Pastor preaching watered down sermons

NewCreation435

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I have been very disappointed in the pastor where I have been going to church that most of his sermons lately seem very watered down and basic. Not much there for me to really think about or challenge me to grow as a believer. After about five weeks of this, I sent an email to my pastor encouraging him to dig a little deeper into the word and give us more than spiritual milk. I told him that I was reluctant to say anything, but after this many weeks of spiritual milk I felt i needed to.

Would you say something if you thought that pastor was not preaching the Word with depth as he or she should?
 

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Does your pastor give both Law and Gospel in his sermons?

There are times when I'm not fond of some of the sermons but that isn't to say that God isn't working through the pastor to reach me. Scripture is given throughout the sermon and there is both Law and Gospel so I'm pretty happy.

The sermons I've been disappointed in have been at other churches...Roman Catholic, Assembly of God, First Christian, etc... I think it's because some of them are all law driven and don't tell us enough about Jesus and His saving grace.
 

NewCreation435

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Does your pastor give both Law and Gospel in his sermons?

There are times when I'm not fond of some of the sermons but that isn't to say that God isn't working through the pastor to reach me. Scripture is given throughout the sermon and there is both Law and Gospel so I'm pretty happy.

The sermons I've been disappointed in have been at other churches...Roman Catholic, Assembly of God, First Christian, etc... I think it's because some of them are all law driven and don't tell us enough about Jesus and His saving grace.[/QUOTE

Lately he has tended to preach topical sermons, though I have heard him in the past do book studies in books like Galatian and other books.
 

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I have been very disappointed in the pastor where I have been going to church that most of his sermons lately seem very watered down and basic. Not much there for me to really think about or challenge me to grow as a believer. After about five weeks of this, I sent an email to my pastor encouraging him to dig a little deeper into the word and give us more than spiritual milk. I told him that I was reluctant to say anything, but after this many weeks of spiritual milk I felt i needed to.

Would you say something if you thought that pastor was not preaching the Word with depth as he or she should?

If I'd been attending for a time then as a rule I would say something to the pastor. Sometimes discussions like that with a pastor are productive, sometimes they are not.

It's often said that a pastor (much like any other speaker) would often prefer to hear something like "I'm not sure I agree with your point on XYZ" than a generic "awesome sermon". The former indicates the person has listened and considered it; the latter is generic and doesn't even indicate the person didn't sleep through the entire sermon.
 

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It's often said that a pastor (much like any other speaker) would often prefer to hear something like "I'm not sure I agree with your point on XYZ" than a generic "awesome sermon". The former indicates the person has listened and considered it; the latter is generic and doesn't even indicate the person didn't sleep through the entire sermon.

Sleeping through sermons is not all bad - Snoring, however... :)

We do not exactly have sermons in the Orthodox Faith... The Sunday Service of the Divine Liturgy often has a Homily in the center of it, and while we do not start throwing things at the Priest if it goes past 10 minutes in length - Some of the best are in the two to five minute range... Normally it will center on the Scripture Readings assigned for that day which have just been read... And it will often bring them into some immediately practical focus of remembrance... Then done... Then back to the Liturgical Service of our Lord, to the Consecration of the Gifts, to the Feeding of the Sheep and Lambs, and the giving of thanks...

We do not center our Service on the Sermon, you see... Nor do we center it on the reading of the Bible, although each day of the year has its assigned readings... And this even though the entire Service is taken from the Bible directly in about 70% (+ or - for who is calculating it?) or more in its entirety... Indeed the structure of the Church architecture and the Service itself is a derivation of Revelation... But the whole of the Divine Liturgy is Prayer... The Church at Prayer is the Church working... The very word Liturgy means common work - eg the gathering of the Faithful to do the Work of the Lord... Liturgy means literally "community service"... Lit... = Common... Urgy = Work... And it is a standing Service, and last for those who can stand - Some of us are sissies, like me, who sit down from time to time out of infirmity... But the Services are a Labor we do for ourselves, for each other, for our neighbors, and for the world... We do them in obedience to the Lord Who gave them to us to do so long ago... By these Services of Prayer we invoke the Grace of God upon His fallen creation, and function as the Royal Priesthood that we are - For this is what the Priesthood does - It asks God for His Mercy and gives to others what has been so freely given to it to give...

