Denominations?

Demoninations, demon nations, abominations....

There won't be any of them in heaven.

Denominations have practical and functional benefits. Some might even argue that Antioch was the first denominational church. It was not directly associated with Jerusalem's leadership and it also established a network of mission churches through Paul's ministry.

We can look at denominations as wicked, but in the case of the Southern Baptist Church, of which I am a member, I am very proud of the 'practical' and 'functional' aspects of the denomination as well as the scriptural and leadership aspects.

The SBC is very mission concious, with at network of thousands of churches in the united states the SBC does an enormous ammount of mission work overseas -and because of the direct ties between missions, denomination and local churches we're able to work effectively for spreading the Gospel to Unreached peoples.

Practically it also helps to define leadership and unity among diverse churches. I attend a mostly Korean southern baptist church, but I know that my Pastor is most likely going to be preaching what would be considered orthadox in a mostly white or mostly black or mostly hispanic church across the country. I can walk into just about any SBC church and get the Word -without any artificial additives.

You know what, i'm going to be honest, there ARE good denominations, and bad denominations... and to lable all denominations negatively is gross negligence, just like if I said that all non-denominational churches were bad. Some are, some aren't -I personally love to listen to Zac Poonen!

Keep an open mind, find out what your church believes, if it isn't biblical, find a church that is... I'm sure there are biblical presbeterian churches, biblical methodists, biblical anglicans etc. just as much as there are unbiblical non-denominational churches.

Amen to both of you. We also came out of a mainstream denomination and started our own body of belivers with out main goals of holiness and serving the Lord with all we have.

This is not a slam against denominations but it is about being commited to God more than an organization.

-- Steve

"Did I ever tell you my little parable of the first two denominations? Two fellows were sitting on a park bench feeding the pigeons. One looks around and then declares with great expressiveness, “What a beautiful day it is and how wonderful it is to be able to see it!” The other man responded, “Oh, sir, I most heartily agree. You know, I used to be blind.” The other man exclaimed, “You don’t mean it! I used to be blind, too.” He went on, “I will never forget the day Jesus healed me.”

The other man said, “What? Jesus healed you? Why that is wonderful because Jesus healed me, too.” They rejoiced together in their mutual blessings. The first man said, “Yeah, I will never forget that day He spit upon the ground and made mud. He put the mud on my eyes and told me to go wash at the pool. I washed and immediately I could see clearly.”

Hearing this with great suspicion, the other man said, “Mud? What mud? When Jesus healed me He just touched my eyes and I could see, but men appeared to me like walking trees. Then Jesus touched me again and suddenly I could see clearly, but there was no mud. I don’t know what you are talking about. Are you sure you can even see at all? You must not know the Jesus I know. How could you see after such a disgusting experience? I don’t believe you know what you are talking about.”

With that, both men moved to the opposite ends of the bench and never spoke to each other again. That was the beginning of denominationalism: The Mudites and the Anti-Mudites."

[url=http://www.seegod.org/focus_on_jesus.htm]source[/url]

I personally struggle with the whole concept of joining a denomination. My home church is independent, but while I am at college I am attending a Nazarene church. I am not totally against denominations and I think that at least for now, I feel comfortable staying with church I am with. I attend this church because of the genuine spirit I feel, not just because it is Nazarene. If I knew of a Baptist church that was dedicated to prayer and holiness, I think I would be happy to go there should the Lord lead that way.

On the other hand, in preparing for the ministry, I struggle with the idea of joining a denomination, or being ordained by a particular denomination. If I was ordained by the United Methodists, then as soon as people hear that, they tend to be prejudiced because of things they have heard or experienced concerning the United Methodists. Therefore, though I believe in standing up for your beliefs, I prefer remaining independent because I think that it will leave more open doors in the long run for ministry and fellowship with believers of other stripes.

Athanasius

I think that denominations are far more divisive then helpful. It sets Christians up for controversies, "You go to what type of a church!?" We're supposed to be a body, not divided members.

Jordan

What are you talking about? What do you mean by "my church"???? I don't have a church, I'm a member of the Church! And so are you.

We are one in Christ - whether we like it or not! Why make distinctions where the Lord makes no distinction?

I don't care that you're a Southern Baptist, what worries me is that you care that you're a Southern Baptist!

