I will go on record for saying, I hate casseroles!
I think they were thought up and made by Yankee troops and served to the Confederate prisoners of war to poison them after they made them recant from being so emotional in thier prayers and praise unto God and for attending worship services in buildings made by men and calling it a CHURCH!
If the only "Communion" you've participated in had a "wafer" and timble of "wine" (or grape juice), you've not truly partaken in the Lord's Supper. You've only participated in the Catholic Eucharist.
Well. Here is my thing... I like the Black Church. I mean git down, shoutin' in the aisles, Hammond Organ blaring, Screaming, Jerking, Running, Doing the Holy Dance and then falling out in the floor while the Church Nurse fans you! I love to watch it and enjoy the joy when God's Oppressed People begin to rejoice and many of them not knowing if they will have fare to get home!
I like it 100 MPH +. I like a preacher who can WHOOP! I LOVE TD JAKES, Noel Jones, Marvin Winans and the great black preachers of today.
I can't help it. My Pastor was Bishop G. E. Patterson and I grew up under great black preachers in the Church of God in Christ and I still love it today.
There is nothing in this world like going to an inner city Black Church and hearing them sing the Praises of God and hearing them testify of how God made a way one more time!
I absolutely love it! I guess that is why I am a White Bishop in the Black Church!
When asked what their daddy did for a living - My kids would always say - He is a Black Bishop! ROFL!!!!!!!!!
That explains alot.
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Today pull up the little weeds,
The sinful thoughts subdue,
Or they will take the reins themselves
And someday master you. --Anon.
The most deadly sins do not leap upon us, they creep up on us.
We've seen theology reformed through the Reformation and various "revivals". Each time a powerful truth of Scripture that had been burried by generations of tradition was rediscovered, the traditional establishment recoiled from it.
How do we know that God isn't opening up understandings throughout America to bring us back to the spiritual family God intended the church to be? I mean, most run it like a business. God obviously sees it as a spiritual entity, an intimate body, a spiritual family.
We want a revival that will draw America closer to Christ.... I honestly feel in my heart that the revival we're praying for comes without walls.
I will go on record for saying, I hate casseroles!
I think they were thought up and made by Yankee troops and served to the Confederate prisoners of war to poison them after they made them recant from being so emotional in thier prayers and praise unto God and for attending worship services in buildings made by men and calling it a CHURCH!
Well fine then, you hate yankee casseroles.
But it appears from your comments that you also hate country people who wear flannel shirts or Hawaiian shirts, white suburban houses, people who cannot afford a Bishop, and yankees who make casseroles for confederates (and possibly the confederates that eat them?). I bet you refuse to pray inside your house because you're afraid that the house church spirit might swoop in!
That's where participative meetings are important. If a leader teaches something weird... the entire group has a say and can freely walk away. The house churches I've visited were relatively "Baptist" with a charismatic flare. If one started teaching something weird... they'd be corrected, the group might laugh, and if continued... they'd be politely asked not to return.
That's cool. As long as the teachees know how to recognize weird stuff.
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Hebrews 13:23 Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty
Acts 28:30-31 (New King James Version)
30 Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, 31Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
I Corinthians 14:26-38 (New King James Version)
26 How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. 28 But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. 30 But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged. 32 And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. 33 For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.
34 Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. 35 And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.
36 Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? 37 If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. 38 But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.
The above clearly illustrates the "Apostolic" pattern of church gatherings.
That's cool. As long as the teachees know how to recognize weird stuff.
In the house churches I'm familiar with you are never asked to leave your brain at home. lol
Even a degree of opinion is allowed. It's not like the elders tell you exactly what you should believe. In most, I've seen some who believed in the gifts of the Spirit and others who didn't. But the spiritually gifted still operated in the gifts, often to the astonishment of those who didn't believe in them. lol
Well, since I was spoken to harshly (I'm not over it yet) in another thread concerning some fella starting his own 'church', I gotta be careful.
I have a simple question. How clueless must a christian be to walk into a building and really believe it's a 'house of God' or a 'church'?
Thank you Seekerman for bringing this to our attention that for all these years Christians have called buildings - THE CHURCH! Because of this incredible REVELATION - we now see that the building is not actually THE CHURCH or THE HOUSE OF GOD! WOW! INCREDIBLE!
I preached in a uhhhh building in Florida and it was called - The House of God! I even preached in some called The Church of God!
I am so sure that all those poor deceived people really thought that GOD lived in those building and that they building was the place of Almighty God's abode!
I have even heard people refer to the building where a man was the pastor in and they said - "Brother Jones Church"! Can you believe that???????
Well, I am sure that most everyone in this forum has been in such darkness as to think that ALMIGHTY GOD lived in a structure made by men!
Thank you for this great REVELATION and now we will all know that the Church of GOD and the House of God or the Assembly of God is NOT TRUE and they all need to be straightened out and taught the GREAT REVELATION that - The People of GOD are the actual CHURCH OF GOD!
INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let us all heed the warning and NEVER say - Brother Jones church or the Church of God or the United Pentecostal CHURCH or maybe we should not even use the word Church but Ecclesia and go back to Hebrew and Greek and all learn that because as you know - Hebrew will be the language spoken in heaven!
Oh....Heaven... now thats ANOTHER subject!