Not wanting to be accused of hijacking another thread by my resident critic who trolls all my posts, I start a new thread.After having lived through every church growth seminar of the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s and now, I have come to realize a fact. Every few years, the American Church in its desperate attempt to gain traction, tries to reinvent church. The originator of this model was Willow Creek Church near Chicago. Their model was the seeker sensitive model of the 80-90’s. It has been called various things since then, most recently missional. It is promulgated by mostly Clavinist, cessation driven theology based on worldly marketing that taught church leaders to meet the consumer with what the consumer wanted (felt needs) rather than teaching doctrine, bible study and intimacy with God. It replaced Starbucks for relationship with God.This is not to say there are not things we can learn to do better in how we do church but in these models, we have primarily forgetten the admonition of the Lord that unless HE builds the church we labor in vain and these models leave no room for the supernatural much less Pentecostal values.Back in 2007, Willow Creek had an ephinany and they wrote a book about it. It was called We Were Wrong. What they discovered in a nutshell was that they had not made disciples but merely converts. Here is the link to an article describing their discovery.www.christianheadlines.com/news/a-shocking-confession-from-willow-creek-community-church-11558438.htmlDon’t get sucked into the latest, greatest fad of doing church. Be as excellent as you can be in ministry, facilities etc. Dont ever stop learning, but be careful what you are learning and putting into your spirit. Be relevant but don’t throw out the baby with bath water. Dance with the one that got you here, the HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD and HIS DUNAMIS, SUPERNATURAL POWER. Seek His Presence, be a conduit of His Grace, love faith and power and He will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail over you or His people.
Brother,s and sister,s I, didn t join this to cause a fuss ,But boy you guy,s are right . I, pastored science 1986 for the past 5years been evan. Church,s I, go into the preacher wares tena shoes and blue jeans with whole,s in them and there band has gettar,s down on there legs like rock groups music so loud and there church so dark like a night club,and the young people start jumping on certain song,s every time {They have a form of Godleness but deniy the power there of . And some church,s Pastor,s are so jelious if you out sing or out play or out preach them they want ask you back. I, was trying to pastor this certain church ,and the Distric Overseer didn t like me ,I, wanted the church and the people wanted me ,But he wouldn tlet me have it .He put a novice who never has pastored and didn tand still don’t have Lincen,s But he sends money to HQ and he can do what ever he wants to do . Now a day s most of them are in it for the money money money money is all they want ,you go to there church feel nothing .People are so dead .Been in other churches where the pastor is to old to pastor got a hand full 6or 8 people nearly fall asleep but they want step down afraid they will loose that check. We As the Great Church Of God have let down our stanard I, can remember when they wouldn teven let you ware jelarey sorry can t spell ,and now I, was in a service where some of the women had shorts on and the men did to and sandle,s the women shorts were like short basketball shorts .But it,s who you know will get the breaks and the real deal will be out side looking in. I, just wanted to share some things I,ve gone through Evan.Please pray God will open some doors for me that I, can preach and sing His wonderful word
I also remember in the COG when you didn’t eat at restaurants that served alcohol. Yet, as I look at pics of pastors that are screaming jezebel, I see them eating at restaurants where they serve alcohol, as evidenced by the people in the background with a beer. Seems hypocritical to me.
Gary Jones, it use to be that the CoG preached against drinking Coca Cola, but they don’t do that any more. Why? Because when they preached against it, Coca Cola put the drug coke into their drink. The law made Coca Cola change it. Read about it on the internet. So the CoG knew exactly what they were talking about after all. Also, the CoG would not buy groceries where a grocery store sold alcohol. But with our present society, which is full of greed, 99.9% of all grocery stores sell alcohol from their shelves. The same goes with many restaurants. So let’s not jump to conclusions yet. It might help with the hypocritical feelings that you may encounter.
Well brother Jones most of the restaurants now a day,s that server,s food sell that filthy stuff but you can eat on the other side .We can’t stop grocery shoping because all the market,sell it beer and wine ,We just haft to stay away from it .But there is a few good res.that don t serve the stuff we just haft to look for them .The gosple convention I, use to sing in ,we held our convention at the Nashville palace where all the country stars go .but the place was closed we rented the building I,am singing in a red coat had lots of people ask me where that place was but I, asured them all christians were there and it was closed to the public .
I REMEMBER THOSE DAYS,,WILL NEVER FORGET..
down toward the front on the right side are some preacher’s wives (probably overseer’s wives) wearing fox or mink stoles. Isn’t that costly arraignment?
Don’t make sense to me.
Denotes the same ego trip of an RC priest
FYI- in other countries customs are different. In many African nations Pastors wear the collar. Like in the USA when I started preaching it was a customary practice to wear suits and ties. (I miss that) pastors were expected to dress certain ways. You would not have went to the pulpit in the 70s or 80s in shorts and a tee-shirt. In many places it is the required attire for a minister and in many places it is just ego.
My friend the sheriff here in our county has several different outfits. One to wear for different occasions. I see some wisdom in this for pastors ( I become all things that I might win some ) Businessmen wear one thing to the golf course, another thing to the office etc.
I’ve always told my Catholic friends that this attire was helpful in identifying child molesters! This was done in jest.
I can’t see myself ever wanting to wear one, but I realize culture is different around the world. He’s an old friend, btw. So I commented on how in my country, the collar was associated with being Roman Catholic. I asked how commit was.
He took it off, and it was just this little tiny piece of white cloth to go over the top button.
Later, we were talking about tent making. There is a town called ‘Kudus’ which means holy and some venders sell ‘Soto Kudus’, a kind of soup. I told him if he wanted to open a business, he could wear his clerical outfit and sell ‘Soto Kudus’ (‘holy soup.)
Surely what we wear and how we present ourselves in the different realms of our life is important. I am talking about our social, business and church life.
I don’t care for the collar, personally, but I realize a lot of that is personal preference. I’ve heard of tribesmen who are basically naked in Papua who go to church. The men wear ‘koteka’, a kind of guord over one part of their body. And they can know who the preacher is because he’s wearing a tie around his neck, and a koteka, while the rest are just wearing a koteka.
If I have objections to the clerical collar, it’s the same objection I have to the neck tie in the other scenario. Partly, at least. In my own culture, I associate it with Roman Catholicism as well. But I’ve seen Anglicans wearing it, too.
Church of God preachers wear it!!!
Yes I know many that do
In the US? Do they celebrate Halloween.