Jonathan Brennemann asks
Are Facebook and the internet valid ways to have "church?" They aren't perfect and may lack a few things, but many people receive more of what church is supposed to be on the internet than in "church services."Churchianity is concerned more with appearances than with the heart. It's concerned with people "finding a pastor," but the Bible is concerned with pastors finding the lost sheep. It's upside down. The Bible is concerned with people actually being pastors, with real fellowship, relationships, life, not just appearances. Churchianity is often concerned with spectator events, hierarchies, and titles.
Churchianity doesn't understand that "walking alone" isn't always a sign of rebellion. Curry Blake said, "If you're going to walk with God, at some point you're going to have to walk alone." The apostle Paul said, "Everyone abandoned me." There was a time he had to walk alone. Jesus said the people were like sheep without a shepherd, not because they didn't have religious programs or leaders, but because those leaders were abusing them, not shepherding them. Paul said, "I have nobody like Timothy who genuinely cares for you."
So it is possible for people to be immersed in churchianity, have their "pastor," their "church" programs, and be lonely and like sheep without a shepherd.
I love face-to-face interaction, and I think it's important to seek it in some way. The early church met around a table, not around a sermon. The communion meal is one of the scriptural essentials and teachings of Jesus, and it's hard to really have what that is supposed to be without face-to-face interaction. Also, the laying on of hands is one of the foundational doctrines of Hebrews 6, and it happens in person.
But how much of what the Bible teaches actually happens in a typical church service, and how much happens on the internet? Communion happens maybe once a month and isn't really a meal in most cases in the church service. You can't have it as a communal meal online, although you can eat a wafer and drink a shotglass of grape juice on zoom just as you can in a church service.
The one-another commands? Teach one another, instruct, confess your sins, exhort, encourage, love...very little of that happens in the typical church service. The church functioning as the body of Christ as described in 1st Corinthians 11-14? Barely at all! I've never been in a church service that embodied all 1st Corinthians 11-14 describes. There's a big difference between Biblical Christianity and churchianity.
Many people experience far more of what is supposed to happen in the body of Christ on Facebook, Zoom, and online venues than in church services. When I moved to Brazil as a missionary, most abandoned me, and I found fellowship online.
I've experienced far more teaching each other, encouraging each other, confessing your sins to each other, exhorting one another, fellowship, seeing godly examples, godly counsel, and functioning as the body of Christ over Facebook than in any religious institution. Many have the same experience.
Really, ALL of the people who inspire and challenge my faith, I am connected with over the internet or in some other way, not in a local institution. Even when there are people whose life is a godly example in the local institution, the constant programs and busyness aren't a good context to allow people to see that example.
I see far more testimonies in one day on Facebook than I would hear in a year in most institutions. I have probably a few hundred friends who heal the sick and preach the gospel. Some of raised the dead. Every day, I see friends posting testimonies of deafness healed, the blind seeing, the lame walking, cancer gone, paralysis healed, sometimes the dead raised. I share more of God's word and testimonies and do more to encourage others on Facebook than I could in a local religious institution. If I want godly advice, the people who I feel I would like to talk to are are not in a local church. Many are on Facebook or WhatsApp. And our relationship is mutual, not "You're my pastor."
I have experienced far more miracles, words of knowledge, healing, and most of what is supposed to happen among us as the body of Christ over the internet than I feel would be possible in any local institutional church.
If I want edification, testimonies, good teaching, I go to YouTube and find there what I don't find in any local church. I watch a Jesus Encounter Ministries meeting, or listen to Curry Blake or Dan Mohler...
I believe it's ideal to also have face-to-face fellowship in some way, not necessarily in the way churchianity prescribes. But can we also have church over the internet? Is it valid?
Of course it is! Didn't Paul disciple and teach people through his letters? Were they not valid because he wasn't present face-to-face with them, even though he wanted to be?
I am aware of many people finding Christian fellowship primarily on the internet. Sometimes people immersed in Churchianity are judgemental of those who find fellowship online and not in their programs. But instead, they should be humble and realize that their programs are not edifying people, and what is happening in their programs is mostly not how the Bible says the body of Christ is supposed to function. People are going online to find what is lacking in their religious institutions!
