4 Woods, Crown of 12 stars

 

Church : Specificity

 

Israel And Gaza

Hierarchy is being replaced by an enthroned Jesus Christ

First recorded for Friends on Facebook 25/11/2019

So What's Paul's point about 1 Corinthians 12?

Answer - Chris Welch
The Church is the Word and the progress of Word.
The parable of the sower shows the progress of Word. It shows it’s OK if some things only get as far as the stony ground. Humans require success , something that has the appearance of endurance like Madame Tussaud’s waxworks.
We however get Life and share Life.
You get Life by abiding in Word long enough for it to absorb, break up fallow ground and find good soil.
Then out of that we share.
The clever human mirror of 1 Corinthians 12 in only some aspects is the psychologists couch.
This too is another example of deciding
what are the components of Gods work, stripping God out and making it secular.
But it isn’t the same.
Jesus, the One Mature Man at 30 took 12 disciples and while ministering in the Spirit trained them in that realm, while also living with them and correcting their wrong inner seeing.
Jesus is no longer here physically so 1 Corinthians 12 and the baptism in the Spirit is how the gathering together aspect of Kingdom works now.
The disciples were schooled in Psalm 123 Living.....perceiving what the Father is up to and doing what He calls you to do.
1 Corinthians 12 gathering is how the Spirit uses each one to train and sensitize the other now to Psalm 123 Living. Maturity is simply exporting that new consciousness to all of our lives.
One sentence says
“ the mature, who by reason of practice have trained their senses( mind will emotions) according to righteousness such that they are now able to discern ( underlying) spiritual good from spiritual evil. The two spirits any of us can live from at any time.

5 WAYS CHURCH ATTENDANCE CAN HINDER MISSION - Karina Kreminski

Chris Welch :Do I believe in Church attendance?
Not sure. I believe in many people living and worshipping together as they discover Galatians 2:20 consciousness.
Is that the same thing? Not yet,on planet earth.


This article is courtesy of Missio Alliance, an organization dedicated to equipping the church for fuller and more faithful participation in God’s mission. For more resources, including articles, videos, podcasts and more, go to MissioAlliance.org.

Going to church is one of the spiritual disciplines that forms us into Christlike people. As we meet with others, pray, engage in hospitality, encourage one another and read God’s Word together, we are shaped into the people of God.

James K.A. Smith, in his article “Alternative Liturgy: Social Media as Ritual,” says that these kinds of rituals or liturgies shape our imaginations:

Liturgies are covert incubators of the imagination, because they play the strings of our aesthetic hearts. Liturgies traffic in the dynamics of metaphor and narrative and drama; they are performed pictures of the good life that capture our imagination and thus orient our love and longing. By an aesthetic alchemy, liturgies implant in us a vision for a world and way of life that attracts us so that, on some unconscious level, we say to ourselves: ‘I want to go there.’ And we act accordingly.

As we practice the discipline of gathering as a church, our imaginations are meant to be fashioned and fueled. We begin to long for a certain kind of world as we engage in worship. Hopefully we long for the alternate reality we call the rule of God, expressive of shalom, which is about peace, justice, wholeness, reconciliation, mercy and truth. Then, as we envision it, we begin to practice living a life in that reality.

However, this ideal does not always manifest itself. In fact, I think “going to church” can sometimes run counter to this purpose of transforming God’s church into a people who embody shalom.

I often wonder whether the practice of “going to church” is shaping Christians into people who flesh out the practices and posture of shalom in our world, or whether the practice of going to church inhibits that purpose. I know this sounds like a contentious statement. We know the benefits of church attendance, but could there be pitfalls and temptations in the practice of “going to church” that can draw us away from the mission of God?

Here are four ways church attendance can be a stumbling block for mission.

1. We can feel as though “going to church” makes us good Christians.

Christians have been taught to think that if we attend church regularly, we are obeying a well-established rule set out for us so that we might become good Christians. This is potentially legalistic and can take the place of a meaningful relationship with God.

The temptation can be to think that if we go to church, we are then doing enough to be followers of Jesus. The focus here is primarily on attending church rather than engaging with God’s mission. Of course, the two things should not necessarily cancel each other out.

