Why is there so much hatred between Apostolics?

[ForeverBlessed]

Originally Posted by Raven

LC
About being territorial? Remember one crucial point: The garden is God's garden no matter how much time and effort we put into it. It's when we begin to think of it as our garden and keep a record of all our contributions to it that we stray from God's Grand Plan. But ... I do get your drift.

Raven

I was just getting ready to post something like this... awesome and straight up right.

and I also being raised a P.K. totally understand how LS feels.... but you just can not be territiorial when it is God's to begin with.

[ForeverBlessed]

Originally Posted by The Lemon

Well.......I was talking to a minister friend of mine last week concerning one specific area that is listed in this post - that being "Territorial". First, let me say that in all liklihood, not ALL apostolic church's/leaders are territorial. We need to be careful not to broad brush all apostolics, especially when none of us on here knows every apostolic out there.

That said, I have seen and am aware that there are some leaders and pastors who are very territorial, which is really a symptom of insecurity. Our church's should pull together and help one another win cities to the Lord - pulling talent, calling and ideas to create synergy - sadly, in some cases this does not happen because a pastor feels "threatened". It is truely an elementary attitude.

There is, in some cases, too much emphasis on sheep stealing, etc. I feel, as I have said before many times on this forum, that the root cause of the division is that church has become too much of a business and less a spiritual body of believers. I still don't understand why Paul could hold a trade and plant church's and mentor other ministers, and yet today there is such an emphasis on "Full Time" ministry.

I have been around awhile and heard all the arguments about the necessity of full time ministry - even still, it seems to me, at least in the circle I have been around, that folks have not idea about the principle of "Less is More". Too much burn out going on these days - I wonder who we are serving sometimes....God or our own ambitions??
Sorry for the rant.......I just feel that we should work more toward unity then exclusivity.

Great post...

Who are we serving? own ambitions, approval of others, traditions of church and men, loyalty to heritage and family... people serve many things besides God.

[rgcraig]

Originally Posted by ForeverBlessed

I was just getting ready to post something like this... awesome and straight up right.

and I also being raised a P.K. totally understand how LS feels.... but you just can not be territiorial when it is God's to begin with.

Exactly - - it's called compassion and we should be that way with anyone that needs it - not just "our" people.

[tbpew]

Originally Posted by Raven

LC
About being territorial? Remember one crucial point: The garden is God's garden no matter how much time and effort we put into it. It's when we begin to think of it as our garden and keep a record of all our contributions to it that we stray from God's Grand Plan. But ... I do get your drift.

Raven

Thanks for the contribution.

This point does require a clear determination of "Who is the author and finisher"...aka, the "owner" of the thing.

LS (may actually be Bro CS right?), directs our thinking to a pretty understandable viewpoint where "Territorial" is both reasonable and appropriate concerning something that any one has labored to build.

This is why I think peace could be served if we just start calling our familiar dynamic for assembling --God-themed man clubs.

If the men that set out to establish (supply the founding efforts) these meeting places did not make their club a defacto witness of "God's own church", everything we see (and experience) would be quite reasonable. The way in which we have experienced the traditional "rule by founder/sr. pastor would be consistent with any other club that has a constituency with a founder or a CEO.

It is completely unreasonable to think that the solo founding person who supplied the entrepenuereral energy, that stood alone to establish a God-themed meeting place, should forfiet his buck-stops-here voice and let some emergent mob-rule have governance.

IMO, the entire problem is calling these locations where member-ministers establish a meeting place where God themes are shared and taught --God's church.

[ILG]

Originally Posted by LadyCoonskinner

I was gonna stay out of this, but this one line really "caught" my eye. Because one may be a little more in-tune with the spirit world than others, does NOT, in any form, mean that they are "emotionally unstable"!!!!!!!!! I am more sensitive to "spirits", but that does not mean I am unstable or wierd, or odd. I am just in-tune more with what's going in the spirit.

I pray daily, that God allows me to be more sensitive to Him, and in doing that, I automatically become more aware of what's going on around me, physcially and spiritually. I want to be used to reach people who need a Savior, and in doing that you made aware of what's really going on in their world sometimes. Sometimes, that includes being a little more aware of "the big bad devil" and what he's putting people through, and what they unknowingly allow him to do to them. But, in NO WAY am I suffering from "emotional instability" because I am used in this way.

You know better than that. You were used in this at one time. You were one of the most spiritually sensitive people I had ever met. You loved God and wanted to be used by Him, but just because you were more sensitive to the spirit, whether it Divine or Demonic, didn't make you "emotionally unstable". You were used and blessed by God.

Becareful with the "broad-brushing" here....

Never said that LCS. You are taking my words, twisting them and running with them. I have seen way too many people give way too much attention to the devil. Bottom line: If you give too much attention to the devil, you are going to be emotionally unstable. Give your attention to God and you can't go wrong.

P.S. Are you implying I am no longer used by God and now do not follow or hear the Spirit?

[Rhoni]

Originally Posted by Falla39

1John 4:7-21 NIV:

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.

16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.

18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19 We love because he first loved us.

