Church, twice a day?

[John81]

While it's true that some unsaved folks and even folks who don't really want to follow the Lord but profess to be Christian, will typically find church boring, they are not the only ones.

I've been in churches where the pastor stands like a statue at the pulpit and reads his sermon from a paper, hardly ever looking up, in a very dry, monotone manner that would likely make the most devout of us nearly fall asleep. When they sing the hymns it's obvious they are just going through the motions. They sing the words, slow and dull, and you can almost feel that the congregation is just wanting to get the songs over so they can sit down.

Such services are boring because, to me anyway, it seems the Holy Ghost isn't present because He wasn't invited. There is no passion for the Word, not expectation of what the Lord might say to someone that day. Even the pastor seems to be just going through the motions so he can get it done and over with, collect his check (so to speak) and go home.

[kevinmiller]

I think that the terms "liberal" or "carnal" or other catchphrases for people who don't measure up to our standards are too frequently used around here sometimes. Not enjoying a particular church doesn't make someone carnal. If they don't enjoy fellowship with other believers, there might be a problem. However, if a person goes to church, listens to the sermon, sings a few hymns and goes home again, how can they possibly enjoy that? A person needs fellowship and encouragement and passion in Christianity. Too often, churches are simply programmed machines that simply run the way they're supposed to. The church is made up of people and should be a dynamic and organic organization. People are individuals and the church should be designed to meet individual needs and should be flexible enough to allow for true worship.

[Jerry]

You are supposed to worship God with your whole life, not just a couple of hours on Sunday.

My problem is you seem determined to paint all churches that sing hymns and don't do it exactly your ecumenical way as wrong, dead, not vibrant or dedicated to the Lord, etc.

My church is not dead, we fellowship, we love the Word of God, we sing hymns, we care for one another - but it is obvious you would hate to be there - because we actually have some control and order to what goes on there.

[Guest Guest]

[quote="kevinmiller"]I think that the terms "liberal" or "carnal" or other catchphrases for people who don't measure up to our standards are too frequently used around here sometimes. Not enjoying a particular church doesn't make someone carnal. If they don't enjoy fellowship with other believers, there might be a problem. However, if a person goes to church, listens to the sermon, sings a few hymns and goes home again, how can they possibly enjoy that? A person needs fellowship and encouragement and passion in Christianity. Too often, churches are simply programmed machines that simply run the way they're supposed to. The church is made up of people and should be a dynamic and organic organization. People are individuals and the church should be designed to meet individual needs and should be flexible enough to allow for true worship.[/quote]

Amen. I go to a church that meets pretty much every IFB standard there is, but it's much different from most IFB churches out there. You've really described the problem most IFBs have... they get stuck in a routine (traditions) and forget how to worship God. Mainly, the problem is when the pastors don't preach messages that help people... they just shove a bunch of rules down peoples' throats and expect them to live by them. Our pastor preaches on issues like guilt, pride, sin, temptation, etc. He doesn't rant about women in pants and rock music. If he brings something like that up, it's just as a side note... but the main preaching is Biblical and practical.

I've seen so much of a different spirit here than I've seen at most IFB churches. This is the kind of church where people stick around and fellowship with each other, hours after the preaching is over. We don't have "handshaking time" during the service to replace real fellowship (I know a church that does that.... it's so fake...) I've also noticed that at our church, young adults stay around! We aren't losing everyone between the ages of 18-25 to ecumenical churches! I've learned that the churches that have to worry most about losing that crowd are usually the churches that are too stuck in their traditions to make church enjoyable. (and I don't mean you have to bring in the drums to do that.... just have REAL fellowship and Biblical preaching that doesn't put everyone to sleep)

[tired]

What I have seen over the past few years are the churches that have to worry about losing their youth are the churches that blow with every wind of doctrine. Churches that don't teach their youth the word but entertain them weekly. The purpose driven church is losing their youth to the emerging style "churches". Youth want to be active not entertained by bands and pretty speakers. They like this for awhile but get bored. So if the youth aren't taught doctrine and dicsipled when they get saved they just blow around from trend to trend. The adults and "pastors" bring this in to be hip and cool but the bible isn't hip and cool it is convicting. They say hey the bible isn't relevent. We need to make the bible relevent by latching on to the world and just talk on positive aspects of the bible. I say all the bible is relevent. Until the adults and pastors bring the bible back more and more young people will go blow around the rest of their life.

[Guest Guest]

[quote="tired"]What I have seen over the past few years are the churches that have to worry about losing their youth are the churches that blow with every wind of doctrine. Churches that don't teach their youth the word but entertain them weekly. The purpose driven church is losing their youth to the emerging style "churches". Youth want to be active not entertained by bands and pretty speakers. They like this for awhile but get bored. So if the youth aren't taught doctrine and dicsipled when they get saved they just blow around from trend to trend. The adults and "pastors" bring this in to be hip and cool but the bible isn't hip and cool it is convicting. They say hey the bible isn't relevent. We need to make the bible relevent by latching on to the world and just talk on positive aspects of the bible. I say all the bible is relevent. Until the adults and pastors bring the bible back more and more young people will go blow around the rest of their life.[/quote]

You're right. There's two kinds of churches that will lose the young adult crowd. This "entertainment-focused" church, and the "boring, traditional" type of church. A church with a pastor who knows how to properly preach from the Bible won't lose their young adults. Most young (and older) adults want to just get fed from God's Word every time they come to church. They want to be surrounded by godly people who care about each other (because where else are they going to get that kind of fellowship when they've been working out in the world all week?).