2. Church participation can keep us busy and therefore satisfied.

Churches have many programs, events and weekly meetings that Christians are expected to attend. Our culture places a high value on busyness, so sometimes it can seem that if we are busy, it means we are living meaningful lives. This attitude has infiltrated the church. We believe that if we are busy, then we are hard at work for God at ministry.

Sometimes, however, church programs are more about keeping the internal machinery of the church going—that is, survival. When this happens, and Christians get caught up in this busyness for the survival of the church, it hinders God’s mission. We might feel satisfied that we are doing “God’s work,” but it can in fact be shaping us to be inward-oriented rather than missionally focused.

3. Church can foster a sense of dualism.

We are very good at discerning the Spirit of God in our churches, but we are more ambivalent about what it looks like to discern God’s Spirit in the world. How is God active in our neighborhoods? Where is God in our workplace? Is church ministry elevated above the call God has placed on the lives of doctors, cleaners, architects and technology consultants, for example?

Going to church can sometimes foster a sense that we are moving into, and then out of, God’s presence when we enter and leave the gatherings. This stops us from participating in God’s mission in our neighborhoods and society.

4. Going to church can make us feel safe.

Church can make us feel comfortable. On one hand, this is for meeting together as Christians. We gather to practice the habits of an alternate world, and we get a glimpse into the coming kingdom. That ought to fill us with hope, longing and comfort.

However, if we are not prepared to interact with a world that is broken and sinful, if we fail to see brokenness and sin in the church, if we stop lamenting and crying out to God for a new universe, then we are being shaped into safe, comfortable Christians who will avoid the radical call to join with God in his mission.

5. We can turn into hearers, not doers.

When we attend church, it can be a consumerist experience in which we listen and receive doctrine. This fosters a passive stance. We evangelicals love our theology, worship songs and doctrines. But what produces transformation is taking action and putting into practice what we hear on the platforms of our churches.

We become witnesses to the gospel as we embody the gospel, not merely talk about it. In this way, a watching world will point to us and say, “There is the gospel among those people. There is shalom. There is the reality of another kind of world.” An embodied apologetic is important in a world that is highly suspicious of the church today.

Am I saying that we should stop going to church? No. But I do believe that we can rethink what gathering as the people of God looks like, and the structure of our gatherings can reflect this.

The practice and structure of church gatherings must not disable our mission. The church is God’s light in the world, and it exists for the purpose of God’s mission, not for the sake of itself. When going to church becomes an end in itself, it frustrates mission.

We need to gather as the church to worship God together—but worship is always about being formed by the Holy Spirit, who sends us out on mission when we leave where we meet. That’s what makes the heartbeat of the church quicken, when it is motivated by self-sacrificing love, so that our world sees the attractive face of Christ in the people of God. As we practice the values of the reign of God, we are transformed into those who truly see and hear.

As Sarah Bessey says, “We’ll practice the ways of Jesus, over and over, until the scales fall from our eyes and our ears begin to hear.”

As God’s people, this must be the purpose of our gatherings.

Karina Kreminski is lecturer in missional studies at Morling College Sydney in Australia. Before that, she led and pastored a church for 13 years. This article was originally published on MissioAlliance.org.

Simply....Matthew Chapter 12

Matthew 12.............Chris Welch Facebook
The then official God kiddies...the Pharisees saw the new kids on the block picking grain out of hunger on the Sabbath. No matter that they'd been too busy in the gospel....that thing the Pharisees themselves should have been preaching but didn't!!!
Jesus more or less marched straight into the nearest synagogue...in Holy Spirit combat garb...and deliberately healed somebody on the Sabbath.
Hmmm two can play at this catching each other out game!!!
He'd already announced He was the Sabbath. "Now" He said...."look if your animal needs help you will give it to him on the Sabbath....and humans are even more precious." And then He healed a guy in front of everybody on the Sabbath.

