Ha ha. What church do I attend? Why do you want to know?
Oh my, I've probably made everyone think sex leads to God and I'm part of some liberal sex cult. No, my post had nothing to do with any church I've attended, just my own weird thoughts. Well, what I've gathered from different church people is involved though. On the flip side of my 'pondering post' is my detailed scripture-referenced understanding of Romans 8-11, but I know not to post too much verse on this board, so I post my ponderings instead. I'm a very serious, verse-quoting Bible student and silly, philosophical ponderer both asking "what if..what if". Is that a reflection of any church I attend or just me? I'd say that's just me but we are all reflections of our experiences and it's all in there.
But you asked about my church attendance. Well, I left the Kingdom Hall with a basic Christian faith in tact. In fact, I was held suspect for talking too much about Jesus and thinking that "people outside the organization could have a relationship with God". That was the question they posed which finalized my apostacy and disfellowshiping. Crazy. It really confused me at the time. I was a 100% JW, always prepared for the meetings, took the stands, busy in service, conducted studies etc. But if you question their authority....well I don't have to tell anyone here 'bout that! Christ is not King there, He's in their way.
I still had a hunger for God and struggled to read the Bible alone and search for Truth outside the Tower. About 2 years after the DFing, I ended up discussing things with a pastor (Church of Christ) over the Internet after reading some newspaper articles he'd submitted to the church page of a paper in South Dakota. I live in Wisconsin and subscribed to the paper after vacationing in that town. See, I was looking for real estate but ended up reading his articles each week and writing to his email address.
We started an honest discussion. He got his church to start praying for me. They even sent me and my friend (mentioned below) new Bibles with our names on front for Christmas! I hadn't even met these folks yet. I drove out there this Christmas to meet them so I could hug "my pastor" for the first time. So in a long distance way, I am part of the Church of Christ in South Dakota but never attend services or cough up cash for the collection plate. As I got stronger in my personal faith, an inactive Witness called me up out of the blue and I hesitantly shared some of the things I now believed in opposition to the Watchtower. She got excited and we started our own Bible study. We both were familiar with conducting studies as JWs, but this was a whole new thing. No Watchtower publications!! The best studies we've had were by simply reading a book in the Bible all the way through. A lot of truths reached us both in the book of Galatians. From there we read Hebrews and Romans. We've been our own church (2 or 3 gathered in His Name) for about a year and a half now. She was raised JW and knew her baptism meant nothing, so she was baptized in Christ last September (not at any church).... the same day I partook in my first communion (as a visitor at a church). Hallelujah! Even though I was baptized at a JW convention, I felt my dedication was real and didn't feel the same compulsion she did to redunk. That's probably why I was weeded out of the JWs anyway, the sheep among the wolves! We get together once a week or more sometimes using other publications as guides, sometimes tackling subjects on our minds and finding the verses that address them, and sometimes we just read a gospel and discuss things as they come up. I forget how we got onto the predestination subject in the first place, but we started researching it and I emailed my pastor friend out in South Dakota for his take on it and coincidentally (????) listened to a talk about it at a local church last Sunday. That's what's so nice about this kinda "church", we can question and ponder and listen to several resources.
So as far as public worship goes, I tried the Unitarians early on, but wanted to worship in a Christ-centered atmosphere once I knew what I believed. I got the hunger to find a Christian congregation about a year ago. It wasn't too scary as I'd been in churches before as a kid and even went to a few church weddings and one church funeral as an active JW. I didn't become a JW 'til I was in my thirties, so I knew there were no bats and demons flying around in churches as some JWs think. And as the Watchtower lost it's hold on me, it was easy to give myself the freedom to worship as I well pleased! The false prophet was hurled into the lake of fire in my case at least! The first church I did try was a Church of Christ in my own area and I found it incredibly boring and the speaker seemed to make no sensible connection to the scriptures in his talk. I never went back there. Then my friend and I checked out a Church of the Nazarene she was interested in and that wasn't too bad, but not for me. Had lunch with the pastor afterward and talked a lot about the differences in JW doctrine and traditional Christian teachings. We also tried a non-denominational one we could sense a definate political agenda in and ran out of there right after the service. This was all hit and miss and not by any means a regular Sunday thing by the way. I went to a "free church" with the electric guitars and people raising their hands in the air and it made me a little uncomfortable as an exJW who'd learned to worship devoid of feeling. But I challenged myself and saw how many scriptures deal with joyful praise and music. Even the KH songbook shows them BEARDED men (gasp!)on the inside cover opening their hands in praise so I thought hmmm...this isn't wrong. But I stopped that church anyway 'cause their statement included belief in "prophets on the earth" and I got the willies thinkin' someone might start speaking in tongues there too. I ended up finding two Community Bible churches that I could agree with. The Bible is upheld, Jesus is Lord, and the music is lively and now I love the passion allowed in praise-singing. Yes, I raise my hands like a nutty Pentecostal now too. So I've been going back and forth between the two churches and now since the bridge over the river just closed to get me to the one, looks like I'll be a bit more regular at the other now. It's nice not being an official member of any particular church and knowing it's not a sin to miss a service, but I do enjoy going!
The thing about church according to the Bible though, is that the church is the body of believers. It's the PEOPLE, not a building or denomination. So the church is spread out. Wheat and weeds are in both too, so I'm not in search of the true church as if I could say "aha! it's that one on Main street!" Nope. Think of your yard, can you say all the good grass is in one spot and all the weeds in another? Don't they grow together? How can JWs say they alone are the wheat and everyone else is weeds? NO church can. The church exists because believers (the church) are all around us here and there. Some are at this building, some at that one, and some at no building at all!! I know from my Watchtower experience that if any church I attend starts saying they are the one and only true church it's time to leave! I haven't come across that though, but I carefully avoid denominations. Do I agree with everything at the two Community Bible churches I have attended more regularly? No. That's such a hard thing for a JW to accept. I personally do not believe in a literal hellfire for example, and see in their written statement that one of them does, though it's never been preached yet when I've attended. I am researching that subject though as I challenge all my previous JW beliefs in the light of scripture. That one just hasn't fallen off yet and perhaps never will. We'll see. I've come to understand that Jesus simply said HE was the truth, HE alone, not a list of doctrine. To be "in the Truth", according to the Bible, means to be in Christ, not an organization posing as a mediator between man and God. Acceptance of his work on the cross for my personal sins makes me a Christian, not a long list of knowledge of every single doctrine in the Bible or my own good works. The Holy Spirit is the promised teacher for those who put their trust in Christ and leads them at an individual pace. I continue to study the Bible, not because I have to, but because I have a hunger to and really do feel led into tackling topics as I'm ready for them.
Gosh this got long didn't it? Hope that answers your question Lin.
Win84
*"Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about Him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity*
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