[Anon]

Um...we have handshaking time AND people stay after church fellowshipping (when they can).

We have potlucks, and other fellowship times together.

Our pastor does not rant and rave, he preaches the Bible, and doctrine, and other things...not rules. We do sing hymns. We do not use Power Point or sing "praise and worship".

Why do we have to have this "us and them" mentality...."WE are not IFB....WE are much better.". Many IFB ARE "better" than what you deem as "bad".

[Jerry]

There is nothing wrong with "traditional" church services - other than some people's opinions. There is a big difference between a church caught up in ritualism and a church being traditional. The IFB church I go to has more TRUE spiritual life than I have ever seen in any other denomination/church that I have gone to. Others may be more emotional, more jumping up and down and waving arms in the air, more positive-oriented, more lovey-dovey - but last I checked that didn't make them more devoted to God or His Word, or even more pleasing to God. Strange fire never pleased God in the OT or the NT.

[Guest Guest]

What's wrong with comparing a good church with a bad church? I wasn't talking about your church at all. I was talking about a church I attended for 5 years but now I'm out of there (praise the Lord!!!!). If we're supposed to assume that all IFB churches are great places to attend.... then we're in trouble! I've been in 5 different IFB churches before this church I'm currently at, and all 5 of those churches had MAJOR problems. It seems that many people I know have had the same experience. The only ones who haven't are the ones that were blessed enough to grow up in a good church from the beginning so they've never seen a bad IFB church.

Let's not be ignorant about the facts... many churches, even in our circles, aren't as alive as they used to be. That's why we're losing our young people to the contemporary crowd. I've heard young people say that they feel more of a spirit of worship at a Pentacostal church than at their Baptist church. Isn't that sad?

I'm not saying we need to sell out to the contemporary crowd and do what they do (in case anyone thinks that's what I'm saying). I love singing the old hymns and hearing good Bible preaching. I just don't like it when churches get so caught up in traditions that they make it boring.

[Anon]

Maybe the churches aren't alive, because the people/TEENS aren't alive....

[Guest Guest]

[quote="Jerry"]There is nothing wrong with "traditional" church services - other than some people's opinions. There is a big difference between a church caught up in ritualism and a church being traditional. The IFB church I go to has more TRUE spiritual life than I have ever seen in any other denomination/church that I have gone to. Others may be more emotional, more jumping up and down and waving arms in the air, more positive-oriented, more lovey-dovey - but last I checked that didn't make them more devoted to God or His Word, or even more pleasing to God. Strange fire never pleased God in the OT or the NT.[/quote]


Well amen... I'm glad you feel that your church has true spiritual life. I don't believe there's anything wrong with someone getting really excited about praising God (even during a song service with hymns) and lifting their hands up in the air. In fact, I never saw that till I moved out here... many IFB churches don't do that. I guess it's a fear of looking pentacostal or something.

Btw, what were you referring to as "strange fire"?

[Guest Guest]

[quote="Kitagrl"]Maybe the churches aren't alive, because the people/TEENS aren't alive....[/quote]

That's true... but the "people" includes the preachers at those churches. I wouldn't blame the teens though. Many of them have never seen their parents get excited about church so all they've learned how to do is "play church". They don't understand what should be exciting about singing the old hymns because the only way they've heard them sung is in a boring way. (maybe with a few exceptions... like the preacher's favorite song or something)

I'm not kidding. This really happens.

[tired]

I went to my friends church. He told me that as an IFB I am a legalist and I should come check out his church. I went just to see. None of these more loving "evangelicals" even welcomed us. Then the "pastor" called God a sex god and used crude language to talk about sex from the pulpit.I complained to him about not even being welcomed by anyone. He told me there is a welcome minister and a welcome commity that weren't there that night. I told him I will stick with my way more friendly and non-blaspheming IFB church. His church is one of those Saturday night churches.

[John81]

Sadly, the few IFB churches in this area have gone wrong. The one that has struck to the traditional ways seems that it wants to die as they are very unwelcoming of visitors and refuse to answer questions about their church. They are now down to about a dozen members, all 60+ or older.

The other IFB churches have all, to one extent or another, decided to adopt various modern methods. They have dropped standards of dress, adopted various MVs, added loud "praise and worship", decided to work with various area churches (including Catholics) 'for the common good', etc.

The non-IFB Baptist churches in the area are the same or worse.

This is why we are in the non-denominational church we are in today. It's sad and a terrible shame and tragedy, but IFB doesn't seem to mean what it used to just like seeing Baptist on a church sign doesn't mean what it used to. :sad

I thank God for those IFB and other Baptist churches who are worthy, good churches, but it's easy to see with so many bad ones out there how a lot of folks now have dim views of Baptists.

[John81]

The largest local church, with the largest youth and childrens groups, who changed over to the more "modern" and "youth friendly" approaches also has the highest number of church teens who drink alcohol and the highest number of church teen pregnancies in the community.