I have both face-to-face fellowship and an extensive connection to the body of Christ worldwide over the internet. We have miracles happening all over the world, salvations, deliverance, godly counsel, repentance, exhorting and encouraging one another, and most of what is supposed to happen in church over the internet. And most of that is NOT happening in the religious programs.
People immersed in Churchianity think something isn't healthy in my life because I don't think in terms of "What church do you go to?" but in terms of relationship and healthy interaction with the body of Christ. I don't think in terms of "so-and-so is my pastor," but in terms of eldership, godly example, mutuality, relationships. They think I need help and correction, but I consider them to be living in spiritual poverty when riches are available, because they are experiencing very little of what church is supposed to be according to the Bible.
They think my relationship to the church isn't healthy, but I think that in most cases, it's far more healthy, involved, and extensive in almost every aspect than theirs is!
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YES but what is church ? Rabbi synagogue or ecclesia ,the word God uses .
Id like to put this up on my blog.....because the questions stir people to see what God says .
You are using the same word church all the time but describing what is all over the world which is one rabbi synagogues then comparing that to the Biblical word and practice of ecclesia .Ecclesia is a very accurate word .
Called out peer group....which as I write this it dawns upon me that the devil has done the same with the word peer ....the Peers in the House of Lords is now the very opposite from what peer group means .
Ecclesia as you know is a called out group in Greek for political administration purposes, but God uses it to get over the idea of
Gathering for His purpose....
Worshipping together and all the activities described by Paul , but with a Divine form of legislating also in the Spirit .
A declaring of the psalm 149 judgments written
A ruling as Paul says in the Spirit " Would that you were kings ." The breadth of ruling in the Spirit is called the Crown of 12 stars in Revelation 12.1.
As yet theres only beginners versions of many things manifest with baptism in the Spirit .
I keep referring to the Bible and how the OT 12 elders came into being , and the NT elder apostles came into being through Jesus .
I keep referring to conferences of 3 to 5 days where we might see some or all of the three 1 Corinthian 12 diverses in action .
Because falling into the ground like grain ....
Because becoming like little children....relearning everything Proverbs 3 .6 but this time inside the whole of life exchange at the Cross Galatians 2.20
Because of the Abide in My Word .....Truth ....freedom sequence
If people go through the New and living way of the Holy Spirit uprooting Genesis 3 independent godhood in my soul we quite literally come into the reign of God ....that is the Kingdom . That is the facing of the three control hooks the devil has in our being in the Lords Prayer ....money /supply /food / needs
Relationships in the form of not being bitter but forgiving
Pulls to do what God isn't doing....not necessarily overt sins either .
The life of God breaking out in a soul starts finding others in this freedom......thats what a bunch of conference speakers are but only for a few days .....that has to find local permanence as an ecclesia in a location. As long as persecution will allow.
The block everywhere is that different people types can't read each other . That's the 1 Corinthians 12.14-26 barrier both Jacobs sons and the apostles had to crash through .
Our human juries only last during a court procedure because people can't really stand each other Cross spectrum .
In the flesh these friction are called party spirit and schisms .
So thats what God is fixing to have all over the Earth like Acts Jerusalem church .
Its been done but its supernaturally accomplished. If we persist in the New and Living Way that's the City on a Hill , Light on a Hill effect of the Word we are believing upon .
The pastor rabbi teaching centre isn't what a local ecclesia is . Its in the meaning of the word ecclesia .
This is what Bible Houses were training us in .....but we didn't have the articulation of Romans 6 to 8 yet until Norman Grubb .
This is the soul transformation process of which the born again baptism in the Spirit process is the exchange of the spirit man in the outer courts entrance to the inner courts at con version ......now in the holy place this is a transforming of soul . We don't exchange our soul ....Its just a vessel .....so it was subject to the devil.....now its being made subject to our new born again spirit which Colossians 3.3 in Greek says is intertwined like rope ( English hidden ) with Christ .
All this plus anointing produces what the 12 apostles were living together in .
