Badge of Honor? Trash talking other churches
 

My friend recently left his very conservative church to attend mine. He has been told for years how bad it is at my church. He has been told we don't have the Spirit and we are backslidden.

His pastor has said things like, you'd be better off backsliding than to go there or you might as well pitch a tent in sodom.

But he has been to my church and he knows the Spirit moves here. In fact it DOESN'T move like that in his former church. His words are, it's like campmeeting every day here

So, he runs into this Pentecostal lady in a nearby city and informs her he now goes to my church. She got disgusted and walked away. He has hjad conversations with her before (she is on his route) and she has warned him against going to my church. She goes to a different church than his former church but they are all x UPCs and mine still is UPC.

This isn't isolated. I have heard from others that go to his former church the were taught that from the Pastor over the pulpit.

Is this common in UC churches?

What are these churches saying about other churches? What are they being told by their pastors?

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Re: Badge of Honor? Trash talking other churches
 

Does the pastor trash other churches from the pulpit? BTW u sure they are still UPCI?

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So then, most people are saved, right? Otherwise, Satan would be more powerful than Jesus, if 'most' people wound up lost... right?

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Our closest UPCI churches do not fellowship each other at all.

The pastor from the bigger church calls the smaller church weak and says mean things about the pastor over the pulpit... members buy the tapes for the purpose of giving them to family who attend the smaller church who then give them to the pastor... He is a sweet and sensitive man and I know it has to really hurt his feelings. These are not young men... the pastor of the big church is in his late 70s and the other pastor is 60ish and grew up with the older pastors kids who are all preachers.

The kids from the smaller church can not even go to school at the bigger church because they are constantly pressured to 'come to a good church'... The whole thing had the net effect of totally disgusting me.

Biggest difference in standards... the pastor from the small church allows wedding rings and hair bows... everything else is the same.

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Re: Badge of Honor? Trash talking other churches
 

What does this "younger" pastor expect? Any man that would allow women to wear wedding rings and hair bows should expect to be osctracized!!! (my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek. No wonder why a lot of people consider old time Pentecost cultic)

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Hmm, sounds similar to things I've heard years ago about the church I'm now part of. "They're loose as a goose and don't have holiness standards." Etc, etc when in fact the retired pastor and his wife are far more genuine and whole than the very people I heard make those comments.

Are all UCs like that? No. And it's those who can keep their opinions to themselves that I have more respect for.

Oh, the drama!

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Are you kidding me??? Ha! Sounds like we were part of the same section at one time.

What a joke and poor excuse of a "Christian" they are!

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There are a few that I have heard spoken of in this fashion, however, facts were verified first rather than just taking one or two people's word for the situation. There are those that I will happily call loose, but I am actually speaking from personal knowledge and not hearsay. However, I still love and am friendly with the people that I see from those churches, and I do not talk of them constantly (why should I when there are much better things to do with my mouth...like eat).

My youngest brother and I do not agree on certain standards even if we agree on the principles. However, we both love and enjoy being around one another, and in general will refrain from antagonizing one another (although there has been...'intense fellowship' on occasion).

The whole issue revolves around treating people with respect, whether or not we actually respect that person.

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Sad

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I think someone here once said UCs are those churches that have these attitudes and others are just conservative

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Sometimes I think that many of the "fellowships" are the worst enemies to the cause of Christ.

P.S. Perhaps money is at the root of the trashing rather than looser standards.

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So does this happen in you church? Does your Pastor talk about other churches from the pulpit?

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The exclusive attitudes are so hurtful and harmful as they keep brothers and sisters in Christ from fellowshipping one another, possibly meeting a future best friend or spouse. The division in the church over differing "standards" among OPs must be grievous to the heart of God.

I spent my young adulthood in an UC, OP church that was independent and then in and out of the UPC, and is now does not exist anymore. I wonder if many of our young people would have fared much better if we had not insisted that most other OP churches that we knew were unacceptable for fellowshipping because of differences of standards, expressiveness of worship, and other things. Many of them left the church altogether as the standards and exclusion from others was impossible to continue.

Along with the awesome memories of many good things and many great moves of God we had at this time, I have heavy regrets about the attitude towards other Christians that I embraced back then.

Re: Badge of Honor? Trash talking other churches
 

I have heard him occasionally reference churches in his preaching, but that is generally from the time that he was growing up, and he does not comment on their standards or lack thereof. In private, we have discussed churches and pastors, but even then he generally keeps such conversations to a minimal. We are not big on bashing as it does no good and only plants bitterness within the heart. We acknowledge and then move on.

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My church is UPC and thank God my pastor does not bash other pastors and churches.

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i have heard some stories of such. back when i attended a upci, one of my mentors was not attending a upci church but was a liscensed preacher with them. He did attend a ultra holy apostolic church.