So you see, we do not center such a Service on the human words of our Pastor about what he may or may not think about what the Bible's assigned readings for that day might mean or must mean... Indeed such opinions are an interruption in the Service, given to help those who might struggle to understand what has just been read from the Holy Books of the Bible... It concludes the first half of the Service, which is dedicated to the non-Communicants who are not yet Baptized into Christ...

If you want to study, then there are all kinds of classes, and all manner of books that can be read, studied and discussed... But the Gathering of the Faithful in the Sunday Divine Liturgy to do the Labor of Prayer in the Service of the Lord is not, for us, the place to attend a class and listen to a lecture and make copious notes on crucial points in the argument... When the 5 minute Homily turns into a 40 minute lecture, or into one of Sproul's 3 hour sermons, then the focus of the Service shifts, and it is the Pastor who becomes the dispenser of God's Grace to the faithful by means of his words in the Sermon... Rather that the Ekklesia gathering to pray for for all of God's fallen creation...

So perhaps my point here is that "fixing your Pastor" from this perspective will not necessarily be all that helpful...

And I pray that his Pastor can find a way to be more helpful to him in his Sermons...


Arsenios
 

NewCreation435

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If I'd been attending for a time then as a rule I would say something to the pastor. Sometimes discussions like that with a pastor are productive, sometimes they are not.

It's often said that a pastor (much like any other speaker) would often prefer to hear something like "I'm not sure I agree with your point on XYZ" than a generic "awesome sermon". The former indicates the person has listened and considered it; the latter is generic and doesn't even indicate the person didn't sleep through the entire sermon.

We are trying to find a time to meet so we can discuss this more fully, but I doubt that it will be productive. He spent 5 weeks talking about what a disciple is and I think he may have been offended when I told him that even a believer who has been a Christian for more than 15 minutes should already know that.
sometimes I can be rather blunt
 

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We are trying to find a time to meet so we can discuss this more fully, but I doubt that it will be productive. He spent 5 weeks talking about what a disciple is and I think he may have been offended when I told him that even a believer who has been a Christian for more than 15 minutes should already know that.
sometimes I can be rather blunt

Sometimes being blunt is a good thing.

As for what being a disciple is, on the face of it things are pretty simple but even a comparison of a disciple and a customer could take a little time to explain. In the current culture that puts the relentless focus on me, me, me and figures that if something doesn't work for me right here, right now, then the best thing to do is leave it and find something else that does (because, you know, all paths are equally valid and there's no objective truth and blah blah blah), it's not necessarily as simple as a "here's what a disciple looks like, now on to the next topic"

There's a time for tact but if a church is losing its way there's a time for being blunt as well. I often think that if someone is heading for a cliff edge that isn't the time to cough politely before saying "ahem, er, excuse me, I just thought you should know that, well, you know, this is just my opinion but, it seems to me that, at least from my perspective...."
 

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Here is a little 10 minute Sermon/Homily

I posted it on another thread today:


THE PUBLICAN AND THE PHARISEE ON A COMMUTER TRAIN

Priest Dimitry Vydumkin


A man (Mikhail by name) recently [last year] posted a short story in a social network that was instantly reposted by many. The story is as follows (leaving out the swear words):

“I was on an electric train on my way from Moscow to Petushki. Suddenly a tramp came into the carriage—all bruised up, with a bloated, puffy face. He was about thirty years old. Looking around, he said: “Dear all, I haven’t eaten anything for three days. I’m honest. I don’t want to be a thief because I won’t be able to run away if they try to catch me. But I’m so hungry! Give me as much money as you can. Don’t even look at my face; I admit I drink heavily. And the money you give me, I’ll spend it on drinking too!” And then he proceeded along the carriage.

Here in Russia people are very generous; they swiftly collected about five hundred rubles (about $7.50) The tramp stopped at the end of the carriage, turned back facing the people, bowed and said, “Thank you! May God save you all!”

