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Guess what. I kept looking I got a big slap in the face (I think from God). This is written by Frank Viola, blogging.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankviola/themostignoredsin/
Deborah13... THe link doesn't work. Can you repost it?
So you're love for one another extends to Leonard Sweet does it? And Frank? Don't you think that it is judgmental to castigate two brothers because you don't agree? Where is the respect for the opinion of others?
Deborah13, Frank Viola and most associated with him could careless about Sarah Palin, Rick Perry and the rest... Our understanding transcends all that political stuff.
Is Mumford the devil and incapable of saying something that is true? I quote Joseph Stalin and Hegel, does that make me and Atheist Communist?
Farouk, What does the author show us about the word "preach" translated from the Greek word kerussein? Another translator translates this Greek word as to teach... But the entire book isn't so much about preaching perse. It also deals with the centrality of "the sermon" and "the pastor" to modern religious club today, but the absence of such in the New Testament that shows us God's plan...
God's plan is for a plurality of leaders, which can include a pastor. A (notice the singular article) pastor cannot be found in the New Testament leading a church. In Ephesians we see Paul, Epaphroditus teaching and encouraging (not leading or worse controlling).
In the modern religious club "the pastor" is the leader. And he declares the message of the bible to passive listeners. Yet in the church of Paul's teaching, "the sermon" was more of a homely and brief encouragement or dealing with a subject. The one-anothering and maturing of everyone's gifts was encouraged and augmented. Today, there is no room for anybody to grow in a gifting or calling such as the New Testament teaches.
Ephesians 4:11-16 depicts something I HAVE NEVER OBSERVED IN 38 years of Sunday going to meeting "the sermon" and "the preacher" the religious club...
11And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
It talks about some as prophets, some as this, some as that some as still another thing... But this is all inclusive, meaning the actual, practical priesthood of EVERY believer: not just special people who have gone to school... Secondly, it uses the word "ALL" in this flow again showing total inclusion, not just a special class that is matured. It then makes reference to "the head" Christ who guides and brings to unity....
This doesn't sound like any church I have been to in the west. It sound very much like ones I visited in Romania and Japan. Here in the west, a pastor, should just as well be "pope" or dictator. A "church" is "his church" and there is no ministry besides what he declares (or the denomination declares and he carries out their bidding) what will be done, what ministries will be embraced...
What calls itself church is dying off. The small to medium church are going out of existence, the mega church are getting big (and aging) and this organization is less impactful and significant culturally than ever before. George Barna and others have been documenting what calls itself churches fall for years.
And part of it relates to the dependence on dead preaching, to the lowest common denominator in order to support an infrastructure that God never intended in the first place.
Here is a video that helps put all this in a succinct package: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSFYw5rPdyY
by Reba Jesus taught in Temple and on the Mount
P31W, I don't know where you get your information form but it is wrong again... Forget any connection between Frank Viola and House2House, they are two unrelated and independent entities that converge SOMETIMES.
I know several house fellowships that have been in function in excess of 10 years, some as long as 25....
And your aver, "Do they want to be entertained? are they really saved? is it about pride and an unwillingness to submit to authority, not wanting to be held accountable, mental illness, desiring some mystical experience," is totally screwed up... It assumes a hole bunch of pejorative presumptions, you can't possibly support in objective facts...
Show me where we are to submit to a covering in the New Testament? Your other details could just as well be addressed to the organized crowd with a lot of supportive facts that can be illustrated over and over...
You've got no idea about simple church or house fellowships other than what organized church leaders have told you to think. That is obvious!
Why can't you accept simple churches as legitimate church? After all that is what the early church was and did.