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06-19-2011, 10:58 PM
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Administrator
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 16,840
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My Experience Changing Churches
I am not a church jumper. Until a couple of years ago I had only attended two churches in the last 26 years.
Because we moved about 45 minutes from our Nashville church a few years ago it became too hard on my wife after her back surgery to travel that far then sit for several hours.
About a year ago we found a new church home in our town outside of Nashville. It is a church of about 300-400 that is growing and doing great things. It was a church plant from nothing that met in a roller skating rink the first few years and now has prime property in a great part of town and a nice four year old sanctuary.
The pastor is a great man who thinks so much like I do it is scary. Doctrinally and pretty much anything else I have heard him speak about we are in lockstep. Everything has been great at our new church home.
The only problem is that a few months after we made this our church home our daughter who married a Church of Christ man and was attending a progressive Baptist church started attending with her husband a new (2 year old) work begun by the former Youth Pastor of the UPC church in our town.
Without going into a long history of the situation I can tell you I was very pleased that her and her husband were attending a Spirit filled church. Not only did they make this their church home but have gotten very active in the church with my daughter ministering as one of the praise and worship singers. Last fall my daughter felt she wanted to be rebaptized which she did and around that same time she spoke in tongues I believe for the first time.
Of course we were thrilled with the idea of our daughter using her musical talent in church, which up to now has been used in a secular fashion. We have gone to our churches early service a few times then over to her church when they have had something special. We love her pastor and are impressed with this young church plant.
In just over two years this pastor has grown this church into about 150 people between the two Sunday services. It has a big outreach into the College community here and also people who would typically be considered unchurched. Because of that demographic there are not a lot of older established tithe payers supporting the church (although there is one NASA engineer).
While I typically don't care for attending small churches we really like this church and the pastor and what it has done for our family. I have been struggling with several months with whether or not my wife and I should plug into this church and help out. This has been difficult because of my love for our church and pastor.
Finally this last Sunday without telling my wife what I was going to do I went up to my pastor after service and told him what my internal struggle was. He knew about our daughter and knows and likes her young pastor. I am not a weatlhy man but I have a good enough job that my tithe is significant for most churches including my growing one. I told him I had prayed about this situation and did not have a clear direction yet, that I loved him and our church.
I had dreaded this conversation because in my religious background rarely if ever did a pastor think it was the will of a tithe payer to leave. Especially just to go to another church in the same town. However my pastor lived up to my high opinion of him by telling us "Why don't you take six months or so and go to your daughters church. Tell the pastor you are not making a long term committment yet but want to help out for these months and see how things go". He went on to say that he knows that church was a young church that needed elders and established people and it might well be the place God wants me to be, that doing what he suggested would let my wife and myself discover if that was the case, and that if it was we had his blessing and he would always be there for us.
I can't express what a relief and blessing it was for my pastor to handle this situation like he has. It made me love and respect him that much more.
__________________
"I think some people love spiritual bondage just the way some people love physical bondage. It makes them feel secure. In the end though it is not healthy for the one who is lost over it or the one who is lives under the oppression even if by their own choice"
Titus2woman on AFF
"We did not wear uniforms. The lady workers dressed in the current fashions of the day, ...silks...satins...jewels or whatever they happened to possess. They were very smartly turned out, so that they made an impressive appearance on the streets where a large part of our work was conducted in the early years.
"It was not until long after, when former Holiness preachers had become part of us, that strict plainness of dress began to be taught.
"Although Entire Sanctification was preached at the beginning of the Movement, it was from a Wesleyan viewpoint, and had in it very little of the later Holiness Movement characteristics. Nothing was ever said about apparel, for everyone was so taken up with the Lord that mode of dress seemingly never occurred to any of us."
Quote from Ethel Goss (widow of 1st UPC Gen Supt. Howard Goss) book "The Winds of God"
Last edited by CC1; 06-20-2011 at 11:29 PM.
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06-19-2011, 11:36 PM
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Registered Member
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Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 3,711
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Re: My Experience Changing Churches
great story. question, was your daughter baptized twice in jesus name or once in the titles then in jesus name?
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06-19-2011, 11:49 PM
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Supercalifragilisticexpiali...
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 19,197
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Re: My Experience Changing Churches
Wow. That is an interesting story. Please keep us updated!
__________________
"It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity." Dave Barry 2005
I am a firm believer in the Old Paths
Articles on such subjects as "The New Birth," will be accepted, whether they teach that the new birth takes place before baptism in water and Spirit, or that the new birth consists of baptism of water and Spirit. - THE PENTECOSTAL HERALD Dec. 1945
"It is doubtful if any Trinitarian Pentecostals have ever professed to believe in three gods, and Oneness Pentecostals should not claim that they do." - Daniel Segraves
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06-20-2011, 05:18 AM
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Registered Member
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,664
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Re: My Experience Changing Churches
alot of people from tennessee on these forums.
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06-20-2011, 06:03 AM
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Forever Loved Admin
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Texas
Posts: 26,537
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Re: My Experience Changing Churches
Seems like a good thing for all, CC1. And it's so nice to hear good things about pastor's!!!!!!
__________________
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 KJV
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Micah 6:8 KJV
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3:2 KJV
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06-20-2011, 07:09 AM
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Registered Member
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 11,467
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Re: My Experience Changing Churches
What is amazing is that you were so amazed that your pastor handled this graciously. It should not be so.....but I know it is.
__________________
Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. ~Chinese Proverb
When I was young and clever, I wanted to change the world. Now that I am older and wiser, I strive to change myself. ~
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06-20-2011, 07:12 AM
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Forever Loved Admin
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Texas
Posts: 26,537
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Re: My Experience Changing Churches
Quote:
Originally Posted by ILG
What is amazing is that you were so amazed that your pastor handled this graciously. It should not be so.....but I know it is.
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__________________
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 KJV
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Micah 6:8 KJV
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3:2 KJV
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06-20-2011, 07:24 AM
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Christmas 2009
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Jackson, TN
Posts: 9,788
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Re: My Experience Changing Churches
That is a wonderful testimony to this pastor!! That's the church that Zac has been attending when he's in M'boro. He told me that he's going to go there when he gets back this year. He has never tried the one your daughter attends, but I would like him to.
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06-20-2011, 07:24 AM
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I believe
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: USA
Posts: 441
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Re: My Experience Changing Churches
I admire the maturity shown for both you all and your Pastor. Kudos!!!
__________________
"Enjoying Jesus and all His Joys" 
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06-20-2011, 07:27 AM
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Registered Member
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 4,184
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Re: My Experience Changing Churches
I know of one pastor that when a person felt it was the will of Jesus to start a work in one of the neighboring community would ask the congregation who felt to help there. Sometimes fifty or more people would begin to work the work in the new area and help establish it. That is awesome.
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