Do you agree with the direction we are going?
I was at a town square last week and noticed homeless people sleeping in the 100 degree weather in the park. Standing in this park I could see 3 very large churches. When I went back to my computer, I looked at the map and found 7 churches within 1 block in any direction. This made me wonder and I had a chance later in the week to go into one of the air conditioned churches and ask if they had something for the homeless. They said there was a shelter nearby that focused on that kind of ministry. I was able to see how this church helped the lower income learn English. I was able to meet several people from China learning the English language.
The church worker stated how their church had tried to partner with some of the other churches but it was difficult to work with different denominations.
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:28-29(NIV)
What do you think about this? Do you think we should work between different denominations to help solve problems for the kingdom? How do you deal with this? Are you more focused on a church rather than the work needed to be done? What are you doing to help the church?
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CROSS DENOMINATION!!!
Thems is fighting words.
But I love those words.
Along with your scenario, I scratch my head at the church that is right across the street from another, and one has VBS one week while the other has VBS another week. But, both offer nothing to help the other out.
I think this pretty much nails it right here:
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/1459/jsaru.jpg
“The poor you will always have with you”.
Homeless people are homeless for many reasons, but few of them are homeless because they actually want to be, or because they are lazy. Yes, some screwed up royally. I have met the type, and I even have one in my family. Most are mentally ill, with a large percentage being bipolar and schizophrenic; they are homeless because America was “De-institutionalized” by the decree of Progressive Democrat Saint JFK, who didn’t want the government paying for the “burden” any more. So now we either leave them in the streets to die of disease, malnutrition and exposure, or they usually wind up in jail on trumped-up charges. I’ve seen it all, both from volunteering in ministries, serving in and being in jail, just being a random guy on the street who cared, and as someone who once had a schizophrenic in his life. The way we treat the mentally ill in this country is appalling.
As for how we treat the poor, that gets a little more complicated. God punishes the proud in time, especially when they arrogantly flaunt their wealth in His face and claim that it was all their own doing. Make no mistake, there will be a reckoning, and better it be in this life than in the next… and as the debt ceiling rises and our country is on the edge of an almost certain default, a lot of people who are currently defined as “Rich white christians” very sooon will no longer be so after the economy collapses when the banking & credit system finally implodes.
While my above picture does illustrate a point about how a mostly “Christian” nation can be the way we are, I would posit that we are mostly Christian by association or culture, and that maybe 10% of the people who call themselves Christ followers might really be so. When, not if, the coming economic collapse takes place, then you will begin to see who the real Christians really are. The poor often have more faith in God than the rich and proud, and that is also reflected in the Bible and the teachings of Yeshuah. It will be very interesting to see how our new Chinese overlords treat us when we are all equally poor and enslaved as debtors to them.