Read the entire series of posts here.
One of the reasons I decided to do a series on church membership is due to my experiences with formal church memberships and how their straying from what the bible teaches can affect people's lives for the worse. As an example, after my conversion to Christianity it took four churches a total of two years to baptize me. It wasn't until this fourth church that I was even allowed to participate in the Lord's Supper. Allowed. Two of the first three churches I attended forbid both my baptism and my partaking of the elements - despite my being commanded by Scripture to do both - because I wasn't a "formal" member of their church.
Now one would think that a church would be more than happy to baptize a new convert to Christ. One would think that a church would be more than happy to commune with a fellow believer in Christ. What would possess a church to say to somebody, "we won't baptize you"? What would possess a church to say, "No, thank you, we don't want to break bread with you."? A church that thinks of a formal membership more highly than the life of believers, more highly than the sacraments, more highly than Jesus Himself. Why would a church make formal membership more important than the most important thing of all?
Part 17 . . . . . . . . Part 19
Maybe I asked this before, but did you ever try to just drop by your local Methodist or Lutheran or Episcopal church? They have problems, but man this level of bizarre-ness is stupifying.
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ReplyDeleteAbu, I haven't visited those denominations. My current church has a formal membership, but it's tame compared to the wacko stuff I write about from my past. I've also found many of these kinds of things on line and from authors and well known pastors from within my loose circle of influence.
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