In the Scientology thread, a side discussion mentioned the Alpha Course as an example of modern Christian evangelism. I had positive experiences with this course a few years ago. But I left the church that hosted the course (via big screen video of Nicky Gumbel's Alpha Course talks).
As I think back on those experiences, I'd like to meander a bit around some thoughts about church. I don't particularly have a point here, just musings. I'd be happy to hear about other people's experiences.
I left because I had experiences unrelated to Alpha that I strongly think and feel were abusive misuses of unchecked power. I mean power in terms of earthly administration and leadership. I'll describe that in a later post. First I'll describe what I liked about that church.
The course was presented by a church with a very loose affiliation to a freewheeling, very loosely organized Protestant denomination. The denomination is influential in the Pentecostal - charismatic - evangelical area of Christianity. It has a notably informal style and a lot of focus on prayer and contemporary worship music. Sermons include as much psychology and common sense as Bible texts. Sometimes skits were used to illustrate situations or topics. Service to poor communities, at home and around the world, is another important theme.
Many people have had what seem to be legitimate healings, life turnarounds, miraculously fortunate coincidences, and genuine encounters with the Divine. I would have still liked it just as well without any of this. I believe other people accurately report these experiences, but they're all situations I've not experienced personally as far as I can tell.
Participation in small groups who meet weekly at someone's home is encouraged, as a way to get to know and pray regularly with other members and do more in-depth Bible study.
I felt pretty much at home except for some of the stricter doctrine about literal, evangelical interpretation of the Bible.
I'd prefer to not mention the name of the churches or denomination. This is so I can retain anonymity, and also because they are typical of a broadly popular overall movement of modern times.
Before moving to this town, I had been active in the original church of the denomination and had very positive experiences with almost everything about it. The senior pastor of the original church is a licensed psychological counselor, seminary educated, has a variety of first and third world experiences up and down the economic ladder, and seemed quite sensible and warm hearted. The transition from the founding generation to the current leadership went smoothly.
The particular ministry team I served in was really exceptionally great at that original church. The team leader (a part-time staff member) had very good training, innate gifted talent, and a humble attitude of servant leadership. He made very good use of the strengths of his volunteers, including myself.
I also liked a Sunday evening service that had an extended time with the lights dim and quiet music playing. This was a time for people to light candles. Or pray together in small groups (the staff were up front to greet whoever wanted to join them for intercessory prayer). Or just sit and think. Or kneel with raised hands. Or join a group of people expressing their faith through drawing at an art table. Or whatever they liked to do in their own quiet way.
By that time I was already drifting pretty far away, in my beliefs, from standard Christian doctrine.
The church has some songs about God's love I can sing literally, and some songs about Christian doctrine that I have to reconsider and paraphrase figuratively in my own mind before I can comfortably sing along.
This church that offered Alpha was pretty hard core about evangelical doctrine. Their position was that unless you believed literally in historical facts of miraculous instant creation, depraved original sin after the Fall, the virgin birth, crucifixion as substitutionary atonement, resurrection, and latter day miracles as they defined them, you were on your way to a literal, eternal hell after missing your one chance.
I couldn't in good conscience say I literally believed in all of that as historical fact, for one shot at salvation. This was a church where people were nice, in hopes that eventually all would agree with all "the facts" and thus gain salvation.
I knew about the idea of reincarnation but hadn't studied it much. I was studying world religions and many philosophies. I was unaware that there was anything like the Ra material. As far as I knew then, UFO's were for goofy science fiction movies and even goofier careless pseudo-science documentaries.
Concerns about doctrine aside, I liked the original church and had high hopes of continuing a positive church experience in my new town, where I'd moved because of a good new job.
I'll pause in the story here to see if anyone else would like to comment before I continue.
I think any church, any faith, any doctrine is but one more path to eternity. All of them are going to have an innate appeal to someone, somewhere. That said, I have never felt drawn to any organized religion. Much to chagrin of my family. For years I turned my face from the creator searching for meaning in logic and science.