You will find with demon spirits....and it's just the same on Facebook today, when a demon challenges you according to some leftbrain item or other.....as soon as you answer back even more reasonably....suddenly he is not playing with you anymore. They just want to kill you.
So then Jesus casts a demon out.
The religious demons in the Pharisees then accuse Jesus of having demons...."it's by Beelzebub He casts them out" they say.
"Well that makes no sense at all" says Jesus...how's Beelzebub's kingdom going to stand if he casts out his very own demons?
"OK...say I do cast them out by Beelzebul....so who do you cast them out by? "

Ofcourse the fact that they aren't able to cast anything out, acts to serve as a judge in a court effectively proving by which spirit they are driven....namely Beelzebub.
So He then really drives His point about religion home." If you are good...then live by the One who is good. If bad....then openly state you are doing so....but all this pretense of living from a good tree, then producinbg bad fruit....it's ridiculous!"

The religious spirit has got hold of them now....."OK Jesus PROVE yourself with a sign!"
"For the such as you, there is no sign!"

When a spirit is cast out and then returns to its house, finding it with no replacement owner....but empty and swept, it comes back with 7 more demons.
 "Nice empty squat lads....wanna come and join me?"
The last condition of the house is far worse.

What the Jews experienced...the Church now experiences.
If we don't press right in to the New Covenant relationship promised in Jeremiah 31, our end condition is to be filled with more demons than we began with. If the only level of God stuff we were into was only a feeble feeble outward appearance of service....we are still in works....we are now in a place of extreme danger.

The Tribe of Dan became the central agency by which Satan could operate his main plans in the earth...down through Templars...Freemasonry....extreme forms of witchcraft. When the rest of the Jews rejected Jesus, they themselves entered this place of danger. Now Christians who never ever believed for a complete changeover at the Cross are being sucked into the One world machinery of Luciferianism

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Cherie Clifton Zock Amen!

An Enemy Has done this, said the farmer

31 July 2013 at 20:41 Facebook

Jesus said after the farmer has sown good seed then an enemy comes and sows weeds which fight against the good seed and try to throttle it. The farmer says counterintuitively, leave the evil crop to grow alongside the good seed and then at harvest it can be all separated out. What harvest? Feast of Tabernacles. The two denominations with far the most evil seed are Catholicism and Anglicanism.Here are some of them. And what sheds light is the Bible's own details on how the Heavenly Tabernacle runs.
1. Both Anglicanism, and its origin Catholicism twist the position of the Lord's supper. They make the Lord's supper, which is a Holy Place activity, into a brazen altar activity. This and point two have a devastating effect right across every nation where they exist.
2. By stealing from the saint of God their own personal choice as to whether to properly cut Covenant with their Lord in baptism by immersion, and thus for the very last time taste death, both churches trivialise the personal activity of the heart decision, removing it by causing an unwiiting infant to be baptised instead. In addition there is no replica of death, so nobody in either church knows in their own physique by corporal memory that they have died with Christ. The decision is then whittled down to an intellectual choice to follow the teachings of the church, and not necessarily Christ at confirmation.
3. You have to pass through priests to get to God, implicitly or explicitly this continues into every Protestannt denomination and modern apostolic network today. Anyone receiving stuff for themselves direct from God is firmly not encouraged by everyone from the Pope right on through to Terry Virgo.
