Not Attending Church

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JohnDB

Well-known member
Jan 16, 2021
6,190
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#41
Thanks ResidentAlien.. I was wanting Johndb to answer. I'm trying to understand what he meant about praying alone and God not hearing.
God might hear....but that doesn't mean that He is there. Never said anything like what you said I did.

I'd rather have God there than not there....YMMV.

God directed prayer vx self directed prayer.
 

NightTwister

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2023
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Colorado, USA
#42
God might hear....but that doesn't mean that He is there. Never said anything like what you said I did.

I'd rather have God there than not there....YMMV.

God directed prayer vx self directed prayer.
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Jesus literally told us to pray alone in secret, and that the Father who sees us will reward us for doing so.
 
Oct 2, 2023
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#43
"But you, whenever you pray, go into your room, and having shut the door pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you openly." Matthew 6:6
There are so many different ways how all of us are called to pray and connect with God and other believers. We are doing good to cultivate a secret (prayer) life in God, because this anchors us in intimacy with Him.
From a basis of a secret life we fellowship with other believers in many ways, including prayer, as we get together to praise and worship the Lord and intercede and pray for one another.
Fellowship with other believers often happens in a church setting, but it can also take other forms.
What counts is that we are rooted in Christ and have our eyes fixed on Him in a deep desire to live for Him and glorify Jim with our lives.
 

hornetguy

Senior Member
Jan 18, 2016
7,096
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#44
You guys are totally missing the meaning of that scripture.... it has nothing to do with "being alone".... it's all about "don't be hypocritical"
Try to stay on topic....
 
Oct 2, 2023
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#45
There are so many different ways how all of us are called to pray and connect with God and other believers. We are doing good to cultivate a secret (prayer) life in God, because this anchors us in intimacy with Him.
From a basis of a secret life we fellowship with other believers in many ways, including prayer, as we get together to praise and worship the Lord and intercede and pray for one another.
Fellowship with other believers often happens in a church setting, but it can also take other forms.
What counts is that we are rooted in Christ and have our eyes fixed on Him in a deep desire to live for Him and glorify Jim with our lives.
Glorify HIM.
Not Jim. 🫣
 
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beaglehound

Guest
#46
God might hear....but that doesn't mean that He is there. Never said anything like what you said I did.

I'd rather have God there than not there....YMMV.

God directed prayer vx self directed prayer.
Oh come on JohnDB. You are just playing semantics.

You phone someone. They pick up. The person hears you but the person is not there?? Come on now.

If God hears your prayers then he is there.
Let us say you are out in the wilderness or say a forest. For whatever reason, you decide to receive Jesus into your heart. You kneel down and prays for salvation. I guess he isn't saved because he didn't have 2 or 3 praying with him.

Why you would try to make a distinction between God hearing you but not being there is puzzling. Isn't God omnipresent? Of course he is.
 

hornetguy

Senior Member
Jan 18, 2016
7,096
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#47
Fellowship with other believers often happens in a church setting, but it can also take other forms.
Yes, fellowship can happen other places.... I know of guys that meet every morning at Whataburger to have breakfast and fellowship with each other...

That still does not change the fact that we are to be an attached part of a body of believers.
 
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beaglehound

Guest
#48
You guys are totally missing the meaning of that scripture.... it has nothing to do with "being alone".... it's all about "don't be hypocritical"
Try to stay on topic....
That is true hornet. It is making a point about hypocrisy. But the passage also reinforces the understanding that one can pray in isolation as in.....alone. pretty sure we are on topic as per Matthew 6:6
 
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beaglehound

Guest
#49
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Jesus literally told us to pray alone in secret, and that the Father who sees us will reward us for doing so.
Bingo!👍
 

hornetguy

Senior Member
Jan 18, 2016
7,096
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#50
Yes, it spoke to that.... I just didn't want to veer off into discussions of "proper prayer", etc, when we are discussing being part of a body of believers.
I would hazard a guess that 90% of prayer is done in private... God hears us.
 
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beaglehound

Guest
#51
Yes, it spoke to that.... I just didn't want to veer off into discussions of "proper prayer", etc, when we are discussing being part of a body of believers.
I would hazard a guess that 90% of prayer is done in private... God hears us.
Well, it appears JohnDB is saying God may hear such prayers but may not be "there" whatever that means. Maybe you can make sense of it.
 

hornetguy

Senior Member
Jan 18, 2016
7,096
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#52
Well, it appears JohnDB is saying God may hear such prayers but may not be "there" whatever that means. Maybe you can make sense of it.
I saw that... I think he likely mis-spoke. I think he was trying to stress the importance of meeting together.... "wherever two or three are gathered in my name...."

I can't speak for him, but that was what I inferred from his statement....
 
Oct 2, 2023
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#53
Yes, fellowship can happen other places.... I know of guys that meet every morning at Whataburger to have breakfast and fellowship with each other...

That still does not change the fact that we are to be an attached part of a body of believers.
All Christians are called to be part of a body of believers, but in the course of a Christian life this can take different forms.

