The Church You Need To Know Part 5

Knowing the Church Series

This post is my experience over 56 years of being a Christian and Churches that did not serve me well. — My First Experience with the Church. It was in my Way.

My Experience with The Church I did not need to know.

I am taking a break in the order of things said in the Knowing The Church Series to share my testimony and experience in the Church since being saved. I was raised in an Italian-American Roman Catholic family. Before the 60s, there was sufficient respect for elders, which united everyone in our religious beliefs.

During the summer of 1967, I began questioning what I knew was true. One evening, before falling asleep, a deep sense of doubt entered my mind. "I don't know that there's a God, and if there is one, I don't know if I'd go to heaven." So much fear seized me that I said under my breath, "If there is a God, please help me to go to sleep because I don't want to think about this anymore."

Another evening, I was alone watching Billy Graham on TV preaching a hellfire and brimstone sermon. What started as doubt became a conviction of assurance that I was a sinner and bound for hell. I cried out to God for help, and a peace came over my soul that I had not ever known before. At fourteen years of age, I became a new person. The problem arose when I was discouraged by reading the Bible without understanding and gave up too quickly.

The Church I knew could not build up my faith and keep me from sin.

No one in the Church I attended, the attached school, or my family was sufficient for my discipleship. Therefore, upon falling deeply into sin, I reached the point of suicidal thoughts. On the way home from work, I entered a telephone booth, called the Billy Graham organization, and pleaded for help. They sent me to a Church in Manhattan where I received counsel. In the early 70s, my wife and I began to attend a Church in Brooklyn, and I began attending weekly Bible classes at the Church in Manhattan.

Eventually, we moved to Western New York, where we attended Elohim Bible Institute for three years. The president and Dean were retired missionaries from Sudan Interior Missions, where the president served among lepers. Their passion was compelling and quite different from what I received at my second church.

Lessons Needed to be Learned Outside the Church Box.

It's been 56 years since my rebirth when I became a new creation in Christ. During the journey, many lessons were learned despite the churches attended. For all the times I heard the Gospel from the pew, it was not until I read Roy Hession's The Calvary Road that I learned the necessity of maintaining a poverty of soul and a humble outlook when obtaining the necessary Gospel truth.

A British missionary in East Africa, Roy was part of an authentic revival not produced by the energies of flesh and pride of soul but of God. If you read his writings, which I read all of, you will understand my confidence in his perspective. The blood never loses its power, which we all need in this life.

My Need to Know the Church Where Faith Works.

In the late 90s, I read Faith Works or the Gospel according to the Apostles. That book so shook my assurance of salvation that my complacency was also lost, making me a far better and more compassionate listener and on the road to making disciples much better than previously.

Then came reading far more material from bygone eras: The Reformers who protested Roman Catholic Dogma in Christ's Church, The Puritans who opposed the King's intrusion in Christ's Church, and 19th Century Missionaries who protested being lukewarm.

For fifteen years before moving to our present location, I served in a Church that made discipleship more effective because they understood accountability was real and tangible. Where only some are held responsible for their life choices, little growth happens.

My dear reader, you may disagree, but if you have never been part of a community willing and able to hold others accountable, you may want to back off your limited perspective. I never meet people willing to accept they know nothing of responsible living in the church. Yet, with minimal digging, it becomes immediately apparent that they are jaded. If this is truly not you, I apologize for sounding cynical. However, the Church you need to know helps you grow as a Christian by discipling you to maturity in the faith where you can evangelize and disciple others also.

The Conclusion of how the Church does not Hold Itself Accountable.

Denominational and Inner Church Divisions - (John 17; Philippians 2, etc.)
For sins hard to detect except by very discerning Christians. "I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one." (Matthew 18; 1 Corinthians 5:11)
Pride in Ministry
Pride among Deacons and Elders
Pride among Christian Intellectuals - Professors and Universities
Government intrusion for fear of Tax Exemption & fines - in the Church and para-church Ministries. (Covid and more coming soon)
Worship without confessing sins - (1 Corinthians 10)
Worship without proper order in the Church - (1 Cor. 11:1-22)
Worship with unconfessed sins at the Lord's Table - (1 Cor. 11:23-33)
Worship without separating from unbelievers - (2 Corinthians 6)
Watered down Gospel teaching and presentations that are not the Gospel at all. (Galatians 1:6-9)
Space does not allow the commands and warnings of the NT that are unheaded at present.