4. The very real places in God that the Spirit introduces us to are then mimicked in stone by both denominations. Virtually none of the priests and vicars themselves know the Spirit reality behind this architecture, nor radically promote the idea that the veil has been torn into the Holiest Place for all time.
5. There is not a single scripture which talks of one leader "taking a service". There are many scriptures which talk of "that which each supplies by the Spirit of God." We know from King Saul what happens when we twist obedience. All he did was do something which he was not allowed to do, and that because Samuel the prophet never turned up in time, and did that to test Saul. So Saul just once adopted a role that was not his and lost his kingship. Every week for the best part of 1700 years Catholics and then Anglican leaders have usurped a role that was given to the entire local Body of Christ, as a nation of priests unto the Living God. One can only imagine the outcome for these denominations as we see the time of harvest come.
6. Despite the phrases "A building not built with hands",
and the entire discourse in John 4
and the phrase " Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit" says the Lord
the centre of all activity still takes place in buildings, with buildings and maintenance costs, and once gathered very few Anglican churches actively preach the reality of New Life available by the Spirit in Christ, and then to prove it let the Holy Spirit run the services and baptise people in the Spirit.
7. Most of the Catholic and Anglican services take the form of a slightly warmed Judaism. Works of the law for salvation with a peppering of mention of Jesus Christ and New Covenant, although scarce a single professional minister knows what the new Covenant is. This is because, to repeat what Isaid earlier, God showed me in 2009 the primary flaw in both denominations is identical: they have switched furniture in the house of the Lord, allowing unclean spirits into the most holy places. When we follow God's order, deliverance occurs at the entrance court of God's House. In the praise and the worship. (Entering His courts with praise)
At the brazen altar. Taking the complete sacrifice of Jesus Christ at the Cross and His resurrection as the beginning point of my life in Christ, and joining Christ in being raised with Him by faith in His work.
Then if neither of those is enough, we proceed to the Laver in God's House. In the New covenant, full immersion in water tells our bodies that we have really passed from death to life in our spirit man. It is upon our renewed spirit man that Jesus pours His Holy Spirit in an experience of spiritual baptism. And now fully knowing inwardly that our spirit has passed from death to life, the Laver finally teaches us that it is a brazen shiny mirror....the mirror of the Word. And the same Jesus we read of in scriptures is now inside of us, and we gaze upon His reflection inside as we hear the preaching of the Word and read for ourselves.
8. All a minister is is someone who quickly imparts the knowledge of Christ in us the hope of glory and oversees some of the early growth along side the many other pastors in the one local congregation. Both Anglicanism and Catholicism in denying the reality of entrance into the actual Kingdom of God then have to suffer the consequences permanently:
nobody has the assurance of salvation
nobody is baptised in the Spirit
the congregation isn't filled to the rafters with spiritual gifts of all types which the Spirit ordains...endless pastors,some apostles, some prophets, specific types of healing gifts, wisdom gifts, endless practical skills, endless spiritual knowledge about all subjects.
9. So then both denominations limp along for decades forcibly raising money of a tenth to pay the one ineffective leader who uses his tenure to arrange many outward forms of activity which nowadays are little more than social functions which the councils also could run and are wanting to run in their secular way.

