Have you been saved?

[Kulindahr]

Some years back, if you lived anywhere near a college campus you could just about count on being visited by students from Campus Crusade for Christ.

 

[LeicsDom]

This tends to keep them from my door!

 

[borg69unimatrix]

This tends to keep them from my door!

 

[peeonme]

It must be a regional thing. What activities are they doing in your area to be busy raising money?

The ones I have been familiar with, both Fundamentalist and Mainline and Catholics, spend considerable time and energies teaching the Word, feeding people via food banks, sponsoring homeless shelters, sending teams to clean up after hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes, sponsoring medical missionaries, providing after-school enrichment and recreation programs for children, hosting intramural sports for young people, and visiting those in jails and nursing homes.

I've never actually been asked to donate money to a church that I wasn't a member of, except via some event like a spaghetti dinner or car wash. In my neighborhood, I'm often asked to support a bake sale at the local grocery for some local school sports team, and I'm always pleased to see such community spirit, even though I never had a good experience with sports in my youth.

Christianity is so diverse, I find it difficult to think of any collective behavior of "the church" as representative of all of them.

In context the Church that I was referring to is the group known as fundamentalists, a group that I signed out of some time ago. I believe that I am familiar with people of this ilk, money was the dominate theme.

I can't tell you how often the sermon was about 'pay your tithes', I heard little about feeding the poor.

Much of the fund raising was to build a bigger church building, it would seem that the reasoning was that if a building with a capacity for 200 people is only 2/3 full on Sunday then if we build one with a capacity for 400 we will have 300 people. My thought was why not work to make the building that we have crowded, then worry about a bigger building.

So, once again I hope it is clear that I was not making an accusation against all churches or the universal church, but the church that I made reference to in the first sentence, the fundamentalists.

As for what activities, car washes, selling baked goods, rummage sales... things of this nature, the scripture does not say, 'come out from amongst them, be separate... but sell them stuff.'

If a person who professes Christ makes contact with one who does not, what should he do? Share Christ? or sell them something?

 

[Kulindahr]

As for what activities, car washes, selling baked goods, rummage sales... things of this nature, the scripture does not say, 'come out from amongst them, be separate... but sell them stuff.'

If a person who professes Christ makes contact with one who does not, what should he do? Share Christ? or sell them something?

I don't think the point was that Christians are to have an entirely separate economy.

 

[peeonme]

I don't think the point was that Christians are to have an entirely separate economy.

In my opinion, a church should function as a family, living within their means.
Those who attend or are members should support the church voluntarily, not by constraint or guilt trips.

Christians as individuals must work and function in the world that they exist in, earning money and paying their bills, also supporting the church.

I always found it rather odd to blast the sinners every week and then have a rummage sale to make money off of them, if a church is always looking for a way to make a buck perhaps they need to look at how they are spending the money that is being put in the plate each week.

 

[suckpoppet]

Had them at my door last week. I told them I was being a good Catholic person (I really am), staying out of trouble etc.
Of course she wanted to give me stuff to read and I said that would be pointless as I would throw it away immediately.
She agreed and we ended the conversation in a very friendly manner.

 

[Kulindahr]

Had them at my door last week. I told them I was being a good Catholic person (I really am), staying out of trouble etc.
Of course she wanted to give me stuff to read and I said that would be pointless as I would throw it away immediately.
She agreed and we ended the conversation in a very friendly manner.

I wonder what reaction you'd get if you told them, "Just a minute -- I have to go ask Jesus if it's okay to talk to you".

 

[Alistair]

I always answer the door politely and tell them I'll invite them in and listen about their religion but when they were done they had to sit equally and listen to me tell them about mine. They always say have a nice, and walk away. It works pretty good.

 

[Kyanimal]

"Religion" is a HUGE Business, also involving Political and Social influence. It's more about "Power", and Money, than it is generally about the ACTUAL Message.

I was raised "behind the altar", as a Preacher's Kid, and got to see the workings of the "practical" side of The Church.

My Dad's "specialty" was healing divided congregations, and also raising money/donations for building expansion/renovation, and raising support for local community, and missionary, funding.

Social/PUBLIC appearance was a Central consideration in supporting those efforts.

Being raised in a small spot light was not always pleasurable.

That said ... Doing "Good" does not preclude doing "Well".

In order to Effectively "Spread THE WORD", access to some serious Cash is a BIG Consideration (as Deplorable as that might seem).

In any case ... and No Matter What ...

Keep Smilin'!!
Chaz

 

[Kulindahr]

"Religion" is a HUGE Business, also involving Political and Social influence. It's more about "Power", and Money, than it is generally about the ACTUAL Message.

I was raised "behind the altar", as a Preacher's Kid, and got to see the workings of the "practical" side of The Church.

My Dad's "specialty" was healing divided congregations, and also raising money/donations for building expansion/renovation, and raising support for local community, and missionary, funding.

Social/PUBLIC appearance was a Central consideration in supporting those efforts.

Being raised in a small spot light was not always pleasurable.

That said ... Doing "Good" does not preclude doing "Well".

In order to Effectively "Spread THE WORD", access to some serious Cash is a BIG Consideration (as Deplorable as that might seem).

In any case ... and No Matter What ...

Keep Smilin'!!
Chaz

I met a church group when I was down in Baja, who had a church budget divided equally between "running our church" and "helping others". They had three sixteen-foot cargo trailers stuffed with stuff for the poor in a specific town, which came out of the "helping others" half, while all the evangelical literature and Bibles they'd brought in Spanish were paid for out of the "running the church" portion. A lot of churches I've known would have considered the literature and Bibles as "helping others", but these folks didn't define it by looking at what they thought, but according to what they figured other people would see. They didn't even take travel cost out of the "helping people" fund; all the transportation and lodging and everything for the trip (they did it every two or three years) came from (can you guess?) bake sales and rummage sales and -- the largest single portion of the funding -- the high school and middle school youth group auctioning themselves off as "slaves".

