Finding and settling, long-term, in a local church body has mostly been a challenge for me since I got saved, and I got saved at about 10:00pm, November 18, 1995. This series of articles is going to share with you my past and present struggles and things I've learned in trying to find a local church body to fellowship with, while not compromising following the Word of God.
I had been wanting to know God, and the Truth, for as much of my childhood as I can recall. I grew up at almost 10,000 feet elevation, high in the mountains, and while there were a few small churches around, no Christians ever came to our door. We got Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Baha'i Faith, and some more bizarre religions with interesting pictures in their books.
There were many children at my school, who were regularly attending Sunday services, but none told me the Gospel. I didn't know who to ask, or what to ask. I just knew I was missing something that had to do with God.
Long story short, no one ever told me the Gospel. I had to learn the terminology, and then figure out who to ask, then seek someone out, and ask them how to be saved. How dangerous is that?! Why did I go through all of my childhood, and never was told the Gospel message, was never given a tract - nothing? I only heard Jesus Christ in cuss words from people, and that was it.
If you are a born again Christian, are YOU sharing the Gospel with others? What if that one person, like me, is seeking, but has never heard the Gospel? What if they aren't as lucky as I was? Perhaps you're the one to tell them.
To hear my salvation testimony, Click Here.
When I got saved, I was regularly attending a church I had been invited to. By this point, I was out on my own, and lived in a different state from my parents. (They were great parents, but I was raised secular.) It was a non-denominational church, which was very, shall we say - Pentecostal. People would speak in tongues, fall backwards, being "slain in the spirit," etc. I was a brand new Christian, and didn't understand any of that. I know I never had the urge to do any of that, so I didn't. I just watched. Now, the Sunday morning services were fairly conservative. It was the Sunday evening services where it got wild. My friends didn't tend to go to the evening services, but I wanted to observe and study this strange thing.
As I read the Bible, I kept expecting to come across those things I was seeing in the evening church services, and learn about them. I got to the end of the Bible, and never found that stuff. It's not in the Bible. I did read in the Bible about people having the gift of speaking in tongues, and there being those with the gift of interpretation, but I never saw jibber jabber "prayer language," people falling backward, being "slain in the spirit," etc.
I was baptized at that church, and continued attending, until I moved to another state. While there were things, such as the above, that I didn't see as scriptural, I also saw a lot of things in that church that was scriptural, as well.
When I moved to the other state, we (my husband and I) visited different churches here and there, and eventually ended up at a church for about 5 years. It was a Foursquare Church, but they were fairly conservative. We stayed at that church for five years, living in a very small town. We eventually moved to a bigger city for job reasons, and had to find a new church. While we were attending that Foursquare church, it was great. We were allowed to have doctrinal differences, and the pastor and others there would actually listen to our point of view. We would also listen to them, and we grew in that church. My husband was on the worship team, and I taught a Sunday School class, and also taught classes in VBS. I did this, while not putting my children into Sunday School or VBS. I taught in both areas, because there was a need, and I was personally asked to. I have the gift of teaching, and that church recognized that.
I also took turns with several ladies in watching the nursery. I didn't tend to put my own children in church nursery, but I had no problems watching it. This was the only church that encouraged us to help out, and that saw our talents and utilized them. I didn't follow the provided curriculum in the Sunday School class I taught (which was girls, pre-teen). I had permission to lead my own studies with them. Occasionally, one of the elders would sit in on the class, to see how it was going, but there were never any problems, or complaints. In fact, they usually thanked me for a good class, and said they enjoyed it.
I brought in a stack of King James Bibles that I kept in my classroom, and the girls read and studied from those in my class, even though the church Bible version was New King James. That was fine, and no one had any problems with that.
After five years at that church, we were moved to a more southern state for Hubby's job. It's a state we've now been in since the end of 2005, and I love it here. However, finding a local church body has been next to impossible... so far...
We'll get into that in the next installment.