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The official online community of New York Times best-selling author Ted Dekker.
Positive Experiences with Organized Religion/Churches
Hello all,
I know I've been starting a lot of threads lately, but I wanted to start this one in response to all the comments I've been seeing lately that talk about people's negative experiences with Organized Religion/their church, etc.
I thought it would be nice to write about good experiences with Organized Religion.
I will start.
I have never gone to church until very recently. I mean, I have always been saved (at least as far back as I can remember) but we only attended church sporadically throughout my childhood. So, I've only been going to church for the past 4 or 5 years (wow, can it have been that long?)!
I started attending a campus ministry. And after I got over my initial distrust of people and their motives, I had a blast there. I loved Chi Alpha and I grew and matured spiritually because I was there. I learned about the Gifts of the Spirit and speaking in tongues, etc. Things I had never thought about before...had never heard about before. Score 1 for organized religion!
Then I started going to a church that was nice, but was not my cup of tea. No problem. Just time to find another church. So I did. And this church was great. I loved Dwelling Place and I felt loved there. When God told me to move to my current church, the pastor's wife actually cried. I knew I was loved, and I loved others there.
I got to be involved in many of the ministries, which really helped me come out of my shell and interact with others.
Then Holy Spirit said He had more for me, and I left that church, not out of anger or offense, but because God said to. I told the pastor and everyone that I was leaving, and not one single person was angry or offended. They were amazing, and I still love them.
Now I don't go to a church, I go to an ecclesia or ekklesia (which is a Kingdom body), which is a five-fold ministry church (which believes in Eph 4:11 that all churches should have an apostle, prophet, teacher, evangelist, and pastor. And we have all but the evangelist now and are believing God will raise up an evangelist, too!) that is heavily into listening to Holy Spirit and obeying His words in addition to just reading the Bible. I have learned many things there, including how to speak and prophesy over my situations and how God has already accomplished things in the Heavenly realms, and the natural realm just has to LINE UP. I am still learning and growing. And I have already made friends there. I even went to a couple of parties at people's houses, and that is something I never thought I would be doing 5 years ago.
I have never had a bad experience with Organized Religion. If that is just luck or God's protection I don't know. But I thought I would share this with you all and invite you to share your positive experiences with churches.
Love in Christ,
Cassie
I know I've been starting a lot of threads lately, but I wanted to start this one in response to all the comments I've been seeing lately that talk about people's negative experiences with Organized Religion/their church, etc.
I thought it would be nice to write about good experiences with Organized Religion.
I will start.
I have never gone to church until very recently. I mean, I have always been saved (at least as far back as I can remember) but we only attended church sporadically throughout my childhood. So, I've only been going to church for the past 4 or 5 years (wow, can it have been that long?)!
I started attending a campus ministry. And after I got over my initial distrust of people and their motives, I had a blast there. I loved Chi Alpha and I grew and matured spiritually because I was there. I learned about the Gifts of the Spirit and speaking in tongues, etc. Things I had never thought about before...had never heard about before. Score 1 for organized religion!
Then I started going to a church that was nice, but was not my cup of tea. No problem. Just time to find another church. So I did. And this church was great. I loved Dwelling Place and I felt loved there. When God told me to move to my current church, the pastor's wife actually cried. I knew I was loved, and I loved others there.
I got to be involved in many of the ministries, which really helped me come out of my shell and interact with others.
Then Holy Spirit said He had more for me, and I left that church, not out of anger or offense, but because God said to. I told the pastor and everyone that I was leaving, and not one single person was angry or offended. They were amazing, and I still love them.
Now I don't go to a church, I go to an ecclesia or ekklesia (which is a Kingdom body), which is a five-fold ministry church (which believes in Eph 4:11 that all churches should have an apostle, prophet, teacher, evangelist, and pastor. And we have all but the evangelist now and are believing God will raise up an evangelist, too!) that is heavily into listening to Holy Spirit and obeying His words in addition to just reading the Bible. I have learned many things there, including how to speak and prophesy over my situations and how God has already accomplished things in the Heavenly realms, and the natural realm just has to LINE UP. I am still learning and growing. And I have already made friends there. I even went to a couple of parties at people's houses, and that is something I never thought I would be doing 5 years ago.
I have never had a bad experience with Organized Religion. If that is just luck or God's protection I don't know. But I thought I would share this with you all and invite you to share your positive experiences with churches.
Love in Christ,
Cassie
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by CaliGirl on -
That's amazing, Cassie! I would love to visit a church like yours someday.
I've have been at my church for almost as long as I can remember. We came when I was three--believe it or not I do have some baby memories of the previous one. You might call it a charismatic evangelical nondenominational megachurch--but I just call it home.
I love it here so much. This is the place I have built a foundation in Scripture, been baptized in water and in the Spirit, been pushed and stretched to be bold in ministry, been dared to believe big and see Stuff happen, been inspired to chase hard after God and just love on him in the secret place... The people at this church have prayed with me, listened to me, walked with me, believed in me, called out the destiny in me that I couldn't see...I could go on. This is my home, my place of freedom and belonging. This is where I have really learned - or begin to learn - how to love God and love people.
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Permalink Reply by Faith Johnson on -
Hi Cassondra. I am blessed to hear your experiences within the Church are so full of blessing.
I know I have written a few things in the other thread you mention, and nothing I have said has been told falsely. My childhood roots in the Church do involve much pain . . . but a large part of that is in connection to my Dad and his spiritual struggles visited on his family. The rest . . . well they are the observations of a very hurt child seeing life through very scarred lenses.
