Quote:
Originally Posted by Drake
On what scriptural basis should everyone focus their attention on community churches? What is the scriptural blueprint to use your terms?
What is God actually doing in community churches? What is His work in community churches? Please describe it.
What evidence do you have that community churches are booming? Why is booming a relevant criteria for defining what God is doing?
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http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2015/june/rapid-rise-of-non-denominational-christianity-my-most-recen.html
You should focus your attention on nondenominational community churches because that's where the growth is, that's where people are getting saved and baptized and that's where the people who are getting saved and baptized are going to meet.
The fact that you seem clueless about this phenomenon, and the way you continue to harp on "the denominations" as if they are the trend shows how out of touch you are.
Scriptural basis? Christians are to meet together in churches. There is no mandate for localism in the NT. House churches are fine, community churches are fine as well. Experiential evidence: Christians are getting saved. baptized, are being taught the truth and are growing in these churches. The church is being built there. I see it all the time. Trying to ignore these facts is, again, the stuff of Pharisees.
What is the evidence the LCM is important? That is has the "right" doctrines? Says who? The LCM is in decline, it has no gospel impact, it has experienced fracture after fracture, it is increasingly self-absorbed and out of touch with what God is doing outside of its walls. Yet its ever-shrinking number of true believers continue to hold whomever they can there by fear, lest their numbers shrink to zero. Which they would if the unrighteous threats of judgment for leaving were removed.
You can can plug your ears and cover your eyes all you want. The facts speak against you, and they are speaking louder and louder every day.
As
UntoHim said, unless your goal is simply to preen in your claims of specialness, the onus is on
you to convince others that you are "God's unique move." It certainly is not a given nor the baseline of any public discussion. If you don't care to convince anyone of that, but simply need to claim it as if it is beyond question, then you are not really interested in outreach, but simply in preening, self-satisfaction and the condemnation of others.
Groups down through church history have made such claims. They all came to nothing. The odds that your fate will be any different are extremely slim. Meanwhile, God is working outside your walls and you don't seem much interested. In fact you seem resentful of it. Again, that's a characteristic of ... a Pharisee.