Primitive Baptists

[weary warrior]

For the sake of the OP, I don't know personally about the Primitive Baptist doctrines. However, regarding the subject of more or less times at church every week, I've come to the place where I vote for less than many active IFB's host today.

Why? I've been in it my entire life. I know that a strong, Godly church is built on strong, Godly families. I also know that Paul told Titus in Titus 2:5 to teach the women to be "keepers at home". For the modern, sincere, willing Christian in an active IFB church, nothing splits the family up more today than church does, and nothing constantly gives the women more reason and excuse to load up the mini van and leave the home on an almost daily basis than that same church.

We've followed the Church of England in instituting "Sunday School", where we not only separate the children from the parents, and then from siblings according to age. We then separate them further into Junior church from the main service after Sunday school, and then further separate them again during visitation, teen services etc.

And our wives and mothers are run down to a frazzled nubbin', because they have to raise the kids, manage the house, buy groceries, make dentist appointments, drive to piano lessons and then go to some church activity 4-6 times a week on top of everything else. It's just wrong. "So much more as we see the day approaching" is referring to "the importance of assembling increases as the times wax worse", not that the "frequency of meeting increases" Think about it. If you worked a farm from dawn to dark just to survive, and went everywhere on a horse, a wagon or on foot, you wouldn't be keeping today's modern, crazy schedule. We are only talking about 50-75 years out of the last 2000 years. Today's modern church schedule is a recent invention that only works with us, and then only because we endure the stress and make it work. And it wears out the pastor (have you ever tried to come up with a minimum of 3 fresh, interesting messages a week, 52 weeks a year, for a period of say ... 5 years? That's almost 800 messages to the same old people week after week after week.) The people eventually get restless and begin complaining, or leaving, because the pastor isn't "feeding them fresh anymore", and the pastor often eventually just moves on because he is "preached out". If a pastor and church cannot get filled, taught, edified, recharged and tuned up on every "the first day of the week", like the early church did then it's probably not gonna happen if they come back that night, and that Wednesday, and that Thursday, and that Saturday... (PS - when the church at Jerusalem got communal in the Book of Acts and met daily, breaking bread house-to-house, God sent persecution in chapter 8 to bust them up and scatter them so they would spread the word, not huddle up and become spiritually inbred).

The problem is that people cannot "be still and know that I am God", the shepherds all too often do not actually spiritually feed the sheep when they have the chance and fathers are not the spiritual leaders in the home at home anymore.

Now, let me say, I know that this is a very "not IFB" viewpoint, and that I probably stand alone with the particular view. That's OK. There will maybe be those who will respond with indignation and affront, and that's ok too. I'm responsible for the spiritual welfare of my family, not my pastor nor my church. I comfortable with that. So I'm just saying I'm not trying to cause a stink or start a fuss, and won't be offended at those that I already know will see things different. I just wanted to share a different way to look at things. And I think that the best way lies somewhere in between the Primitive Baptist way of once-a-month and the Independent Baptist way of "take over your whole life". And that is coming from a pastor! :)