Nobody talks about the money anymore that gets flaunted around in churches, and how financial irresponsibility is so quickly referred to as “trusting in the Lord’s blessing.” I also wish more people talked in detail about the little guilt trips church people lay on each other about missing services…you know…the “We’ll be praying for you” routine, and the “We missed you” response which almost always comes across as an “I was there and you should have been” attitude. It’s so easy to judge the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day for their overemphasis on custom, tradition, rules, and expectations, the superficial emptiness thereof, and the elitist and self-righteous attitudes which accompanied their routines. Somehow, we seem to miss the part about how organized religion as we know it basically functions in like manner right down to the holier than thou attitudes, simply replacing old rituals with new ones.

I cannot reconcile my mind, heart, and spirit with these practices any more, and I know it. It’s just very difficult for me right now to “detox” and not feel bad about the category I’ll inevitably be placed in by those with whom I once fellowshipped. It hurts that we have to be seen as playing the game to have that unconditional acceptance of like-minded believers. It shouldn’t be that way, but it most certainly is that way, although I’m sure the people of whom I speak would vehemently deny it and claim it’s just Satan talking and me sadly listening.

I don’t believe Satan is doing the talking. I think I’m just trying to be real and have a relationship with God that is more genuine and less pretentious. I know what the bible teaches and I don’t see organized religion in congruence with it. Rather, I see the bible-thumping as a mask for controlling and cloning people under the illusion of living for the Lord. We have the answers in the church organization, and no one else knows it with the clarity that we know it. If you don’t play our game by our rules, you aren’t real believers like we are. Sounds like the Scribes and Pharisees to me! We have the truth and the “real” connection to God, his word, and the spiritual truths of life, and we prove it by what we do and how pervasively we do it. Let’s pray for all those others in the world, who unlike us, just don’t get it.

I assert that God’s presence in a congregation is not dependent on the quality of duration of the music. Rather, Christ himself said, “Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am with you.” Or something very close to that. (Notice that Christ never says, “And you BETTER be playing Solid Rock right before the sermon.”)

A NOTE: the Christ said, “In my name” within that verse (I can’t remember where it is). Anyway, I believe that the phrase “in my name” is often misunderstood and misapplied by modern Western mainstream Christians. Christians are taught to say it at the end of prayers like it is some incantation that will magically coerce God into listening to the prayer. But I believe that the phrase has a much deeper meaning.
In the Hebrew language (a dialect of which Jesus spoke), a person’s “name” was not what that person was called, or even just their seal of authority (as I’m sure many church leaders are taught, since that is a small part of it); rather, it meant something like, “in the way that [that person] would have done it” or “to follow [that person's] ways.”
so what does this all mean?
That the fad of wearing WWJD bracelets might not have been so dogmatic of an idea, after all. When Jesus said, “In my name,” I assert (and here, at least I truly believe that i am not twisting up the Christ’s words) that he meant “to follow my ways” or “for my purposes” or something very much to that affect.

APPLY:
How does that definition change your perception of how to pray?

RESPONSE TO THE COMMENTS:
I must say that I really like Frank’s comment. I think that that adequately describes the IC.

NO

IT DOESN’T

I DON’T at least not in that sense.

I find the biggest problem is that whether in or out of church, believers do not know how to be a believer! Even when they jump ship, they often try to replicate the sort of relationship they had when still on board.

Christianity in the institutional church is a servicing process. There are certain activities which must be covered in the schedule, all of which apparently refuel Christians for the coming terrors of the week. Without this they are liable to conk out along the journey.

In over thirtyfive years since coming to the Lord I have seen very little in church which introduces a believer to the personal walk that Jesus may want with them, and them alone, for who they are alone. Only when a believer knows who he actually is, in God, and can hear God, can he properly function as a member of the Body.

The purpose of the church is to make clones, not believers. When I decided to explore Jesus in my personal and business life, as a young Christian, I found that He was massively bigger and massively more involved than I ever saw in church. Unfortunately the fleshly hatred for someone who is not playing “their” game got the better of them too many times and I got thrown out. Several times. Several places.

I can do without that sort of fellowship, the sort that imprisons or forbids any depth that they can’t control. My wife and I now fellowship with a motley crew of 6-8 dissidents, who likewise have escaped captivity. We all seek relationship with God on a deeper level, something which has only happened once out of the system.

There are members of the local churches that do not abide in the true body just like there are members who do. There are also people that do not attend church that are closer to God(and real Christians) than some of the people who attend church. The body can not be contained in four walls made by human hands.

Consequently, if I judge the HS would never lead another person into the IC would be for me to assume they could not possibly find Jesus “in church,” so to speak. I also know some Christians in congregations who love and follow Him. But we both know institutional settings do not work for all of us. As a “free range” believer, that leaves me with what Jesus taught His followers…to treat others as we would have them treat us.

Many non-believers complain often about Christians always judging each other in their own religion and others. Many find it not only irritating, but a joke for a people who are supposed to love one another. Paul wrote “love thinks no evil”…meaning that love always thinks the best of others and their intentions. I believe God will grant us a discerning heart and eyes to see if we ask for them.