Joshua Harris Why Church Matters

Norma Everist in the book, The Church as Learning Community contends that faith communities are disconnected from their parishioners lives during the week and only connect on Sunday, while secular ventures like magazines are in tuned to their everyday endeavors. They ask religious questions and even offer solutions to issues people face. This really resonated with me because I see it happening in my context. Although our congregation meets on Wednesdays as well as Sunday, it is a much smaller subset of the larger body and even though we are together, we don’t strive to inquire how persons are living out what they have learned. I am at a loss as to how this might be facilitated. One way this can be accomplished according to Everist is for

Churches are an important part of the community. They join together for the purpose of spreading the word of the gospel and to help serve the community in times of need. In my area, there is an association of churches joined together for that purpose. The Bayou Macon-Madison Baptist Association is an organization of 36 Southern Baptist Churches that work together to do mission work, serve the church members and pastors, and other work to minister to the people.

Church a place many people go on Sunday mornings. A place to worship in the Lord and Savior or whichever God the individual believes in. Some individuals believe that church can only be held in the church building. When in reality it can be held anywhere for example the bedroom or a field. A thing that has been noticed is there are many types of people who go that fit in with a certain group. The types include everyone from the screaming child to the strict churchgoers and everything in between. Church may be a good place to go but it is believed that the churches today are corrupt.

I attend Gospel Light Freewill Independent Baptist Church in Thomasville, NC. It’s a relatively small church, with about 50-70 people on a Sunday morning. My grandmother, my aunt, and my uncle attend this church as well. I consider myself to be a child of God and a true “born again” Christian. Being “born again” means that one has accepted God into their heart and has been changed on the inside. I accepted him into my heart on October 9th, 2012. Growing up strictly in an independent Baptist church, I didn’t know that other churches were different, at least not until I visited my boyfriend’s church which is Southern Baptist. My pastor preaches heavily on hell-fire and brimstone. He walks up and down the altar, yelling and jumping. There are

God loves his Church and Jesus is the one who builds the Church. Then, it goes without saying that God loves the local church and Jesus builds the local church. Unfortunately, there are many factors that come into play, causing churches to become complacent or stagnate before entering into a season of decline. Yet this can be avoided through the process of revitalization.

2012. p. 306). When people attend church, they have their fellow church members; they can talk with about their problems. The church members can support each other through whatever trauma they may be experiencing.

As a student of religion, Dennis Covington takes a pluralist view. He is always asking questions about the snake handling. As he is talking with the brothers of the church or thinking during the services, he is comparing it to something he knows, another religion he knows. As he is accepted into the church, he is taking another view of the things that happen during the services; the different people that have been affected by this religion. He unknowingly uses the three step method in Religion. He Shuts Up and takes time to know who he is and where he is from. He brackets his biases when he realizes that he could come from a long line of Snake Handlers. That, I think, is what makes him feel like he belongs in the church. He Listens when he

Churches appear to be in the midst of the communities for the expectation to engage in the people lives who live in the neighborhoods to make a difference in the hope of transformation through the Word of God. For example, when Jesus was passing through the community when the woman with the issue of blood heard he was passing by and she sought him for healing (Matthew 9:20). Also, when Jesus was leaving Jericho with the disciples and blind Bartimaeus was sitting on the roadside begging, he began to cry out to Jesus to heal his sight (Mark 10:46). The more God's word spread through the community, the more readily available He is to the people.

Thither is a popular belief in the world today that spirituality is the only requirement for redemption. We often hear people state that they do not have to be a member of the church to be close to God. The church is important and will always be important in the life of a Christian.

Our churches have too many activities; they are too busy to do the things that really matter.

Ever since I was a little kid, I have been going to church. Over the years, I have felt like I have come closer and closer to God. Through God, the church has influenced me to become a better person. They put me on the right path, helping me find the light that lead me out of the darkness. God, and more specifically the church, has given me hope and strength. They molded me into a person who looks forward to the future, and what I can accomplish. It is hard to believe that I will be going off to college soon. It seems just like yesterday that I started High School. However, as scary as the real world will be, I know I’ll have my family and friends to help. I know when I begin my work as a Computer Scientist, I will have God at the helm guiding

Since the day I was born my parents took my sister and me to church ever Sunday. I grew up in a loving Christian home and was encouraged at an age where I could fully understand, to purse a relationship with Jesus. I accepted Christ into my heart when I was in the second grade and was baptized in the fourth grade at age 10. Growing up I have always been super involved in Church. I have a heart for people and love serving. Since 3rd grade until now, my senior year of high school I have been on the leadership team with my youth group. I can not imagine my life without Jesus as the center. I have been pushed to step out of my comfort zone and because of that I have grown in several different ways. For example, I am an extrovert and enjoy getting new people, but never liked public speaking as I felt nervous and intimidated. By the many adult leaders, and pastors coming along side of me and encouraging me to step of on my comfort zone I now highly enjoy speaking and spreading the truth about The Lord in big groups of people. I am so thankful for the many God loving people that have come in my life and helped stretch me. Jesus is my entire life and I am nothing without him.

The Church is a group of believers whose goal and focus is to live and teach the words of Christ. Serving others in love is the call and commission of the faith under the authority of the Holy

The role and purpose of the Church is to create a community of people who believe in the same faith of God. The Church is a foundation of the faith in God. The Church allowed people to unite on common grounds and follow the words of God. The place of worship made people feel accountable because they were in it together. The Church raised the importance of prayer and spirituality because that is how one communicates to God. The Church emphasizes fellowship, dedication to the faith, selflessness. The Church gives power to the Christian people because they are a group and not individuals anymore.

The role of Christ’s church as it relates to evangelism, institutional change, and its ministry to the general laity, is a continuously growing dynamic that demands resources from church, while expanding the opportunity to grow the church which inevitably impacts the culture of the secular institutions from which most of its laity are employed. I believe that the understanding and revelation of God’s word is all encompassing; so that in every season of our maturity in Christ, we can visit upon a word, a precept, with a fresh understanding and a new perspective that does not violate the integrity of it meaning and/or alter our doctrinal understanding. I believe that the role of evangelism is a prime example of how God has not only used the ministry of the gospel for the call to salvation, but also how he builds the body, institutionalizes the body, equips the body, empowers the body then dispatches the body back into the world from which it was called (Matthew 5:14). It is very difficult to dissect the anatomy of the body into its heterogeneous functions, then focus on one of them, when you know that the body of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit is really a single organism (1 Corinthians 12:12 ), with a single purpose, The Kingdom of God. However, it is one of the prime functions of the body to evangelize, which is the bringing of the good news, and the message of hope, that Gods people will become alive in him. This mission of evangelism (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15) was