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Purpose Of The Church


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I have been really discouraged lately as to the intended purpose of the church. I know I'm not a Bible scholar, but from what I read in the New Testament, our churches today are nothing...NOTHING....like those original churches.

From what I gather, Sunday is supposed to be the Lord's Day, a day of rest, a day of worshipping together and praying and being exhorted and encouraged. The rest of the week is when the church members do the outreach to win others, but still remain around each other for encouragement and help. Its like a big family.

Nowadays, "church" seems more like a club. Everyone shows up to pay their dues once a week and then they're good to go. Same songs, same invitation. Outreach isn't done throughout the week, even on their own time, to their own neighbors and friends.

Because outreach isn't done during the week, the church then turns to outreach by running buses and bringing the unsaved to church. Thus, the reason for the invitations.

Then, you get to the point where the saints are working on Sunday instead of worshipping and being encouraged. (Guess it is fresh on my mind since yesterday I took over a double Sunday School class and then worked in both nursery services all day). Sometimes, frankly, it gets hard to have in mind that all this is being done "for God"....how can it be done "for God" if the entire premise of the church is possibly wrong? Its so confusing. haha. How can it be done "for God" if I'm not really worshipping God on Sunday but rather working, and then going home for a nap, and going to work again?

And the reason I haven't said all this to my husband is that he is already a bit discouraged at the unfaithfulness at church, even after preaching on it, that I don't want to whine more. haha.

Not only that, but we have missions conference next week, and its three large families....we did get a donation to put them all up in hotels, thankfully (nobody signed up to keep a family in their home) and then we have some donations for food, but otherwise, nobody signed up on the sheet to fix a meal for the missionaries during the week at the church. We are doing Monday on our own, but looks like between the donated money and, well, us, we'll be feeding them all week ourselves. Hopefully the reason nobody signed up is not because nobody plans to attend!!!!! I also had a sign up sheet for a mother/daughter brunch at a restaurant and got a whopping three people interested. hahaha. So I threw away the sheet and cancelled due to lack of interest. Maybe its the economy. I dunno.

Am I wrong in what I perceive the original intent of the church to be? In my mind, trying to control bus kids on Sunday is not the original intent of the church...but everyone else seems to get all excited about bus routes. Help?

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Your church sounds much like the majority of churches we visited when we were traveling. Our current church is not much different.

Couple thoughts
1. I love bus ministries, but that ministry cannot consume the entire church.
2. The purpose of the church was two-fold: Evangelize and Edify. Though programs are good, they should not run the church.

A pastor encouraged me one time to put the focus back on these two things as a Pastor and as a church. I cancelled all activities that did not meet these. Our first year not having a mother-daughter banquet, we had no one even ask about it. As the church got back in the mode of serving, we re-instated some of the programs. The church was far better off.

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We have a bare minimum of programs.....Sunday School, Nursery, Junior Church, and about a 15-20 kid bus route that the church really wants to hold onto. I also started a monthly ladies Bible study as a first-time-ever thing, and we do occasional activities...one missions conference per year and one revival (maybe two, max) per year. We have a once per month nursing home ministry but somebody else runs that. That's it. An occasional work day, etc, you know how it is. There's really not much more to cut back. We don't require much out of our people.

I didn't have a mother daughter thing at all last year due to it being way too much work and way too lack of interest. I think I did offer to visit another church's but there was no interest. No interest this year either so I'm gonna just skip it altogether.

To me, its difficult to go and enjoy church when #1: It feels like a club, and not anything truly spiritual and #2: It feels like work instead of worship.

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No, your not wrong, in fact your right on.

Sad, but true, many feel by attending church services one time on Sunday that they have fulfilled all of what they call, their Christian obligation.

My wife & I have talked about this several times, & it is discouraging.

Yet, we, keep on keeping on, keep doing it for our Lord, while praying, & hoping, some will wake up & understand.

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