And they met round each other's houses by Chris Welch

Facebook Note on Friday, 26 October 2012 at 15:21 ·

Picture: People just "happening"

So, how's church for you? I wanted to share a bit how church, or fellowship or gathering together was for us at the time of the Jesus Movement. This was around my conversion in 1972. You've got to understand the context. Yes, actually, I had in fact joined a mainline Baptist church that had the riproaring Baptism in the Spirit tearing through its members. So, no, I never ever was aligned with the Baptist denomination, what I was aligned with was the experience of the Holy Spirit making Jesus suddenly more real than ever before to a whole mammouth age range from our school revival of mainly 13 to 14 year olds, but also including our head boy and some sixth formers, right through to seventy and eighty year olds in the church.Mostly though it was us teenagers with a ravaging hunger for Jesus. Yes, we had meetings, don't get me wrong. But much more than that we were around each other's houses. Every week we were discovering new things about how this New Life worked, and about what we could now do.To give you an idea, we'd pray for people to come to know the Lord and by the next week the Lord would answer.We learned that we could prophesy. We learned that we could suddenly have great revelations from the Bible. Whole passages would light up to us.We discovered we could pray for each other's needs. We discovered that if one had a need we could cobble up some financial or practical answer.We discovered if someone was really down, we actually had the power and impartation in the Holy Spirit to lift them up. Or may be on some occasions cast out a generational spirit dogging someone their whole life.Jesus was real.He was telling us stuff daily that we couldn't bear not to share with the others as soon as we'd see each other again.We'd go round the houses of people who would have us. Largely, Olive Dover, and later Ron and Pam Knight. But as the Knights had everyone, we'd meet up as I say with 70 and 80 year olds.Think about it!!! Much earlier than this, if you were baptised in the Holy Spirit you identified with one group, and their teachings...the Pentecostals...Elim or Assemblies of God.  From the Jesus people onwards, the Holy Spirit was flooding all denominations, so for our generation onward we nolonger identified with a denomination. This was a first. For us it was, do you know Christ in the Power of His Holy Spirit?  Right, let's share and learn from each other.Do you understand what a dynamic Wild West feel it was? The things we were discovering literally became the foundations for all the current churches which you see all over the world. It's just that we still had daily spontaneous fellowship with the Living Lord. We hadn't plateaued out back into "control".We lived from our hearts. The spontaneous life of God. This was when most of the songs were written...or "came" in meetings which were continually sung until the "grunge" period of Martin Smith and Matt Redman.We are part of Havant Church. If Christine and I turned up at all but a few houses  just to find out what Jesus had been speaking lately to them they would consider that weird. Now, we have to have special gatherings like area meetings. The very phrase area meeting has a pall of death over it.People don't turn up at other people's houses because they love them.Because they want to hear what Jesus has been saying to each other. To gossip Jesus.They only meet together because "leadership" has decided that we are going to do such and such a meeting.I don't know whether Christine and I have ever verbalised this as a pact or something...but we were both involved in very similar setups in completely different parts of Britain. We just don't do  "Table Talks", "House fellowship meetings", "Area Meetings". We live with spontaneous life dating back to a spontaneous inundation in 1972. If you don't do real. If you've got nothing to share other than all the ways you are crashing against the Proverbs 1 wall, because you just haven't been attentive to God's real heart to keep you alive and moving on in Him...no...I'm not sure i am willing to be your sounding board for hours about  your uncle's nephew's dog having ingrowing testicles, and how one of your nostrils is bigger than the other, and how well you are doing climbing Rothschild's  achievement ladder....NO I got saved from all that when I met Jesus.Before I was saved, I was stranded in middle class Britain, condemned forever to a life of middleclassness, middleclass achievements or not, middleclass diseases, middleclass attitudes and goals and opinions.....why in heaven's name would I want to spend an hour with you, if all you have to offer is the thing I've been saved from?   Now if you are hungry for something else. If you have real problems. If you want God to get involved, that's different.About 30 years ago the gear shift changed in the Kingdom. Most haven't paid the slightest notice and have the most boring Christian meetings you can imagine, which combine middleclassness with a tiny bit of God revelation.30 years ago God set in motion a gearchange to start moving His corporate Body from out of the 2nd level, or the pentecostal charismatic level, into a much more full-orbed teaching which is the MATURE CHURCH. This is all by revelation. As Jesus said "If a man's will is to do God's will, He shall know the teaching whether it be from God....."If your heart is to do God's will you are caught up in His heartbeat. You are excited. You know that Psalm 19 is right. Every day the Lord DOES pour forth speech. Every day He adds layer and layer of wisdom and understanding so that we can build from where we are at...into where He is taking us.THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why Elaine Waterfield has to wait for a meeting to take place at our house in order to visit us. She might not understand all that I am saying, but it doesn't matter because Jesus is alive in her heart and telling her different stuff each day. So if Elaine comes over to visit me and Christine...IT IS A MEETING. We are drinking Jesus from each other.SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY...if you can't go round each other's houses and have genuine Jesus heart to hearts....you can forget your church. Your church is in a morgue.
It needs resuscitation...or reserrection.
It needs ZOE life. The Life and Resurrection that Jesus is.I see no possible reason why I as a former part of a Jesus Movement have to compromise into some substandard church movement just to please you so you can plug up your lack of connection with Christ and His spontaneity with some alien life form called "Table Talk" or an "Area Meeting"...but if you want to get real...come round to my house straight away and we'll have some Jesus together.

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• Shirley Ho, John T. McIntosh, Cheryl Powers and 13 others like this.
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  Chris Kimmell Love this!!!

  26 October at 15:36 via mobile · Like · 2
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  Chris Welch Yes ...it works...and if you lived nearer this is how it would be!!! In fact people would continually get the two freaky Chris's mixed up.

  26 October at 15:37 · Like · 3
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  Annalize Mouton Yes!!!!

  26 October at 15:46 · Like · 3
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  Tandy Coatney Love the house thing. B

  26 October at 19:23 · Like · 2
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  Chris Welch Shevyn there's a private thread where around 20 of us hang out,Annalize and PeterDavid are there. I've got no idea if it will work for you, it didn't for Andrea and Ole ...but i am aware that you have a very exposed life...and a bit of a hidden encouraging sort of Facebook lounge may work for you.

