Quote:
|
Originally Posted by 9th Engineer
Your church sounds even more like people inventing a etherial parent than other demoninations I've heard of. All-loving and all-forgiving is fine, but from what you said what's the point in even sticking the concept of God in there? You could have saved a bunch of time by just admitting you all gathered round and had a big 'I feel good about me' session every sunday. It's not even like it gave structure or guidence to your life because you were the authority,
so what you say, goes. Why even go to church to pray? You can talk one-on-one with god just fine from your own home. Did you need to stick in a diety to rationalize it? I'm sorry, but as much as it may have left you with fuzzy memories it has nothing which makes it religion.
|
I never saw your reply until just now, 9th. The Disciples teach the 10 commandments just like any other Christian denomination. They also beleive in baptism, total immersion baptism, at that. But they wait until a child is 12 or 13 or so to baptize them. They beleive a person should have some idea os what s/he is doing before s/he joins those who beleive in Christ by being baptized. The minister mostly gave sermons on stuff like kindness and compassion and asking for and following God's will. There was no hellfire and wrath of God stuff. But we did pray for forgiveness of our sins. There were Bible study classes where everyone sat around and discussed passages from the Bible, and what they meant to them. The purpose of going to church was to worship God. Sure, you could worship Him from anywhere you chose, but there's a certain power that you get from sitting in a congregation of like minded people, that doesn't always come when praying alone. And the word of God as written in the Bible was the authority. Feel as you wish about religion, but don't dis something you obviously haven't investigated.
And Bruce, I'd actually go back to the Disciples at this point in my life, but the closest First Christian Church is 50 miles away. I may make the trip one of these Sundays, anyhow, and check out how they're doing these days.