You may be part of a local church or join a church as a guest while you are living at another place for a limited period of time, you are part of a group that pioneers a nrw church plant in an area where there are few or no churches, you are at university and become part of the Christian Union.
The list is long.
Fellowship of Christian believers as an expression of the body of Christ is at the heart of the Christian message.
Very few of us are called to be hermits.
But that should be the exception.
There are some followers of Jesus that resent fellowship.
It is difficult to argue with them.
It is likely pointless.
You guys are totally missing the meaning of that scripture.... it has nothing to do with "being alone".... it's all about "don't be hypocritical"
Try to stay on topic....
You are right.
That verse is all about "don't be hypocritical'.
Having said that, I fear tgat most of us are frightfully hypocritical a lot of the time.
I certainly am.
But Jesus warns us not to celebrate our hypocrisy.
And we had better heed His warning.
And run to God to ask Him to have mercy on us hypocrites whenever hypocrisy rears its ugly head in our lives.
🌻
 
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Locoponydirtman

Guest
#54
And so what about the JWs, and the Mormons, and the Todd Whites that are out there being wrong. People doing it wrong never excused people from doing it right. When Paul corrected the Corinthians, he didnt say, I heard there are divisions among you pack it in amd stay home, nor did he say there are judaizers so just stay home. The directive was that there are some going wrong but you do it right, you hold to the things i taught you anathematise anyone who preaches another gospel.
 
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beaglehound

Guest
#55
I saw that... I think he likely mis-spoke. I think he was trying to stress the importance of meeting together.... "wherever two or three are gathered in my name...."

I can't speak for him, but that was what I inferred from his statement....
Whatever Hornetguy. It was quite clear his comment was in the context of prayer, not being together. "Pray alone and God is not there" I believe was his comment. He responded to my comment but it wasn't a clarification of what he was really meaning.
Anyways, time to move on. 👍
 
Sep 28, 2023
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#56
And yet none of this is give as an excuse to abandon the gathering together.
I have Christians I fellowship with, so I'm not forsaking the gathering of ourselves together.

When attending any church, if they are teaching false doctrine as so many of them are... then they will view you are someone who is there to cause division because you don't agree with their false doctrine.

It quickly becomes self defeating to attend a church that teaches the devils lies not to mention they'll eventually give you the left foot of fellowship and boot you out.


They are some sort of trouser that does not cover the whole leg.

Like this:
Those are pants worn by guys who wore wigs!
NO thank you...



Sometimes, conversation is borderline argument.
Yep, and as soon as they find out you don't embrace what the rest of them embrace.... they run tell the pastor and now church leadership has you on their hit list.

Once that happens they'll coordinate to try and convert you to their way of thinking and if you still aren't onboard then if they don't ask you directly to quit attending their church, they'll make sure to make things uncomfortable for you in hopes you'll leave on your own.




the church has been around since the 1500s
The true church (the Body of Christ) has been around since Jesus started His ministry.
 
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Locoponydirtman

Guest
#57
have Christians I fellowship with, so I'm not forsaking the gathering of ourselves together.
Never said you were. I dont know you, nor habe i singled you out.

When attending any church, if they are teaching false doctrine as so many of them are... then they will view you are someone who is there to cause division because you don't agree with their false doctrine.
Simply attend a church that teaches correct doctrine. There are many.
The true church (the Body of Christ) has been around since Jesus started His ministry.
If you take the Bible out of context as you did my statement here, it may not be the churches teaching false doctrine.
In the context of my conversation with someone else entirely i was refering to the Lutheran church, which began in the 1500s.
 
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beaglehound

Guest
#58
If there was ever a time to attend church, and I'm talking about physically going to church, it is now!

As believers we need the fellowship and support other believers. Believers who are our brothers and sisters in Christ. We need to have the mindset of what we can bring to the service, not as some think, what can we get out of church.
We do not attend church to be entertained. We attend to worship our Lord.
There is safety in numbers. There is strength in numbers. I'm encouraged when I read Ephesians 6. The enemy will do his utmost to divide and ke p us in isolation.
Churches today, pastors today are under a microscope more today than ever before. Imagine driving by a church on a Sunday morning and seeing the parking lot 80% empty. It send a message. The wrong message. What do you think that message is?

The internet is a wonderful piece of technology but it can be used as an excuse not to attend church. Some may say, " I don't need to attend church. I watch all of my sermons on line." The problem with that is we were not designed to worship in isolation. Staying away from church denies us the opportunity to reach out to others and to be source of encouragement to others.

A couple years ago we moved a thousand miles from where we used to live. The first thing we did was seek out a new church!
 
Sep 28, 2023
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#59
Simply attend a church that teaches correct doctrine. There are many.
According to God's Word... that's not true.

IN the end times deception is widespread and according to what Jesus taught in Mathew 24, deception is the most dangerous thing about the end times.

There are no churches in my area that teach the Doctrine of Christ. I've either visted them, emailed the pastor back and forth, or been able to read things on the website concerning their beliefs and the churches in my area are not teaching God's Word.

I used to go to a church in the area for several years and as the Lord convinced me that OSAS was dangerous deception and led me to quit going there cause that's what they taught and they had 2 women "pastors" which is not biblical.



In the context of my conversation with someone else entirely i was refering to the Lutheran church, which began in the 1500s.
I know, and I was pointing out that the REAL church is the Body of Christ and has been around since Jesus walked the earth.

Sadly lutherns teach the false doctrines of martin luther and is part of the refomers who failed to reform anything as they failed to simply go back to the whole counsel of God and do what the original church did in the Book of Acts... which is put God's Word first and go by that!

Paul said when he leaves earth, wolves would move in with false doctrine and that';s exactly what happened. It came thru the catholics, and then thru martin luther, john calvin, and after that all the zillons of splinter groups and denomination we see today

The thing that's so odd to me is luther was a known drunk and john calvin was an UN-rependant and some people hold them up as being honorable men and people we should look to for good doctrine. I tro not!
 

maxwel

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2013
9,526
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#60
The majority of posts that i see where someome is espousing some kind of assinine twisting,
I twisted that part of my body and couldn't go to church for weeks.
It hurt really bad (not to mention the embarrassment.)

I think you definitely found a connection.

.