Tabernacles the Feast is a series of open plan stable relationships.
In the Spirit its the 1 John 2 father realm where by now the Holy Spirit has brought forth some Christ in their soul and psalm 84....reveals them before God in Zion ....like conference leaders . But this should all be local if we obey the whole gospel.....not the cheapskate one leader version which doesn't PROVE Kingdom.
Jacobs sons
The 12 apostles
Were an early ' proof ' of Kingdom and still are because they are the 24 before The Throne .
My reply
YES but what is church ? Rabbi synagogue or ecclesia ,the word God uses .
Id like to put this up on my blog.....because the questions stir people to see what God says .
You are using the same word church all the time but describing what is all over the world which is one rabbi synagogues then comparing that to the Biblical word and practice of ecclesia .Ecclesia is a very accurate word .
Called out peer group....which as I write this it dawns upon me that the devil has done the same with the word peer ....the Peers in the House of Lords is now the very opposite from what peer group means .
Ecclesia as you know is a called out group in Greek for political administration purposes, but God uses it to get over the idea of
Gathering for His purpose....
Worshipping together and all the activities described by Paul , but with a Divine form of legislating also in the Spirit .
A declaring of the psalm 149 judgments written
A ruling as Paul says in the Spirit " Would that you were kings ." The breadth of ruling in the Spirit is called the Crown of 12 stars in Revelation 12.1.
As yet theres only beginners versions of many things manifest with baptism in the Spirit .
I keep referring to the Bible and how the OT 12 elders came into being , and the NT elder apostles came into being through Jesus .
I keep referring to conferences of 3 to 5 days where we might see some or all of the three 1 Corinthian 12 diverses in action .
Because falling into the ground like grain ....
Because becoming like little children....relearning everything Proverbs 3 .6 but this time inside the whole of life exchange at the Cross Galatians 2.20
Because of the Abide in My Word .....Truth ....freedom sequence
If people go through the New and living way of the Holy Spirit uprooting Genesis 3 independent godhood in my soul we quite literally come into the reign of God ....that is the Kingdom . That is the facing of the three control hooks the devil has in our being in the Lords Prayer ....money /supply /food / needs
Relationships in the form of not being bitter but forgiving
Pulls to do what God isn't doing....not necessarily overt sins either .
The life of God breaking out in a soul starts finding others in this freedom......thats what a bunch of conference speakers are but only for a few days .....that has to find local permanence as an ecclesia in a location. As long as persecution will allow.
The block everywhere is that different people types can't read each other . That's the 1 Corinthians 12.14-26 barrier both Jacobs sons and the apostles had to crash through .
Our human juries only last during a court procedure because people can't really stand each other Cross spectrum .
In the flesh these friction are called party spirit and schisms .
So thats what God is fixing to have all over the Earth like Acts Jerusalem church .
Its been done but its supernaturally accomplished. If we persist in the New and Living Way that's the City on a Hill , Light on a Hill effect of the Word we are believing upon .
The pastor rabbi teaching centre isn't what a local ecclesia is . Its in the meaning of the word ecclesia .
This is what Bible Houses were training us in .....but we didn't have the articulation of Romans 6 to 8 yet until Norman Grubb .
This is the soul transformation process of which the born again baptism in the Spirit process is the exchange of the spirit man in the outer courts entrance to the inner courts at con version ......now in the holy place this is a transforming of soul . We don't exchange our soul ....Its just a vessel .....so it was subject to the devil.....now its being made subject to our new born again spirit which Colossians 3.3 in Greek says is intertwined like rope ( English hidden ) with Christ .
All this plus anointing produces what the 12 apostles were living together in .
Tabernacles the Feast is a series of open plan stable relationships.
In the Spirit its the 1 John 2 father realm where by now the Holy Spirit has brought forth some Christ in their soul and psalm 84....reveals them before God in Zion ....like conference leaders . But this should all be local if we obey the whole gospel.....not the cheapskate one leader version which doesn't PROVE Kingdom.
Jacobs sons
The 12 apostles
Were an early ' proof ' of Kingdom and still are because they are the 24 before The Throne .
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