20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Originally Posted by mfblume

I honestly saw more animosity between apostolics, not all though, than any group I have witnessed before. And I think it is the legalistic strain through many people involved in it. Legalism, as Paul explained, leads to works of the flesh. And hatred is a big work of the flesh. It just goes with legalistic territory. Again, not all apostolics are legalists. But you will find animosity amongst those that are everytime.

Concentrating upon the outward so much is concentration on flesh. And fleshly-mindedness simply goes hand in hand with animosity and works of the flesh. Gal 5 implies that when Paul stated those who get steeped in legalism better watch out that they do not bite and devour one another.

Originally Posted by The Lemon

Well.......I was talking to a minister friend of mine last week concerning one specific area that is listed in this post - that being "Territorial". First, let me say that in all liklihood, not ALL apostolic church's/leaders are territorial. We need to be careful not to broad brush all apostolics, especially when none of us on here knows every apostolic out there.

That said, I have seen and am aware that there are some leaders and pastors who are very territorial, which is really a symptom of insecurity. Our church's should pull together and help one another win cities to the Lord - pulling talent, calling and ideas to create synergy - sadly, in some cases this does not happen because a pastor feels "threatened". It is truely an elementary attitude.

There is, in some cases, too much emphasis on sheep stealing, etc. I feel, as I have said before many times on this forum, that the root cause of the division is that church has become too much of a business and less a spiritual body of believers. I still don't understand why Paul could hold a trade and plant church's and mentor other ministers, and yet today there is such an emphasis on "Full Time" ministry.

I have been around awhile and heard all the arguments about the necessity of full time ministry - even still, it seems to me, at least in the circle I have been around, that folks have not idea about the principle of "Less is More". Too much burn out going on these days - I wonder who we are serving sometimes....God or our own ambitions??

Sorry for the rant.......I just feel that we should work more toward unity then exclusivity.

Sis Falla has spoken about how things SHOULD be, but Bro Blume & Lemon have stated things as they are in REALITY.

The churches around here are often times having trouble, saints traveling church to church, and bad feelings all over the place. If a Pastor would look at the church saints as belonging to God's church then they would not take it personally when people choose to leave and would pray for them, be kind to them, and tell them they have an open door to return if things don't work for them elsewhere.

When Pastors are self-serving - building their own kingdom, it will surely fall! I have seen it many times that a pastor is too proud to make a phone call of reconcilliation or admit he may have made a hasty decision, or ask to agree to disagree but worship together in peace.

I do believe the scripture to bear out that Pastor's have a responsibility to give account and they have a lot of explaining to do about how they treat God's people.

Blessings, Rhoni

[Praxeas]

When our youth went to a mall in an adjacent city to pass out fliers and witness, the pastor of that city chewed our youth leader out.

However the same pastor has no problem with selling cherries in our city, his members doing the same thing in our city and even trying to convince former members of his church now in other Apostoolic churches to leave and come back to his church (despite the fact he kicked them out)

[Apocrypha]

Tribalism is the simple sociological answer... from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism

The other concept to which the word tribalism frequently refers is the possession of a strong cultural or ethnic identity that separates oneself as a member of one group from the members of another. This phenomenon is related to the concept of tribal society in that it is a precondition for members of a tribe to possess a strong feeling of identity for a true tribal society to form. The distinction between these two definitions for tribalism is an important one because, while tribal society no longer strictly exists in the western world, tribalism, by this second definition, is arguably undiminished. People have postulated that the human brain is hard-wired towards tribalism due to its evolutionary advantages. See Tribalism and evolution below.
Many tribes refer to themselves with their language's word for "people," while referring to other, neighboring tribes with various epithets. For example, the term "Inuit" translates as "people," but they were known to the Ojibwe by a name translating roughly as "eaters of raw meat."[citation needed] This fact is often cited as evidence that tribal peoples saw only the members of their own tribe as "people," and denigrated all others as something less. In fact, this is a tenuous conclusion to draw from the evidence. Many languages refined their identification as "the true people," or "the real people," dehumanizing the other people or simply considering them inferior. In this, it is merely evidence of ethnocentrism, a universal cultural characteristic found in all societies.

The simple fact is to maintain "identity" you need to draw sharper lines when a group is closer to you yet has some dis-similar traits that make it apparent they aren't part of your "tribe" or social group... yet they are sooooooooo close. That's why most preachers will wail on other apostolics, baptists, and methodists with the occasional swipe at Roman Catholics... yet i have yet to hear anything about Eastern Orthodox traditions or lesser known groups like coptic christians that have a very unique flavor of Christianity.

Essentially if you define your "tribe" by a set of "taboos" and someone says they are part of your tribe even though they don't observe the exact same rules or "taboos" it causes the tribe to lose cohesion and undermines the tribal leaders since they depend on a set of rewards and punishment (promotion or sitting a saint down for a time for a offense) that conform to the set of taboos and rules. Its very very simple if you break it down from a sociological perspective.

[easter]

The apostolic church family is mild compared to the Baptist.You should sit in a First Baptist church for awhile and it's really not the men.The women think you purposely overlook speaking or you don't say you like the $300.00 dollar dress they have on and you'd think they came straight off of W.W.F

[RevDWW]

Joh 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Joh 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Nuff said!