In the other thread I refered to two experiences with God, one where I was full of self pity, and another when I was very deeply hurt and needing to be loved by my Church family. Both of those experiences took place within the same Church body. A wonderful group of people I viewed as closer to me than my actual family. They are a group of people I love deeply to this day. Most of the hurts I received there had to do with me, myself, and I . . . and not so many directly from the people there. For 20 years I loved and served in that body. I learned so many things! I received healing in SO many ways! Together we grew in Christ, and in Christ we witnessed many come to salvation. There were healings, revelations, and reconciliations. I never thought I would be anywhere else. When God told me I had to leave, I fought hard to stay. Six long hours I prayed and bargined and reasoned, and then I submitted. It hurt to leave. It was painful for them to see us go, but they sent us with love and blessings. We have been blessed again and again in the Church God directed us to. I am entering in to deeper healing than I have known, and areas of service that are challenging and full of rejoicing. I thank God frequently for this Church!!
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Permalink Reply by Cassondra on -
CaliGirl:
That's awesome! I am so glad you've had great experiences and have been able to grow closer to God and other people. I also love your label for your church. It may be a charasmatic, etc. But to you it is just home. :)
Faith:
I hope you know that I was not saying what you said was wrong/bad/false. (I mean, it was bad because bad things happened to you, and I'm really sorry for them, but it was not bad of you to tell your experiences.)
I am glad that there are good things to offset the bad, though. People can be evil, but people can also be good. And Christians are just people. Even though God's followers may not be perfect...God is. And people can help us grow closer to God.
I know how hard it is to change churches because God told you to. It took me a month of going to one church on Wednesday and one on Sundays before I finally realized God was really asking me to change churches. But blessings follow when we obey. :)
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Permalink Reply by Faith Johnson on
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Cassondra said:
Faith:
I hope you know that I was not saying what you said was wrong/bad/false. (I mean, it was bad because bad things happened to you, and I'm really sorry for them, but it was not bad of you to tell your experiences.)
I am glad that there are good things to offset the bad, though. People can be evil, but people can also be good. And Christians are just people. Even though God's followers may not be perfect...God is. And people can help us grow closer to God.
I know how hard it is to change churches because God told you to. It took me a month of going to one church on Wednesday and one on Sundays before I finally realized God was really asking me to change churches. But blessings follow when we obey. :)
I did not in any way feel that you were saying that. I'm afraid I'm still learning not to raise my defenses. Sorry.
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Permalink Reply by Cassondra on
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Just making sure we are on the same page! I'm not offended if you're not offended, lol. :)
Faith Johnson said:Cassondra said:
Faith:
I hope you know that I was not saying what you said was wrong/bad/false. (I mean, it was bad because bad things happened to you, and I'm really sorry for them, but it was not bad of you to tell your experiences.)
I am glad that there are good things to offset the bad, though. People can be evil, but people can also be good. And Christians are just people. Even though God's followers may not be perfect...God is. And people can help us grow closer to God.
I know how hard it is to change churches because God told you to. It took me a month of going to one church on Wednesday and one on Sundays before I finally realized God was really asking me to change churches. But blessings follow when we obey. :)
I did not in any way feel that you were saying that. I'm afraid I'm still learning not to raise my defenses. Sorry.
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Permalink Reply by Hammie_Lammie on -
Well, I would consider all my experiences with organized Christ Centered and Holy Spirit filled Christian group, which is a subcategory of organized religion/churches, are very positive.
And I find all organized human based group, non-religious or religious, stinks most of the times but people just have more tolerance toward non-religious group because people feel they are supposed to be able to "trust" the religious ones.
My positive experience is based on people who love God and show His love to me. They kindly accepted who I am. They put up my repulsive ways, especially when i just came to Christ and still smell bad spiritually.
Today I had a wonderful lunch with my pastor, an elder and a couple who joined our church recently. The couple shared how the previous church fell apart because of strong human conflict etc. A few Christians (supposedly more spiritually mature than this hamster here) in that church left it and then stopped going to church altogether. They don't even bother looking for a new church because the pain was too deep. They were disappointed. They did not want to be hurt again. And so on. I agree that people need to let their pain heal. Please do have faith in God. If you ask God to rise up a Spirit-filled and godly church and/or bring you there, He will do it. In the meanwhile, do go to a gathering even just to praise and worship Him because He is worthy of praises and worship. For those of you worship and praise Him through a TV program, if that's what God wants you to do, wonderful. However, it is between you and God. He knows and allows us to heal. But He also knows when we choose to harbor unhealthy bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, etc. Don't say, "Hammie, NO JUDGING! You don't know anything!" Well, I don't know anything. That's true. BUT He knows. And I am not judging you. I am saying this out of sincerity. Being a lone Christian is dangerous. The enemy can get you easily. I want you to be free and being able to trust again. (A typo there... oops)
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Permalink Reply by KC on -
In any church organization that I've been a part of, I have had both good and bad experiences with the people who were members/attenders. I think that when you're part of the ministry team, but not the pastor, it's hard because you see the impact of the decisions that are made but you can't change anything because the pastor is in charge. This is where most of our problems with church started.
I was not saved in church, but it gave me the basis for what a relationship with Christ is. The best experience I had with organized church was when I was in college. My husband and I (who was then my fiance) attended there and got a lot of experience in the music ministry and were mentored by a very godly couple--the man was the Student Minister. I learned so much there, especially through that couple opening their home to us all the time and pouring God into us. But then, that was before we knew about politics and power struggles, etc. What bliss. Heh.
That said, I have always made friends in the churches I've attended. Sometimes it's harder than others. Usually, though, if you need them, they are there for you. Mostly, anyway.
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