Only in the last few years have I begun to explore a spiritual path. I prefer a personal spirituality defined only by what feels right for me. I still don’t feel any call or pull to religious organizations. The LOO resonates, for me, in a way that organized religion never did.
But some people feel the need for guidance and also need the affirmation of their beliefs by peers. And there is a church or belief system out there somewhere that can fill that need.
But I do think its what is in your heart that counts….however you choose to define your belief system.
Richard
Richard, for me church was not very much about guidance or affirmation. It was about community.
People who meet together in person regularly, in order to share the spiritual journey.
To be quietly humble, together, before the Mystery of life... whatever they call it.
To share songs together, happy, joyous, wondering, amazed, pensive, downcast, the whole journey of emotions through faith. There's a reason the Psalms are still popular.
To listen together to one person who provides an opinion about what stories of holy words and deeds from the past might mean to people today; and to share, together, an attentive attitude about how spirit can inform everyday life.
To pray together with hands and arms linked, together inviting Heaven's help.
To know of each other's sorrows and joys, and care about them.
These are not matters of intellectual agreement, or winning approval for thinking the way that authorities dictate or that peers approve of. In fact, the more intellectually doctrinaire a religious organization becomes, the less likely I am to feel at home there. The ultimate extreme on the downside was the cult of my youth, where apparently nobody actually had any feelings, and the only things to do were to abdicate one's own choices and conscience for someone else's bland intellectual assertions.
My ideal church would have the physical, emotional, and social experiences of the church I enjoyed.
If there was something like this church that included the Ra books, Baghavad Gita, Buddha's sermons, the Tao, I Ching, Tarot and humanistic philosophy alongside the Bible, it would be pretty much ideal for me.
Basically, the ecumenical philosophy, social justice and open sharing time of Unitarianism - the only church experience where I've not needed to shut off any of my thoughts to fully join in the sermons. But without the upper-crust blue-blood starched-collar formality I've encountered as a prominent theme in Unitarian congregations.
Plus Quaker peace and meditation, without the stridently evangelical Christianity I've encountered as a theme in the Quaker congregations I know about.
Plus a great choir and a congregation that knows how to sing classic hymns in four part harmony.
Plus a rockin' band with worshipful songs about inviting the infinite divine light to heal our chakras.
And no rituals where you need a reference card to remember when to stand, when to sit, and when to say things in a language you don't understand.
Put all that together, and it would suit me just fine.
Add a handbell choir and orchestra for Christmas and Easter, and celebrate the Jewish, Muslim, and Pagan holiday calendar too.
I don't know of anything like that. Heartfelt Christianity often comes pretty close, except for the dogma. Unitarianism is close to perfect intellectually, but expects "Sunday best clothes and manners."
In my work as an engineer, and my life as a friend and family member of emotionally dysfunctional nerds and geeks, my intellect got more than enough of a workout anyway.
I couldn't have put it into words back then, but I can now. This was all about feeling and moving, together with other people, towards aspiration for union with divine love.
(10-15-2010, 05:42 PM)Questioner Wrote: [ -> ]People who meet together in person regularly, in order to share the spiritual journey.
To be quietly humble, together, before the Mystery of life... whatever they call it.
To share songs together, happy, joyous, wondering, amazed, pensive, downcast, the whole journey of emotions through faith. There's a reason the Psalms are still popular.
To listen together to one person who provides an opinion about what stories of holy words and deeds from the past might mean to people today; and to share, together, an attentive attitude about how spirit can inform everyday life.
To pray together with hands and arms linked, together inviting Heaven's help.
To know of each other's sorrows and joys, and care about them.
If there was something like this church that included the Ra books, Baghavad Gita, Buddha's sermons, the Tao, I Ching, Tarot and humanistic philosophy alongside the Bible, it would be pretty much ideal for me.
