Do "OPs" Really Have More Power than other Christians?

[Hoovie]

Originally Posted by crakjak

Having been around OP's for over fifty years and now having been fellowshipping with many other Christians. I have observed an interesting phenomenon, that those who embrace the Word and declare Jesus Lord, I don't see any significance difference in the results in their lives.

Healing> no difference.
Changed lives, other than outward appearances> no difference.
Love of God> no difference
Love for the Word of God> maybe stronger among non OP's.
Love of each other> no difference.

So is the proclaimed "greater power" in the lives of OP's just believing their own press, or is there real difference? After fifty+ years I say the Word in folks lives makes the difference not the OP's doctrine.

Originally Posted by pelathais

Several years ago the Barna group (I think it was Barna) put out a study showing that statistically "the church" (Evangelical Christianity) was no different than the world. The divorce rates and teen pregnancy rates, everything charted out to be pretty much the same.

At that time I went through and compiled stats for the church I served. To my shock and hurt, we were in fact way ahead of "the world." Some of the stats were subjective. For example if a couple backslides and then divorces are they part of the church? To evaluate our ministry I counted every couple that had been members of the church over a period of 10 years. If they "backslid" I still counted them because they were still a part of us. We influenced their lives. Did we make a difference?

It's pretty sad. But if one goal of the church was to save families we failed miserably. In fact, there were cases where we were part of the problem. And before people pile on with a bunch of anti-UPC or anti-Apostolic posts here; the same criticism can be leveled at every other church organization in North America. Apostolics were no different than the fundamentalist Baptists who were no different than the liberal Baptists.

But that was crakjak's point, I guess.

CJ and Plethora - This is something I have thought much about and have never found satisfactory answers.