A malicious looking man sitting by the window in the back of the carriages—he looked like a scientist and wore a pair of glasses—suddenly burst out screaming at the tramp, “You, scumbag! You’re panhandling, asking for money! And I don’t have enough money to feed my family. And what if I have been fired lately?! I’m not a beggar like you.”

After hearing all this, the tramp took everything he had managed to collect that day (about two thousand rubles, both notes and coins) out of his pockets and stretched out his hand to give the money to the man:

“Take it. You need it.”

“What?” answered the man dumbfounded.

“Take it. You need it more than I do. People are very kind!” insisted the tramp, putting the money into his hands. Then he turned around and left the carriage.

“You, stop here!” exclaimed the man instantly rising from his seat with the money in his hands. He followed the tramp. The whole carriage was unanimously silent. For the next five minutes, we attentively listened to their dialogue in the train vestibule. The man was screaming that people were rotten, while the tramp was convicted people were generous and wonderful. The man tried to give the money back to the tramp but he wouldn’t take it. In the end, the tramp went further along the train and the man was left alone in the vestibule. He seemed reluctant to go back into the carriage. He lit a cigarette.

The train arrived at a station. Passengers got in and off the train. The man put out the cigarette, came back into the carriage and took his window seat. No one paid any special attention to him—the carriage lived its own life. The train arrived at some stations; some passengers got off, and some people got in.

Five stations were behind us and the train was approaching mine. I stood up and moved towards the exit. As I passed by I cast a glance at the man. With his head turned back to the window, the malicious man sat there crying.”

I would rather we left a story like this (and I believe that it is a real story) without any comments. But the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee can be grounds for our pondering over what happened in that story. In the parable we all heard at Divine Liturgy today (Luke 18:10-14), the Lord intentionally rejects the existing stereotypes about good and the evil, about those who are good and those who are evil. And it’s definitely for a reason that the parable’s characters are two individuals diametrically opposed in their moral views. For society, the Pharisee is an definitely righteous man, for he is perfectly aware of the subtlest aspects of the law and knows how to obey it. The Publican is definitely a sinner, a sinner by definition, for he has to work for an oppressive government; making use of this shameful benefit, shameful in and of itself, he illegally takes money from his countrymen. Reproving this, Christ directs our attention to two points. Firstly, it’s not meticulous obedience to the law, but a person’s adequate worldview that bears true righteousness. Therefore, a sinful way of life can make an individual righteous for the Lord (provided that the individual rejects the sin, of course); or on the contrary, an outwardly righteous life may lead to a nearly insurmountable barrier between the man and the Lord, when the man ignores the real Source of righteousness and grows in his complacency. The second conclusion we reach is moral. We should avoid any kind of judgment: the mere thought of judgment gives us no chance to know the truth, it’s too superficial. It’s tantamount to our attempt to imagine the size of an iceberg by its white top protruding over the water.

This electric train story perfectly illustrates the truthfulness of Christ’s parable to contemporary man—it unveils the false stereotypes and leads us to moral conclusions. Who did society take the malicious man yelling at the tramp for? He was a man who didn’t show any signs of sinfulness—a well-dressed middle-aged man, he seemed to be neither a drinker nor a beggar. We cannot compare him with the tramp, who spent his whole youth on drinking and was then panhandling. That tramp wasn’t even ashamed to say he wasn’t a thief, for he would be incapable of running away, and that he would squander the money the people gave him on alcohol. What a sinner!

Let us not ignore the fact that we, Christians, sometimes succumb to making similar judgments! Therefore what happened in the story should be a lesson to us, first of all. In the outcome, the passengers warmed up to the bruised tramp, who behaved more righteously than the man who “looked like a scientist and wore a pair glasses”. But why did he behave that way? I believe that we may find a clue about the behavior of that electric train Publican in his own words. Apparently, he realizes what a slave to his passion he is; he realizes that at that very moment that he would not be able to resist the temptation. He speaks about it openly and frankly. Nevertheless, the passengers sympathize with him and give him money, which cannot but instill a feeling of gratitude in him. In his heart, the gratitude bore the answer revealed by his unselfish mercy. Moreover, he was aware that “people were generous and wonderful”, that the next time they would also give him money! The “malicious looking man” looks more like the Pharisee, which is revealed by his own words full of apparent complacency and severe condemnation of the beggar.

