“The People's Church”

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

My question is on the faith of my own church.  We have a playgroup which has taken everything over.  They have a youth group with children who do not attend, some atheist, but they use church money.  We’ve lost members, so church is no longer in the sanctuary but in the fellowship hall.  We had to go to a part-time minister; the ones taking over are homosexual, so all we hear about is about how they should be accepted, taking focus off of God and onto them; they do not accept my daughter and are rude to her, and she is at the age of great temptations.  We haven't attended for three Sundays.  Do you have any advice?  We have left and come back three times already.  Thank you.

Sincerely,
Fed Up

Dear Fed Up,

The local congregation’s work has always been very simple:

1. Teach the saved.
2. Preach to the lost.
3. When necessary, care for needy christians.

This congregation isn’t doing those things, and is instead doing all sorts of things that are opposed to Scriptures!

The clearest verse on the subject of the church’s purpose is in the book of Ephesians. Eph 4:12-16 points out that the church was designed, so that the saints would be ‘perfected’, for the ‘work of the ministry’, and for the ‘edifying (building up) of the body of Christ’.

The church of the New Testament is supposed to help prepare christians to be better christians by filling their minds with God’s Word. We see many examples of the church being busy with this kind of teaching and learning (Acts 2:42, Col 3:16). This is how christians are perfected (Col 1:28).

The church is also to be busy about the ‘work of ministry’ – preaching to the lost. Christ said He came to save sinners (1 Tim 1:15). One of His last commands to His apostles was to preach to the lost (Matt 28:18-20). Every congregation must be actively attempting to teach the Word of God to those who don’t understand it.

After preaching to the lost and teaching the saved, the only other work that we see an example of is caring for needy christians. Paul told Timothy there was a time to help out poor widowed christians (1 Tim 5:9-10). We also see the church in Jerusalem doing this (Acts 4:34-35)

The church is supposed to be the pillar and support of the truth (1 Tim 3:15).  These church isn’t.  You need to leave.  We would be happy to point you in the direction of a local congregation that puts the Bible as their guide and focus on worshipping God in spirit and in truth (Jhn 4:24).  If we can help, just e-mail us at askyourpreacher@mvchurchofchrist.org and we’ll try and get you in contact with a faithful group near you.

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