Pastors are generally leery of people who have a history of moving around. It's usually an indication of spiritual immaturity or a history of not being able to accept pastoral leadership.
My goodness! I thought you were just joking when I initially read this. Are you seriously talking about being the member of four of five churches at once??
As a 'mature' christian, I thought you would know that a pastor has every right to expect commitment from his members. It would be impossible to commit, hopping around from church to church. Might be fun for you, but you don't add anything of value to a body of believers. Somebody has to be faithful with their presence, finances, etc, or else the place would close down.
Feather Pillow Tickled-Ear Fellowship of the Wishy-Washy.
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I am not a member here -Do not PM me please?
I have a question and I am being sincere when I ask it (I can visualize some of you rolling your eyes when you read it)...
Assumptions:
1. A person is mature in the Lord and NOT a babe in Christ.
2. The person is not disgruntled with anyone or anything taught
Question:
Why does a person HAVE TO find ONE assembly and stay put? If there were (let's say for the sake of argument) 5 UPC churches in your area, why can't you go to one of those churches each week in a around robin manner? I'm from a district where I know most of the long-timers in every church. We are all Bros and Sis in the Lord and are basically receiving the same doctrinal teachings.
Are there any scriptures to indicate that I shouldn't?
Why are people called "church hoppers", etc if they do visit other areas regularily?
Several reasons:
1. If everyone was like a roaming Pentecostal in question where would they go since everyone would be roaming and no place to roam to.
2. Everyone needs a pastor to know the estate of their souls-to visit them in sickness-marry their young-and bury them.
3. A saint needs stability in their spiritual lives instead of being a gypsie.
4. A family needs a home church to plant their roots.
5. Look at folks who jump from job to job the instability of their lives.
6. It is Biblical.
Several reasons:
1. If everyone was like a roaming Pentecostal in question where would they go since everyone would be roaming and no place to roam to.
2. Everyone needs a pastor to know the estate of their souls-to visit them in sickness-marry their young-and bury them.
3. A saint needs stability in their spiritual lives instead of being a gypsie.
4. A family needs a home church to plant their roots.
5. Look at folks who jump from job to job the instability of their lives. 6. It is Biblical.
Cool... are the scriptures to follow in your next post?
Why does everyone need to be the same or be labeled immature and unstable? Some people thrive under a consistent, structured environment. Others wither.
Several reasons:
1. If everyone was like a roaming Pentecostal in question where would they go since everyone would be roaming and no place to roam to.
Those folks would be a lot like their Lord and Master. Foxes have dens but the son of man has no place.....
2. Everyone needs a pastor to know the estate of their souls-to visit them in sickness-marry their young-and bury them.
Please expand on:
a. how a pastor knows the ESTATE of my soul!
b. What is the estate of any man's soul.
3. A saint needs stability in their spiritual lives instead of being a gypsie.
4. A family needs a home church to plant their roots.
Roots are a direct representation of
a. permenance
b. life-source anchors
Is this what God intended for his own body? The source would be the local fellowship/assembly? Steve, is the local pastor God's ordained representative of our Lord Jesus Christ?
5. Look at folks who jump from job to job the instability of their lives.
If the Kingdom of God was about a buildings I would AMEN No.5, but the Kingdom of God is about a BODY.
Reminds me of that song....ring around the Rosie, a pocket full of posies....
EWWW
Quote:
A popular interpretation[3] alleges that the rhyme is connected with the Great Plague of London in 1665, or perhaps earlier outbreaks of bubonic plague in England.[4] All available evidence and research suggests Ring a Ring O'Roses was not linked to the plague until the 20th century.[5] Regardless, this interpretation has entered into popular culture and is often used to reference the plague obliquely.[6]
This purported plague link seems to originate with the movement for finding origins of folk-songs, which was popular in the early 20th century.[7] For example, according to the common forms of the plague interpretation, the 'falling down' has always involved dropping to the ground as the rhyme is recited, evoking the death from the plague. This conjecture has evolved into a complex explanation suggesting possible plague interpretations for every line. For other attempts to attribute 'hidden meaning' to other such rhymes see Sing a Song of Sixpence, Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, and Cock Robin.
According to this interpretation, the first line evokes the round red rash that would break out on the skin of plague victims. The second line's "pocket full of posies" would have been a pocket in the garment of a victim filled with something fragrant, such as flowers that aimed to conceal the smell from the sores and the dying people. A second creative explanation for this line is that it referred to the purported belief that fresh-smelling flowers, nosegays, and pomanders would purify the air around them thus warding off disease, or that they would invoke sneezing, the idea being that sneezing helps to prevent contraction of the disease. A third possibility includes the idea that "posies" are derived from an Old English word for pus, in which case the pocket would be referring to the swelling sore. "Ashes, ashes" would refer to when people alive and dead were gathered up into piles and lit on fire in a belief that burning the diseased bodies would not allow the disease to spread. Several alternate endings to the song exist, one being: "atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down," interpreted as invoking the sneezing before "we all fall down," the eventual succumbing to death.
European and 19th century versions of the rhyme suggest that this 'fall' was not a literal falling down, but a curtsy or other form of bending movement that was common in other dramatic singing games.[8] Moreover, due to the wide variety of versions sharing the same dance and the same tune, the Opies and many scholars since conclude that the tune and the dance-game form the core of 'Ring a Ring O'Roses', rather than the words which are popular today. Before 1898 there appeared to be no English-language standardisation of the words, and Lady Gomme[9] collected 12 versions of the game, only one of which is similar to the ones that are conjecturally linked to the plague.
The plague interpretation is generally considered to be a recent innovation.[10] It is first cited in 1951 by Peter and Iona Opie.[11] It thus forms an important reference for 20th and 21st century culture, but has never been authentically linked to any early version of the rhyme. In this sense, the origin of the Ring a Ring O'Roses is likely to be unrelated to the plague.
My goodness! I thought you were just joking when I initially read this. Are you seriously talking about being the member of four of five churches at once??
As a 'mature' christian, I thought you would know that a pastor has every right to expect commitment from his members. It would be impossible to commit, hopping around from church to church. Might be fun for you, but you don't add anything of value to a body of believers. Somebody has to be faithful with their presence, finances, etc, or else the place would close down.
Sometimes you have to look at the way things are and what's being done and look at the reasons for the way things are and the way things are done.
I find a problem with people making assumptions that the way things are the way they are supposed to be and NOT questioning and understanding why they do what they do.
Are you making assumptions? Are you basing your reaction on what you've been taught? Were you taught it from scripture? Have you studied scripture in this area?
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------------- It's ALL good!!!
James 2
12 So whenever you speak, or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law of love, the law that set you free. 13 For there will be no mercy for you if you have not been merciful to others. But if you have been merciful, then God's mercy toward you will win out over his judgment against you.
Just wanted to say thanks you guys for ALL your posts. I appreciate every one of them and am reading them all although I haven't posted responses to all of them.
I'm glad that not everyone agrees and there are repsonses from all sides of the matter.
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------------- It's ALL good!!!
James 2
12 So whenever you speak, or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law of love, the law that set you free. 13 For there will be no mercy for you if you have not been merciful to others. But if you have been merciful, then God's mercy toward you will win out over his judgment against you.
It's ALL good!!!
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