God, save us from judging anyone! We’d better give thought to whether we behave like the “malicious looking man”. Before he yelled at the tramp, the former reached the carriage’s end. Only God knows how many people of those who didn’t give any money to the tramp judged him, but they did not dare yell at him. How many of them passed their judgment on him without even giving him a cent. By doing so, they deprived themselves of the chance to take part in the act of mercy that the tramp would soon perform. I wish at least one of them might have learned a lesson and made a promise to both God and himself that he would never judge anyone.

The Pharisee, I assume, was the one who learned the most precious lesson in the story. What the tramp did impresses even those who just read about it, not to mention the one to whom the tramp showed mercy. The tear rolling down his cheek at the end of the story proves Christ’s truth—that good overcomes evil. It must be the main conclusion we should arrive at reading this amazing, modern, true story.

Tomorrow I will travel from Moscow to Petushki.[1] Who wants to go with me?

Priest Dimitry Vydumkin
Translation by Maria Litzman
Pravoslavie.ru
2/16/2019
 

NewCreation435

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Sometimes being blunt is a good thing.

As for what being a disciple is, on the face of it things are pretty simple but even a comparison of a disciple and a customer could take a little time to explain. In the current culture that puts the relentless focus on me, me, me and figures that if something doesn't work for me right here, right now, then the best thing to do is leave it and find something else that does (because, you know, all paths are equally valid and there's no objective truth and blah blah blah), it's not necessarily as simple as a "here's what a disciple looks like, now on to the next topic"

There's a time for tact but if a church is losing its way there's a time for being blunt as well. I often think that if someone is heading for a cliff edge that isn't the time to cough politely before saying "ahem, er, excuse me, I just thought you should know that, well, you know, this is just my opinion but, it seems to me that, at least from my perspective...."

Well, the sad thing is that this church seems to be more active and drawing a younger crowd that most of the other churches in the area. I have over the last 10 years been to many churches in the area. Most of them seem to be weak or dying.
 

tango

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Well, the sad thing is that this church seems to be more active and drawing a younger crowd that most of the other churches in the area. I have over the last 10 years been to many churches in the area. Most of them seem to be weak or dying.

The trouble is that drawing a young crowd doesn't actually mean much. It seems increasingly the goal of at least churches is to draw young people whatever it takes. And it's easy to draw people in, if you don't preach sermons that convict people and don't worry about the awkward bits of the Bible that require a bit of sacrifice to keep.
 

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The trouble is that drawing a young crowd doesn't actually mean much. It seems increasingly the goal of at least churches is to draw young people whatever it takes. And it's easy to draw people in, if you don't preach sermons that convict people and don't worry about the awkward bits of the Bible that require a bit of sacrifice to keep.

Yet it is young people who are the future, and the measure of the health of a church is the number of couples attending with their children... Old drones like me don't count, but young families sure do... Yet you are right, young people themselves do not necessarily mean a future... But families do, and I regard families as the most important feature of Church life, and their discipling of Church Life...


Arsenios
 

tango

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Yet it is young people who are the future, and the measure of the health of a church is the number of couples attending with their children... Old drones like me don't count, but young families sure do... Yet you are right, young people themselves do not necessarily mean a future... But families do, and I regard families as the most important feature of Church life, and their discipling of Church Life...


Arsenios

I remember a friend of mine, who attends a church that is almost entirely made up of elderly people, commenting how her church refused to change. She noticed that children raised within the church may stay but many would not, children not raised in that particular church would be unlikely to ever join, and as the members grew old and died so would the church.

Families don't mean a future more than young people in general. If a family comes along with their children the kids may stay, just as young people may stay. The crucial question isn't so much the age of the people attending but whether they are disciples or customers. If you provide lots of fun and games for kids you'll probably attract young families but that doesn't help the church unless those families are spiritually fed. If the church becomes little more than a glorified social club it becomes much easier to attract people, it just ceases to be much of a church.
 