Plus a rockin' band with worshipful songs about inviting the infinite divine light to heal our chakras.
I couldn't have put it into words back then, but I can now. This was all about feeling and moving, together with other people, towards aspiration for union with divine love.
Beautiful, lovely sentiments Questioner. Thank you for posting these heartfelt words.
I have been involved in church my entire life, and that is what I love about it, everything that you have written. It brings a to mind a song I used to sing in high school, "We are One in the bonds of love".
When I was a child, church for me represented my connection to Spirit, and my quickly fading remembrance of the love that I came from. My family life felt so negative and unwelcoming, and the community of my youth groups lifted me up, and really saved me from spiraling far downward into depression and despair, for missing
so much something that I barely remembered, but Church reminded me of.
It is a deep, pure, true, fully embracing, and fully accepting love the love of God , divine love.
Finally now at the age of 43 I know that I can find that love in myself, and I don't have to look outside of me anymore to find it.
But this is something to be shared, and community ie. common -unity, is still vital. And now that I am finding it harder than ever before to "fit into" my church community, it's an interesting different perspective than what I had as a child.
My church's mission statement is stated thus, "To love fearlessly, God and others" I really resonate to this mission statement, and yet I still find it a struggle to "love fearlessly" To be not afraid of being fully and completely myself.
I I have found myself, as I have been on this path of awakening, pulling away from the Church, finding it difficult to be authentic. And then feeling bad, that I find it so difficult to love "fearlessly"
In the other thread about religion, Monica posted a bunch of questions that got me right to the core of this difficulty that I am having. Whoa! I have been meaning to look at that again and think about it.
Thanks Questioner, much food for thought for me today
Questioner that made me giggle - I'll come to your worship, it still may not fit for me but I'm sure I'd find friends there
Like you nothing 'fits' for me, I have a very strong personal guidance threw dreams and my own poetry. Yet at times I feel a loneliness treading a path of an esoteric awakening.
As a child I understood the Christian teachings but had strong ideas that I'd been here before. As a child at Sunday school I'd argue that we came back and didn't just 'go to heaven' I remember telling people 'we keep coming back here till we get it right'
Personally I think in the Alpha course I was hoping for people to share experiences with, and although I could share in there feelings.... they were never going to understand mine. I’m pleased I can remain friends with them.
They have recently changed there sign out front to ‘serving the community threw the teachings of Jesus’
I understand I’m welcome there and can worship with them – may be the time will come when I can talk more openly of the things I see with them.
Shemaya, I'm glad that you've also been able to have that wonderful feeling of church as a spiritual community.
@ndy, if you'd rather have a special service to read your poetry, why not?
Both of those churches have some pretty cool mottoes.
Now for the story of my time with the troublesome church, in the non-denominational denomination.
The situation was about as disconnected as you can get and still refer to a denomination. There was a senior minister and an associate minister on staff at the church. Both positions had the husband in the official position but the wife was also very active in a way which was not clearly defined. There was also a youth minister. Seemed like a nice guy, but since I don't have kids I had next to no interaction with him.
The associate minister and his wife, a very balanced and grounded couple I liked a lot, moved out of town to respond to a family crisis. With them gone, the senior minister couple, the wife in particular, did some things I believe were very inappropriate and clearly contrary to any reasonable measure of Christian love or earthly good sense.
I was very deeply dismayed by her having us come into a side room for a ten minute haranguing tirade from her just before the service. Then, my partner in tears, Mrs. Pastor circulated with beaming smiles to happily start a service about how Christians communicate lovingly. Since then I've done more studies about cults and I think the senior minister couple were sliding downhill with some dangerous tendencies.
I was active in helping with one aspect of the ministry that used many volunteers. Although this is generally a strong area within the denomination, at the church with Alpha this area was led by someone without appropriate leadership ability or technical skills. That ministry area also went downhill.