 

[Kyanimal]

^ My thoughts about High School, and even Middle School, "slaves", should never be put into civilized words!

However, the ability to do Anything, whether for "Good", or "Bad", takes practical Funding, and effective Influence!

It's kind of the "Underside" of what "The Church" is SUPPOSED to be!

 

[bankside]

I wondered if anyone would bite.

I'll bet you did...

 

[Kulindahr]

^ My thoughts about High School, and even Middle School, "slaves", should never be put into civilized words!

Heh.

One kid told me he'd earned a huge pile for the trip -- a guy "bought" him, and the work was mowing a two-acre lawn, with one of these:

 

[borg69unimatrix]

I could never push those damn things fast enough to get the blades to spin freely enough to cut grass.

 

[unloadonme]

If someone approaches me in the street about religion, I say I'm not interested and just keep walking. The trick is never to actually stop. Same goes for Chuggers.

If they come to my home, I ask them politely to leave once and close the door. I don't engage them in conversation and I don't accept any "literature". I'd never dream of inviting them in. My late father, who was also an atheist, would engage any God Botherers who knocked on his front door in debate for as long as possible on the basis that he was doing his neighbours further up the street a favour.

 

[peeonme]

Heh.

One kid told me he'd earned a huge pile for the trip -- a guy "bought" him, and the work was mowing a two-acre lawn, with one of these:

I just got rid of mine this year and switched over to battery powered. As a boy I spent hours pushing one of those, good exercise.
The group that you met in Baja sounds committed and sincere, very open and honest.
If I had seen bake sales and rummage sales taking place for such a cause as reaching out to the poor and sharing the good news I would not have any thing to bitch about.

 

[SaskGuy]

I find it hard to be rude to people like that, even on the phone with con artists posing as my bank trying to sell me fake life insurance, or some clown who basically invited himself into my house the day I moved in, and tried to sell me an alarm system. Not to mention the cute Polish salesmen who ambushed me in the mall and tried to sell me one of those heating pads with the little coin inside (although they were so sexy and suave, I could have bought out their whole supply if they stepped it up a bit )
When mormons and jehova's witnesses come to the door, I just peek out the peephole and wait until they go away. I'm usually lucky enough to be inside the house when they arrive.
I once had a pair of female jehova's witnesses pound on my door at 8am on a Saturday, and they simply wouldn't go away! I bet they would have camped out on the doorstep if I didn't answer and tell them I wasn't interested! I was still half asleep so I don't even remember what words were exchanged.

 

[peeonme]

I think I agree on churches being self-sustaining, but I'm not sure selling brownies and rummage sale clutter constitutes asking for donations. In those fundraisers, the group or church is selling a product or service, many times on a "donation" basis. I've worked at such functions, and people are getting value the same as if they bought it at a grocery or thrift store.

As for selling to sinners, you well know that Fundamentalist theology is that all are sinners, so they wouldn't see selling to non-church members as selling to sinners any more than they would see selling to members. In my experience, most buyers at car washes, rummage sales, and other fundraisers, are members and friends of members. Maybe that's different in metropolitan areas, but more churches proliferate in small towns anyway. My little town of 15,000 had over 100 congregations and groups meeting there.

After being raised in the Disciples, I joined a Fundamentalist denomination between ages 19 and maybe 40. Of course, I was always not a Fundamentalist, so I spent a lot of time trying to broaden the perspective and help people out of narrowness.

On the whole, I'd agree mostly with the claim that churches forget the main message and get lost in some specialized, narrowly defined spectrum. The whole Gospel is challenging and doesn't allow one end of society or the other to get off lightly. Neither the Social Justice gospel nor the Fundamentalists want to own up to all of it.

That said, a great many people are helped by churches, both members and friends and strangers, so I support them more than I oppose them.

I think that we are on the same page, to me it's a matter of focus and priorities. The scriptures says that out of the abundance of the heart a mouth speaks, if 90% of what I hear from someone pertains to money, I think I know where their treasure is.

As for a distinction between believers and sinners, I see none except for the grace of God, one sinner may have accepted it while the other might not have.
I once made a remark in front of my then pastors wife that we all sin daily. This upset her, she replied that while she conceded the issue that we all sin sometimes, she didn't think that she sinned everyday.
I explained to her that there are sins of commissions and sins of omission, if we know to do good and don't do it we have sinned, it is only through faith that we please God, not by good works as we can never do enough and not by abstinence from sin as we can sin in our heart in many ways.

This left her rather confounded, suddenly we, the church were no better than the folks 'out there'.

For the most part I support the work of the Church, as do you, I must confess I just get tired of the money thing, to tell an old lady that she must pay God 10% or she is stealing from Him just rubs me the wrong way. In the days of my youth I did some preaching,
I refused to preach or teach tithing, it's not N.T.

 

[star-warrior]

Pastor Danny Cortez on "Why I changed my view on Homosexuality". Although I am as many know, not christian, I find that this hour long video rather touching. Touching in the humanity he was able to arrive at, and the epiphanies he had along his journey into his change, most especially the one with his own son.



(Watch it, though an hour long, it's just him at the pulpit. Open the video up as from the link to youtube page (bottom right corner) and just have it play in a separate tab as you're doing other stuff.)

With the sermon there above, there was the chance that because his views were at odds with the southern baptist ideology, he might be removed by the elders of his church. Not only did his talk change their minds but also those of his congregation and they affirmed him to continue in his mission.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friend...gay-and-gets-a-surprising-vote-of-confidence/