This is quite an eye opening site. One of the posters wrote "Does the Institutional Church do more harm than good?" which is an excellent question to ponder.
Personally, my family and I just left our church of 10 years, which was a denomination I had been a part of for my entire life. We had many reasons for leaving, foremost of which was the "worship wars." But what was worse was the byproduct of that--"Christians" treating other Christians with contempt and even telling us to go to a different church if we want to worship with "that modern music." The church was starting to be run by the people who gave the most money, and their agendas were pushed through no matter who it hurt. If you had walked into that church, you would not have known there were Christians there.
Thankfully, we have found a wonderful new church. We purposely went non-denominational because we were tired of all the closed-minded, "this is the way we've always done it" attitudes. Worship style, service times, and tradition were more important than actually preaching and living out the gospel. Praise God that we are now at a church where there is sound Biblical teaching, fellowship and community. Sadly, there are many more people who have a bad church experience and never go back, or lose their faith altogether.
I didn't do a massive amount of reading, but I read three of the letters. The first one seemed like it was an apology to those leaving the church. The second one seems like a guy who wanted accountability and acting on the faith he claims to have to not exist. The third one contain some really going points about leadership that damages.
I'm assuming these things aren't censored/reviewed, but after reading the second one I had to stop and wonder. . .am I going to read a lot of these letters that are just people whining that church isn't what they wanted it to be? A place lacking in risk and challenge?
Maybe that second one just rubbed me wrong. There are certainly a lot of people who have been genuinely hurt by the church and its leaders, and it's sad that the church didn't extend loving arms to them and admit they screwed up.
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This is quite an eye opening site. One of the posters wrote "Does the Institutional Church do more harm than good?" which is an excellent question to ponder.
Personally, my family and I just left our church of 10 years, which was a denomination I had been a part of for my entire life. We had many reasons for leaving, foremost of which was the "worship wars." But what was worse was the byproduct of that--"Christians" treating other Christians with contempt and even telling us to go to a different church if we want to worship with "that modern music." The church was starting to be run by the people who gave the most money, and their agendas were pushed through no matter who it hurt. If you had walked into that church, you would not have known there were Christians there.
Thankfully, we have found a wonderful new church. We purposely went non-denominational because we were tired of all the closed-minded, "this is the way we've always done it" attitudes. Worship style, service times, and tradition were more important than actually preaching and living out the gospel. Praise God that we are now at a church where there is sound Biblical teaching, fellowship and community. Sadly, there are many more people who have a bad church experience and never go back, or lose their faith altogether.
In his Nooma video "Sunday", Rob Bell makes the statement, "Some people confuse religion with Christianity and walk away from them both..."
I didn't do a massive amount of reading, but I read three of the letters. The first one seemed like it was an apology to those leaving the church. The second one seems like a guy who wanted accountability and acting on the faith he claims to have to not exist. The third one contain some really going points about leadership that damages.
I'm assuming these things aren't censored/reviewed, but after reading the second one I had to stop and wonder. . .am I going to read a lot of these letters that are just people whining that church isn't what they wanted it to be? A place lacking in risk and challenge?
Maybe that second one just rubbed me wrong. There are certainly a lot of people who have been genuinely hurt by the church and its leaders, and it's sad that the church didn't extend loving arms to them and admit they screwed up.
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