All of this was very disconcerting to me.
At the church that presented Alpha there was no board, no elders, no clear path of oversight in the denomination. With no clear way to report a concern, we left that church. After a while we got a referral to a different religious group where we felt more welcomed.
Only one person tried to keep in touch, rather dismayed and baffled to hear about our bad experiences. There was no tell-off from anyone else, we simply stopped communicating on both sides.
This was at a time when my life really fell apart in several ways, including my health and my partner's health, and communication with almost everybody broke down. I miss some of the nice people there and have no way to contact them now. If I had their phone numbers or email addresses, the information was probably lost in a move across town since then.
Shortly after we left, the church gave up their plan to buy land and build a new larger building. They gave up their rented building and program space. They put heavy emphasis on the weekly home meetings, with monthly picnic in the park type of big meetings. From the description they somewhat like old-fashioned tent revivals.
From the updates described on their web site, apparently a super-enthusiastic core group loved these changes and felt they were recreating first-century Christianity. I got the impression they had even looser ties, or cut ties entirely I'm not sure which, with the non-denominational denomination such as it was.
This was at a time when the local economy took a nosedive. I don't know to this day if this non-church church idea was all really planned, or a scramble to salvage something after giving went way down.
Just now I took a look at the denomination's website. They have no listings in my metro area. They also now have a pretty clear path of regional overseers. Their Wikipedia entry mentions that in recent years they've added quite a bit of structure to try to keep up with their growth in new congregations.
The strange local non-church church's website is still up. It has no mention of anything about the denomination or the history of the church. It seems to have had no updates in a year and a half. Their actively happy discussion forum is long gone and there's no mention of the weekly home groups. But there are ways to donate money online!
A separate discussion forum about churches in general mentions some people from there who found a new church home in this town.
I also see comments from several people who point out that it's hard to generalize about the denomination, since each local senior pastor can pretty much do whatever they want. Apparently ordination as a senior pastor doesn't require seminary or any particular training, only experience as an associate pastor. It seems the reconnection with the divine that inspired the first church of this movement hasn't been lost, but attempts to duplicate that elsewhere sometimes work out and sometimes don't.
Well that's what I wanted to talk about. The experiences with the subsequent church are another story, probably for another time.
hey questioner
interesting topic. the problem ive found with churches in general is
that people always seem to want you to believe some doctrine
entirely. that is basically impossible for me. there is nothing that i
believe entirely. i believe parts of a lot of different things. however i
find that im not free to express who i am without people becoming
uncomfortable because i am challenging their belief systems. so rather
than make someone uncomfortable i just dont participate in any
church on a regular basis.
the ideal church for me would be somewhere where christ is taken
seriously and yet without dogma, where u could talk about reincarnation
if you wanted too and where holy communion was served . also it
would have to be very egalitarian as i dont consider anyone my spiritual
superior or inferior. so far i havent found it and i doubt that i will lol
so i continue to walk my own unique path
norral
norral, how could architecture have lost so much in however many centuries? Your link shows a building made of stones without mortar, still watertight. Yet today's tract homes and even million dollar luxury condos have lawsuits about rain leaks and other construction defects.
I have mixed opinions personally about whether or not Jesus was a historical individual. Sometimes I feel there could have been a particular prophet, teacher, and healer. And that this person is somewhat accurately reported in the Gospels. Sometimes I feel that the Gospels are just a compilation of already-existing spiritual myths. Compilations of all the points of view about divine incarnation, which were known to the editors and inspired them. Obviously the Bible we have now has come to us through a very complicated political process.
Regardless of all that, I believe that "Christ consciousness" is a real and powerful spiritual force of love, compassion, acceptance, and divine unity. The ritual of Communion is also one I find comforting as an adult.
I was completely ignorant of this ritual as a child.