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I remember a friend of mine, who attends a church that is almost entirely made up of elderly people, commenting how her church refused to change. She noticed that children raised within the church may stay but many would not, children not raised in that particular church would be unlikely to ever join, and as the members grew old and died so would the church.

Families don't mean a future more than young people in general. If a family comes along with their children the kids may stay, just as young people may stay. The crucial question isn't so much the age of the people attending but whether they are disciples or customers. If you provide lots of fun and games for kids you'll probably attract young families but that doesn't help the church unless those families are spiritually fed. If the church becomes little more than a glorified social club it becomes much easier to attract people, it just ceases to be much of a church.

We have a church here in town that was, and may still be, down to its last 9 members, the youngest of whom was 67... Sad to see...

Yet the basis of the Church is God, not man-made programs, and God is the basis of the family... Christian families love their children...

But I want to show you where Protestant Churches failed in the US - They failed because they separated young children from the Services of the Church... They turned the children over to day care and Sunday school, thinking that Sermons are for the adults, and centering their Services on the education of the adults by means of Sermons... Children are just far too disruptive to classrooms, and will be so well into their teens... The consequence is that children become non-participants in the Life of the Church until they become adults and can make an adult decision to become a Christian or not, having never participated in the Life of the Church apart from the children's lectures at Sunday school...

Apostolic Churches, otoh, baptize their Children when they are 40 days of age and the mother has recovered from the childbirth to re-enter Church Services... The child receives his or her first Communion at 40 days of age, and every Sunday and its Communion Service finds that child as a full Communicant until adulthood... The consequence is that the child has Church Services from its earliest days until adulthood, and grows up in them, is used to them, is comfortable in them, and grows to love them and feel a fundamental sense of safety in them... The consequence of this is that when/if as a young adult that child heads into prodigality, it will not take him or her long to recognize its poverty, and remember the Father's House where even the servants are well fed... And they will in that have a Way of Return to the Father...

This is the meaning of Family in the Church... The parental discipling of that child in the ways of Christ... Each home having a prayer corner which serves as a small chapel in which the morning and evening prayers of the Church take place before the Sacred Image of our Lord... This is the parental responsibility of discipling of their own children to which they commit when they take their children into the Church at 40 days after birth for Baptism into Christ...

And the Services in which they take part are the same services that have been Served in the Church for 2000 years, where Marriage is a Sacred Mystery, and not just some social legal contract and commitment... So that each family is a home Church, and each member of that family is a full member of that Church, a full participant... And large families are great treasuries of spiritual formation both for the youngest through the eldest, and for the perfecting of the parents, and the seeking of the wisdom of the grand-parents who ideally have been perfected, and where not, at least have the wisdom of having gotten old...

We have found in our little Church Community that evangelization in this context comes through deep repentance and prayer - The "Casting of the Net on the Right Side..." And the Holy Spirit brings those whom we have not sought out nor have asked to come... The latest family that arrived here walked with their little child, and were astonished at what they found here, finding the genuineness of what we do here refreshing, and the teachings of the Church astonishing... They have become catechumens and will be Baptized in a few months perhaps... 9 years ago, the same happened with a family of 9 - One of whom is becoming a Nun for well over a year now...

The Church can fall down on the job of discipleship of the faithful, which is where the family takes up the slack, and the job of families is to go on pilgrimages to monasteries to see the people who actually are living the Apostolic Life we read about in Scripture, and seek their counsel and try their hand in the life of labors and prayer that mark monastic life...

THAT is how families CAN work in the Church...

ymmv...


Arsenios
 

tango

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Sure, I don't dispute that families can work in the church and what you've described is a perfect example. My point was merely that a family that physically shows up to church doesn't necessarily help with the church's ongoing viability.