I eventually had to brake away from him cause, he was so over board on standards that it became foolishness to me, practically everything was labeled pagan. no wedding rings, i believe plain watches with the leather? Not for sure, But many of the concepts was just to over board. It became a do and dont religion.

So i can see why this can cause a issue even with other apostolic churches in the area.

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I think it must be common in all churches cause there is a more liberal church in my area and I have heard from their people that are church is legalistic and controlling and that is far from the truth...so if I were you I would just let it go in one ear and out the other...

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So you heard that churches pastor preaches from the pulpit that other churches nearby are legalistic and controlling and the are all backsliden? Really?

BTW if you read through this thread you'd see it's not all that common and we distinguished between churches that are Conservative with strict beliefs and don't preach that from the pulpit and churches that are the same but do the talking from the pulpit as Ultra Con.

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Why do I need to read through the thread i was just responding to your thread And just giving you some good advise.

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Because your comment has to do with something I said, that you took out of context after I explained, on another thread

And as it turned out, I was right. That person did NOT want to go to that kind of church. It wasn't for her, she comes from a more moderate church.

If you like that kind of church, that's fine. Seriously.

But I never said Pastor Morton was a control freak. I used my words referring to how conservative it was and how they even were against Internet at least for the youth. You can argue against that if you want but there was another witness that confirmed it.

You need to forgive and move on Bro. This thread is about whether or not that stuff goes on in other churches and instead you dragged up an older topic where you argued with me.

Have you been in churches where other local churches or maybe even not so local churches were talked about from the pulpit?

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Actually I forgot about that thread....

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Not called by name but implied strongly ... I know we and our church in general is considered "liberal" by others in the same org.

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Church I got started in (in South MS) has several 'daughter works' via split. One such work has a whopping 35 people. If any members of that church attend my old church they are disfellowshipped. It's really sad. Jones County, MS is about to blow if anyone catches ahold of what God is trying to do there. Even had a book about it, Verban Bean's 'The Battlefield'.

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I've heard references to other churches, "down the street" per se, but these types of criticisms were generally reserved for non-UPCI churches when heard from the pulpit.

When I lived in NC and I had decided I was coming to Orlando, I was told by "everyone" in my NC church to attend a specific church in the area because the other churches had serious "issues" and "strange things" going on that didn't appear to be of God.

The Pastor's wife in NC told me straight, "none of the churches in {Orlando or Florida, I just can't remember} are where they need to be." She even used the word "backslidden" and "they don't preach the whole truth" to describe them.


I do miss Jacksonville, NC though-- or at least my times there, the good and the bad. There was a young Pastor up the road in Newport, NC that I liked so much too.

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There have been soft name calling, what I call it, over the pulpit. Though no names are stated, we know exactly who they are talking about.

The most recent one, without naming names, was a fairly larger church in my area that had gone to some extreme measures to take up offerings. To the point of literally having their ushers lock the doors so no one can leave until they met their target. Needless to say, our daughter work and other surrounding churches got called names because people who left that church after that incident decided to return to some upc churches.

The two pastors I sat under most of of my church-going life were such kind, honorable men, that it wouldn't have occurred to them to speak such things from the pulpit. One of those pastors is the one Dagwood is referring to, and in spite of receiving criticism at times, he was not one to stoop to that level.

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The AOG church we belong to is very Spirit filled and the Holy Ghost falls all the time, so other AOG churches have warned people about coming to our church. Oh well more room for me to run the isles!

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People run the aisles in the AG?

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Lol, I'm sittin' here thinking the same thing.

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Sure they do.

If the Spirit falls on them, why wouldn't they have the same effect on people as in OP churches?

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Just never seen it before. Haven't heard of it either.

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Have you ever attended any AoG church services?

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Wow

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Lol, yeah but most I'm familiar with dont but you don't have to run isles to be pentecostal

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Do you actually think it is the same Holy Ghost in an AG church as in an OP church?

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AOg are Pentecostal. We just had the our youth camp and many of the youth got filled with the Spirit. After we left UPC that was what attracted us to the AOG was the move of the Spirit. I will say this many of the churches have forgotten they are Pentecostal, that is why I love our church, we have not forgotten our roots.

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Myunderstanding Its only one Holy Ghost.

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When I was a teenager back in the '70's I attended High School with three or four teenagers from another UPC church a few miles out of town from my UPC church.

Their pastor was very conservative, a graduate of ABI, and made it clear to his saints that my church was not right. Primarily because my pastor used hair spray and wore flared bottom pants (that was the style circa 1975).

A few years later while I was away at Bible College their pastor ran off with the young daughter of one of the elders in his church. Naturally he kept right on preaching and within a short time was pastoring an independent Pentecostal / Charismatic church in another state. At least he has remained married to the girl he ran off with for the last 30 years or so!