My parents had met in a Methodist church. They might have married there. (Typical of my parents: I have almost no idea of the circumstances of their wedding, except that there was one detail Mom didn't like and felt resentful about for her whole life. It apparently never occurred to my parents that they could tell their kids about their life experiences. But that's another story.)
When my parents left the cult, Mom still wanted to participate in some kind of spiritual experience. She started watching a LOT of Trinity Broadcasting Network televangelists. One late night they had something about communion. She found some grape juice and crackers on hand, and had the kids and our dad join us for this ritual.
I had no comprehension at all of anything about the ritual or what it was supposed to represent. Having to get out of bed for some TV preacher that Mom was excited about was not that great, but it was kind of nice to have a snack. I realized I was still a bit hungry and asked, "Can I have seconds?" but didn't get any response from my parents.
Obviously I later learned what communion represents. Don't have much use for the Catholic "transubstantiation" business (which would be a weird form of miraculous cannibalism - no thanks). But the metaphor inspires me.
After the church that hosted Alpha, my partner and I next attended a low-dogma , better organized Christian church with communion. I liked it very much. The minister's pre-Communion prayer usually included something like, "We ask that God's love will turn these symbols into a real experience of our union with Jesus in His infinite love for us and His compassion for our suffering, according to all that we need and believe."
Communion was open to everyone attending, the minister would announce. "You don't need to be a member of our church, you don't need to be a member of anything, just a person who would like to use this symbol to represent your desire to more closely experience the love of God." The musicians would play quietly, most people would join the line for communion and a brief prayer with one of the ministers, and others would simply sit quietly with their own thoughts.
I think that my very positive experiences with that minister, and his use of that type of phrase, helped me recognize the positivity of the Law of One channelings. When they say to use whatever is spiritual food for your soul, and set aside the rest knowing it was offered by love, I feel a great deal of warmth and remember the deeply Christlike loving concern of that minister's prayer.
If I ever get a spiritual seeker's church, like I described earlier in this thread, I'd definitely want to include communion time. Entirely optional, but there for people who find it meaningful.
(10-17-2010, 02:39 PM)Questioner Wrote: [ -> ]The minister's pre-Communion prayer usually included something like, "We ask that God's love will turn these symbols into a real experience of our union with Jesus in His infinite love for us and His compassion for our suffering, according to all that we need and believe."
Communion was open to everyone attending, the minister would announce. "You don't need to be a member of our church, you don't need to be a member of anything, just a person who would like to use this symbol to represent your desire to more closely experience the love of God."
I think that my very positive experiences with that minister, and his use of that type of phrase, helped me recognize the positivity of the Law of One channelings. When they say to use whatever is spiritual food for your soul, and set aside the rest knowing it was offered by love, I feel a great deal of warmth and remember the deeply Christlike loving concern of that minister's prayer.
Questioner, that is probably the most powerful communion prayer I have ever heard. So inclusive! Very much aligned with the Law of One.
A minister who says a prayer like that from his heart...really must be in tune with his higher self and guides, the Holy Spirit, in christian terms. Is he still around? Would his church work for you as a community?
As far as a seeker's church, on a small scale we kind of have that here. Though very limited...it's nice to have some faces that go with names, and warm bodies to give real hugs!
Shemaya, that associate minister is indeed one of the most truly Christian, loving people I know. He is clearly in tune with God's love, which through him in both his personal interactions and in his ministerial role.
We haven't attended any church this year because of very chaotic and difficult life situations.
I heard a few months ago that the church had to cut its budget, and cut the associate minister's position. I assume that he would still attend there, and likely serve as a volunteer as much as he could, unless he got a job with another church somewhere else.
Logistics in life have improved enough that we could now return. We need to talk that over next week.
We're concerned about a couple of other situations that have nothing to do with that minister. There are several pieces to the puzzle, going back a bit more in my life history and in my partner's situation. Actually it would help me a lot to talk them over here, so I'll do that. I would welcome comments and perspective from others, along with questions where the story doesn't make sense.