What you describe, where families take a specific and active (and, indeed, primary) role in raising the children in the faith is good. I think there is a balance to be struck between keeping children throughout the whole of the church service and providing something aimed at them specifically - it seems to me that if we go too far one way the kids spend their childhood having lots of fun and then suddenly hit the end of the youth program and wonder what happened to all the fun, while if we go the other way the kids end up (as I did) associated church with terms like "dull", "tedious", "boring" etc and if that happens we shouldn't be surprised that they make the decision not to attend as soon as they are free to actually decide. I grew up being taken to church (on the basis I was too young to be left home alone) and as a young teenager I came to the realization that I could recite the service from memory despite not having much idea what most of it actually meant. In my mid teens I was allowed to stay home unsupervised and the very first time I had that choice my attendance at church stopped.

It seems to be a very trendy concept to make things "relevant" and "accessible" and in the context of the church that often seems to mean watering down the message so it becomes more appealing to modern sensibilities. In the process the core message is so easily lost, in which case the church becomes little more than something to do on a Sunday morning if you don't have any other commitments. On the flip side I think it is crucial to make the message relevant to people today, but in a way that shows how the message is relevant to them rather than changing the message to fit what they want from it.
 

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Sure, I don't dispute that families can work in the church and what you've described is a perfect example. My point was merely that a family that physically shows up to church doesn't necessarily help with the church's ongoing viability.

By itself it does not, you are right... There reverse, however, where ONLY adults come, guarantees inviability... It is one of those "necessary but not sufficient" conditions for the viability of a church... Self-replenishment via children in terms of the neighborhood church community... Literally, "from generation to generation" normally, in a community, means the generation of children discipled by the parents and the church community... If families do not show up, then the faith is not being discipled by the church to its children...

That being said, we have a lot of stories where a Saint goes into the wilderness to be alone with God permanently - Which should be a guarantee, by our logic, of his winning the Darwin Award for discipling the youth - But alas, someone will come wandering through, get cured of whatever might be wrong with him or her, and word gets out, and a community will grow up around the wannabe hermit, and then a monastery, and then a community of lay people, and their families, with their kids getting married... God normally is not all that predictable... Which is why God is not all that normal... Not by our fallen and worldly standards...

Perhaps we might say that the Apostolic Calling, when answered, plants the Faith as God directs, and that Faith impacts people wherever it lands, and that many of those people receive the Gift of children - That they raise these children in the Faith establishing Christian communities, and in the early days, these communities were all in Communion one with another... Idealized, granted, and things go wrong, and people too... But that is the idea...

As an Orthodox Christian, for instance, I can show up at any Orthodox Church and find shelter, and any Orthodox person can show up and I will take them in and help them with whatever they need and I can give... In rural Republic of Georgia, a person showing up who is a stranger to the town is greeted as Christ Himself... True also of Russia in the time of the Soviets - Where visiting Evangelical Christians would be shown a lavish table of food and all would feast, and would remark on how generous the lower classes were and how joyful, not knowing that they had just consumed the very last of the food the house possessed on earth...

Children are God's, and His Gift to us to raise in His Faith...

And the times are evil...


Arsenios
 

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What you describe, where families take a specific and active (and, indeed, primary) role in raising the children in the faith is good.

In low-tech environments they were given labors that they were responsible for each day, according to their maturity... That in itself is a feature of discipleship...

I think there is a balance to be struck between keeping children throughout the whole of the church service
and providing something aimed at them specifically -
it seems to me that if we go too far one way the kids spend their childhood having lots of fun
and then suddenly hit the end of the youth program and wonder what happened to all the fun,
while if we go the other way the kids end up (as I did) associated church with terms like "dull", "tedious", "boring" etc
and if that happens we shouldn't be surprised that they make the decision not to attend as soon as they are free to actually decide.

Services are no substitute for God and discipling in the Faith and learning the world...

I grew up being taken to church (on the basis I was too young to be left home alone)
and as a young teenager I came to the realization that I could recite the service from memory
despite not having much idea what most of it actually meant.
In my mid teens I was allowed to stay home unsupervised and
the very first time I had that choice my attendance at church stopped.

My goodness... Here we can't get rid of the kids and parents after the Liturgy - The kids have all manner of things they are doing together, and Sunday is the one day they all look forward to so they can do them together... Adults as well find they enjoy 'coffee hour' after Services for hours... The Church becomes a place of vacation from home responsibilities for a few hours each Sunday... For you it sounds like you were being subjected to "punishment by attendance" ...

