"Well you have long ones" (legs) In response to my wanting to help an old time missionary (85 years old) to further the gospel in passing out literature. (tracts.)
"Save your money" (In offering to help.)
"We were never here for the lost" (" God wanted a body of people here.") Finding out many many years later that we would never reach out for the "lost." as ministry.!
"Your too nice." After buying groceries for a sick sister.!
"Better get yourself into a church...or risk becoming a false prophet!." After telling my best friend and Elder I could no longer support his vision of a closed Christian ministry that excluded people.
"We are done being the moving company." Being told they would no longer help us to move, a few blocks, after we moved 2200 miles to support their ministry and build a Church.
"You came in the back door." After returning to the Church we spent 17 years in after leaving the the one mentioned above because of exclusion. We then left permanently after seeing the same traits of those we left.
"The Spirit has no memory." (Really, Christ can't remember what he just said and did?)
"We are going to have a community garden, with lodging for brothers and sisters." Not..!
"We are going to build on the hill." Not.!
"We are going to have a bus ministry." Not..!
"We cannot build with them." ( Couldn't build with any churches in the area!)
"God would not have us swallow and idol." ( In building with another Church after much preparation and thought."
"We cannot help you, ( with money to save our house 300.00 dollars.) You have not been able to show responsibility in your budgets! ( We never had enough to budget.)
"You cannot get married yet, you have to learn how to be "single first in the Lord." We waited 5 years!.........under the false teaching to be single. (Paul said forbid not those who want to marry.!)
These are the marks on the soul we ( my wife and I had to endure at the hands of the Elder ship in a non-denominational church in which we spent 17 years helping to build community, with weekend labor all free and all given with the right intentions.
Most of the things listed above that we labored for and gave money for never transpired. Every year a "different vision" was promoted and offered to a group of people who honestly gave 110 percent and more to create a Christian community in the mold of the first century church. 15 to 20 houses were built with exceptional skills over the course of 17 years from men and women who wanted freedom and spiritual life in a setting that was almost ideal. Over the course of those many years something went terribly wrong and many of those who had given their all were driven away by that same elder ship under the guise of "correction" and many lost for a time their sanity because of intense loss of property and friendships cultivated over almost two decades. We ourselves lost friends, babies, and a house and cars, all because of some twisted doctrines intertwined with Christian ones that skewed belief into a cultish-Christian inward turned church.
This should never happen. This was a pre-eminent doctrine known as the "shepherding" movement of the early and late eighties. Doctrines of submission, separation of sexes, (what men do and what women do...) how much we could work (40 hours) anything more would be without faith that God would provide, even though the leadership themselves never lacked because they received the tithes from the people. Who could marry who and who could build on "the farm" was regulated even though all gave to see the vision come to fruition.
We were totally given over, we were 18 and 23 years old when we joined what we thought was a great Church. I was 41 and my wife was 36 when we left. With nothing, except the wonderful children 2 and 3 years old that would never have to experience what we did.......Thank God for his mercy! And thank God for those we met in another State familiar with false teachings and doctrines that destroy and warp minds. These teachings came out of a Pentecostal doctrine that was legalistic to the max, and presented as if it were not. "We were highly "Lorded" over and the scripture clearly states we are not to do so to one another. This was so because the "gentiles" Lorded over themselves, and Peter (1st 5:3) cautioned against this, for the new Christians.
Now twenty one years later....after experiencing many, many Christian Churches, we find that it is exceedingly hard to embrace any one because of the current climate. As we now know many evangelicals voted for and helped elect Trump regardless of the may flaws and moral failures in the man, they obviously ignored, in favor of furthering their agenda. A Christian that truly followed Christ would never have done so. There are so many anti-Christ traits on full display in that one person. Could it be that we (the church and those in it) are in the time that scripture for tells that many would be deceived? And could it be that the Devil is fully active in the Church so subtly that doctrines are twisted ever so artfully so as not to be noticed? I believe so and have experienced it. So with caution I regain my mind with open thinking, and peruse the scriptures with ever increasing caution and follow as closely as possible to Christ's teachings and glean from them a better accuracy and not from our twenty first century..."nationalistic imbued", gun toting mix of Christianity so prevalent and on display in our society. If we have to fight to save our children from assault weapons in our schools and have Christians defend the 2nd amendment blindly, while they die, then our values are truly not Christ like. Politics should not come first while lives are at stake. The children are shaming, I hope (those in Washington) in doing the right thing. I exhort them not to give up!! The children...
While I and my wife continue to believe in the Good word of the Gospel, it is hard to attend any kind of Church and knit with a church that is unable to separate its Christian dogma from it's political and dangerous leanings. While it was said that "religion is the opiate of the people" we need to heed it's deeper meaning often not known...in it's full context..."Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." Attributed to Karl Marx. "Die Religion...Ist das Opium des Volkes.
Religion as it had become in the days of Christ was oppressive and Christ wanted to set people free. Therefore, Christ did what the law never could, give life. Religious law is dead works.....So all those who follow en-masse (as a group, simultaneously as one...be careful who and what you follow.
