online community… well he didn’t like that. He waxed lyrical about how the LOCAL church is what we’re called to, and how we have a responsibility to be instrumental in the LOCAL church because that’s what happened in the new testament, and that’s what we should emulate today (plus bible, lots of bible). I mentioned the fact that they didn’t have the internet 2000 years ago and got pretty much a repeat of the same defense, only stronger.
He then attributed my questioning to lack of experience, which stripped me of all confidence I had in that conversation, and now I feel more than a bit inadequate, small and more than anything wrong. I’m pretty far from telling him I haven’t been going to church for a couple of months, but now I feel I should go running back next Sunday…
To you guys I ask, how have you treated obligations? Roles within the church, helping out with even small tasks and being told you have to be instrumental in some way, have any of you not had this message? I’m interested. I know some people help out of the goodness of their heart and kindness and things and there is nothing wrong with that, but what about enforced obligations as seen above?
Isn’t it strange, @mxmagpie , how if anyone else said that to us it would roll off our backs like water. but when our father says it to us it sinks into our marrow?!
Yep, It is far more poignant when it’s a close member of family… He’s been my spiritual and theological guide throughout most of my life too, we have a great relationship but sometimes things like this… People I disagree with in passing I can ignore or get away from, this has an actual, practical effect on my life.
ya… understood… i get that.
For many years we did simple church, very informal. It can probably only be done with a smaller group. We were about 35 to 40 members including the children. No one was actually assigned any roles except a treasurer. People just helped out with what they wanted to do. Because it was kept simple there was a minimum of duties. We rented a church basement and spent the whole day together so it turned out that the two meals and the cleanup took up most of the duties. We had a good thing going for a number of years. We followed the family model for church rather than the ‘corporate put on a two hour show model’. And we had no sermons! Yeehaw!
Very few today do church like the early church did. It is actually hard to discern from the NT gatherings what was really going on. The lack of specifics allowed institutionalization to really take over by the time of Constantine. I don’t think church was meant to be a meeting nor a building nor a denomination etc. I actually loved the ambiguity of it all. I kinda miss some aspects of it.
Obligation is a joy killer.
Anonymous@MXMagpie Is this “LOCAL” church a specific church that he has in mind? Or is he saying ANY local church?
@John – He means any local church really.
@Hugh – I totally agree, kills all joy dead. That church you were part of sounded amazing, I’d actually want to attend that. Yeah it seems people put all these defenses and walls to “alien theologies” which end up making them into another institution, it makes me wonder, why are people so afraid to drop it?
My former church is now big into evangelism (now there’s a heavy obligation), they want to grow. They are going backwards and into fundamentalist church theology and ecclesiology. They desire a full time pastor. I hear they are having sermons and communion services now. We used to consider our meals and sharing our lives together as communion.
If Christians were truly indwelt with the spirit of God there would be little need for laws and obligations IMO. Life and love would be enough. Sorry to say but I now doubt that the church is the living earthly body of Christ who is supposed to be the living heavenly Head. I am having a difficult time seeing the reality.
AnonymousRandom thoughts:
If you do something out of obligation, everyone knows it. And feels it. It does not feel as good or have the same impact energetically as something done freely, because you want to. Personally I took the word obligation out of my vocabulary a long time ago.
Experience is a relative term. Since I believe in reincarnation and believe I am a much older soul than my birth mother, then even though in this dimension of time and space she is ‘older’ than me in point of fact on a soul level I have much, much more ‘experience.’
It is normal and natural to have different teachers and guides at different stages of your life. It is normal and natural to have different friends and be involved in different groups and communities at different times of your life. Sometimes, the student surpasses the teacher and as such thanks the teacher for the lessons learned and moves on to find a new instrument of learning.
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