So I have a question for you - When you finally escaped your family, became a non-believer, and found its emptiness, did your memory of Church Services have any active role for you finding your way back? I had much the same as you, but in the Presbyterian Church - And those memories did me no good later in my prodigality... It sounds like you were raised Catholic, because you memorized the Services... (Hard to memorize sermons that change each week...)

I like to think that our Services will be fondly remembered by our children, and will somehow be a beacon of Light for them to find their way back to God when and if they turn prodigal as young adults, or suffer other crises...


Arsenios
 

Arsenios

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It seems to be a very trendy concept to make things "relevant" and "accessible" and in the context of the church that often seems to mean watering down the message so it becomes more appealing to modern sensibilities. In the process the core message is so easily lost, in which case the church becomes little more than something to do on a Sunday morning if you don't have any other commitments. On the flip side I think it is crucial to make the message relevant to people today, but in a way that shows how the message is relevant to them rather than changing the message to fit what they want from it.

We perhaps understand the core message very differently...

For us, we first tend to our own souls, then those of our children, then those of our community, then those of our city, then county, then state, then nation, then the world and those with responsibilities therein... So the core message for us is the overcoming our own sins, the directing of our children, helping our community, and praying for the world...

Giving teens drums and guitars and Christian folk music is ok, I suppose, but it is not what Services are for in our Church... We do those things as a community, dancing and courting and all of that, but the Divine Services are like the Heartbeat of God that supplies Life to the world by Church intercession...


Arsenios
 

tango

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In low-tech environments they were given labors that they were responsible for each day, according to their maturity... That in itself is a feature of discipleship...

It's good to give children specific responsibilities. I'm not sure I'd call it a key feature of discipleship as such, just part of growing up.

Services are no substitute for God and discipling in the Faith and learning the world...

Agreed. As a former pastor I knew once said, if we don't worship individually there's little to be gained by coming together to worship collectively.

My goodness... Here we can't get rid of the kids and parents after the Liturgy - The kids have all manner of things they are doing together, and Sunday is the one day they all look forward to so they can do them together... Adults as well find they enjoy 'coffee hour' after Services for hours... The Church becomes a place of vacation from home responsibilities for a few hours each Sunday... For you it sounds like you were being subjected to "punishment by attendance" ...

So I have a question for you - When you finally escaped your family, became a non-believer, and found its emptiness, did your memory of Church Services have any active role for you finding your way back? I had much the same as you, but in the Presbyterian Church - And those memories did me no good later in my prodigality... It sounds like you were raised Catholic, because you memorized the Services... (Hard to memorize sermons that change each week...)

The sermons were different each week but the prayers were more or less identical week to week, to the point that for me personally it was just a question of disengaging my brain and reciting a bunch of words that meant more or less nothing to me. It was an Anglican church, largely made up of the very elderly. I still remember an old lady, gray-haired who walked with a slight stoop, who attended with her mother. The only aspect of the church that offered any real appeal to me was that one of the girls in the choir was cute. For a time they tried to run a youth program but with inadequate children to make anything viable and inadequate adults to do much with it they had a single class for children aged from about 2-13. Not surprisingly it wasn't a resounding success.

My memory of church actually did quite a lot to make sure I didn't attend any church for a while. It just registered as a monumental waste of a Sunday morning. I wouldn't call it "punishment by attending" because I wasn't specifically being punished, I just wasn't old enough to be left at home on my own.

I like to think that our Services will be fondly remembered by our children, and will somehow be a beacon of Light for them to find their way back to God when and if they turn prodigal as young adults, or suffer other crises...

Sadly a lot of my historic memories of church attendance are not very positive. Having experiences both extremes - the kind of church that has less life than a morgue, as well as the kind of silly uber-charismatic church where just about everything is relative and "God told me" trumps Scripture - the thing I strive for most now is balance.
 

NewCreation435

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We were suppose to meet at 2 pm today but I canceled it because I am sick with a cold and didn't want to give it to him before he left the country. He is going on a mission trip next week
 
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