  26 October at 20:47 · Like
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  Gail Cochrane Thank you for sharing this, Chris. Wish I could meet with you and others!

  26 October at 21:34 · Like
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  Chris Welch who knows Gail...If what Daniel envisions takes form who knows....

  26 October at 22:07 · Like · 1
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  Chris Welch http://080808onnowto.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/daniels-particular-community-vision-i.html

  26 October at 22:13 · Like
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  Chris Welch http://080808onnowto.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/daniels-particular-community-vision-ii.html
  

  
  

  080808 On,Now,To the Third Level: Daniel's Particular Community Vision II

  ‎080808onnowto.blogspot.com

  26 October at 22:13 · Like · Remove Preview
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  Archie Rhines Thx Chris. Good stuff!

  27 October at 02:25 · Like
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  Ray E Horton I can relate. Baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1973 among the Catholic charismatics. But none of remained very Catholic. We did meet from house to house. and our prayer meetings were glorious. We were always experiencing and trading information on new revelation. I have fond memories of those days.

  27 October at 04:46 · Like
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  Barbara Rogerson So blessed to be part of house church here still meeting from the 70's. Several house churches but meeting together once a month or for whatever other activity calls for us to meet in unity. 16 houses in our small street apart from the rest of the neighbourhood. Everyone who visits say they have never seen anything like it.

  27 October at 11:24 · Like
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  Chris Welch That truly is an amazing testimony Barbara. Where else in Britain could you have one street with 16 houses in fellowship and that "after" a complete death and resurrection 40 years on. Absolutely astounding.

  27 October at 14:47 · Like · 1
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  Chris Welch Ray....presumably that was connected to Ann Arbour Michigan no? The one with the great song God and Man at table are sat down...with their orchestra etc. And New Covenant Magazine which must have been the first magazine in the universe to carry the key article that changed the course of my life...which said "There are not two levels of growth, there are three!!!."

  27 October at 14:50 · Like
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  Ray E Horton Actually, I was involved with some smaller prayer groups, then Light of the World Community, similar to Ann Arbor, which brought me to Erie. I'm glad we were solid in our new-found faith. A year after we arrived, Light of the World fell due to immatur...See More

  27 October at 22:45 · Like
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  Mankwe Clement Phukubje Really awesome note Chris,stay blessed.

  28 October at 07:12 via mobile · Like
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  Chris Welch How Jesus managed to spin the plates,Ray,I don't know? Obviously, like in john 6 and 7, it could be awkward...but generally He was doing something of what you describe. I firmly believe we're going to do it. Year on year our articulation grows. That which was hidden...(Buried underneath the word esoteric) is going to be like the noon day sun. The faith message of the Word of faith movement is always the precursor of Christ as me message. Without faith and a good many disappointments like Jacob faithing specked and striped sheep....we don't in utter desperation reach Peniel. The Name change message. I want to be in churches that have the three layers of growth somehow managing side by side....tho how this works I have no idea...since one huge component is false religion....facing it...being kicked in the face by it...and still pressing on to the genuine.

  28 October at 08:00 · Like
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  Shirley Unger Cunningham Amen!

  28 October at 17:29 via mobile · Like
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  Ray E Horton Yes, in spite of it all, we still press on to the genuine. We'll never find the perfect church, but, for me, a church that has praying leadership and the Gospel of Grace through Faith (not works) and the fullness of the Holy Spirit, if seeming to be heading in the right direction, I can overlook some weaknesses and pray as I participate.

  29 October at 01:21 · Like
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  Chris Welch How we receive each other is very related to how we receive a church. Perfection isn't really the question. Where two or three gather together in the Name of Jesus...He is there...in His perfection.If people are open to that realm...the realm where He IS...it doesn't really matter where they are now...because we know they'll be moving onward. So really the crux is....are people's hearts open? And related to that...does everyone there feel received. If you are not received you cannot operate, and this over months and years is intolerable.