It's been such a long time since I updated this. I guess it's because unlike my other blog, I think this is a very serious topic, and don't always have the time or energy to make a decent post, but I'll try now.
I've got general concerns for certain aspects of the church. My position is that I used to be in a predominate Christchurch Pentecostal church and have since moved to a much smaller Anglican Church.
The difference is astounding, but some that stand out are the fact that we don't have a large turn-over, almost 0 in our church. We maybe don't get many new people in the door, but we hardly ever at all get people who come for a short while and then leave. Now before I go further I don't want to be all like "my church is better than yours" but just highlight a few things. Now why are these people staying? For me, for what seems like the first time in my Christian life, I've been actually learning about God and the Bible. Previously I'd learnt tonnes about "Christian Living" but it didn't really help me, I'd heard tonnes of stories about whatever and just a whole lot of talk about decent but misguided things. Now I learn about God, through the Bible, which is the main means that God gave us to learn about him from.
What's really interesting, is that almost every single pentecostal christian that has come to the church to see what all the fuss is about (a number of us left my old church over a period of time and came to this one) has commented on the teaching and the depth and how much they actually get out of a service. It's like it shows them how shallow their previous church experiences have been. They realise they have hardly learnt anything about God, just had lots of good times and socialising, but mainly missed the real point.
I guess I don't have any more to say, but just wanted to say that. What do others think?