The way I think of this is pretty easy to understand, when I say that I went home to eat with my family, some people would assume that I ate with brothers and sisters and my parents. If i was married it might mean eating with my wife and children. It could also mean eating with my grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles and such. None of these is a wrong understanding of family, much as I see that my church is a smaller part of the church, the same and yet different.

When you say the church, you're talking about all of the extended family through generations, when I spoke of the church in the context before mentioned I was specifically talking about my parents and brothers and sisters... we were both right, the problem is when people start saying which view is right and which view is wrong, because that's how denominations get started! ^_~

And please go easy on the text-bolding =)

It just occurred to me as I was stiring a pot of noodles that this whole denominational question is utter rubbish. I thought about it historically and then scripturally and then practically. Here’s what I realized.

When most people debate about which denomination is right or wrong, which one is better or worse, or whether they want to be in a denomination at all, they are making a choice. Usually the choice is pretty linier.

A. is bad, B. is worse, C. is OK, and D. is pretty good. So you have a choice between A, B, C and D. Well then comes along the person who says, “Well I don’t like any of the options, why are there all these denominations, they’re the work of the devil.’ So that person reasons to himself, ‘I won’t be any part of any denomination, I won’t pick A, B, C or D, and anyone who does is a total idiot.’

But unfortunately this person think that they’ve beaten the paradigm and are no longer restricted by the linier understanding of denominations; [b]that’s a fatal flaw[/b]! Instead of picking from options A, B, C or D, all they’ve in fact done is created option E, or F or so on –as if they’ve done something that no one else has ever thought to do.

Well let’s look back at history, I really couldn’t think of all but one denomination that actually set out to be a denomination (except in modern times, the last hundred years). And that was the Church of England.

Let’s think about this, Methodists… how did they get there start? Because John Wesley wanted his own denomination? No! Because he was booted out of the Church of England!

How about the Baptists, well they must have started out to be a denomination… wrong! They just disagreed over the nature of baptism, they didn’t set out to start a denomination, just get back to a biblical understanding of baptism.

The same can be said for just about every other denomination, none of them were out to start a new church (with the clear exception of the church of England) they just wanted to get back to biblical foundations, or other factors got involved.

[b]Today’s non-denominational churches might be tomorrow’s denominations[/b]! Yeah, that’s how it happened historically, so how can we suppose we’ll be any different.

So don’t take pride in the fact that you’re non-denominational –that in itself is a denomination! Like I said before, find out if your church is teaching biblical truth, if it is, than that’s the right church, otherwise go find one that is!

Hi Jeannette,

Somehow my first attempt at a reply malfunctioned and never posted. Odd.

Quote: This seems to worry folk - as If I'm a sort of a loose cannon, or not properly "committed", or "covered". Which is ridiculous! I attend meetings, love and respect the leaders of this church, pray for them and honour them for their gifts and the authority the Lord has given them to serve in this way.

I just wanted to say that I have come out of a controlling church environment where "covenant" was used as a means to manipulate people into staying, etc. I disagree with the notion of a membership roll, especially if it is expressed as a "covenant". While there are some legalities for a charitible organization (at least in Canada anyway...not sure about other countries but I would imagine they would be similar...)that states that they have to have an annual meeting with a quorum of members. If that's the reason for a membership sign-up so they can have a head count, then fine. But if there are overtones of "covenant" and "covering" along with membership and this arrangement is somehow spiritualized, yikes, major red flag there. It might be a controlling church. I hope that isn't the case with yours, but I thought I would mention as spiritual abuse is an unpleasant experience.

Blessings,

Sonja

Non-denominational churches are good in the fact they remove the “label” (Baptist, Nazarene, Lutheran…) that might turn someone off because of a bad past experience.

One thing I have witnessed many times is when a non-denominational person mentions there non-denominational position they are asked their view on eternal security and other potentially problematic issues.

Question. Why does my town have two non-denominational churches?

I know why…because one is much more Calvinistic than the other.

Something to think about.

Peace be with you.

TJ

Well I want to say this kindly, but I think a lot of it has an issue of submitting authority or wanting authority. A lot of church divisions occur when someone wants more power, or someone doesn't want to be under someone else's authority. Sometimes the desire is right, sometimes wrong.

I mean, you can look at a situation like the independence of the united states: the americans were a bunch of jerks who just couldn't submit to the authority of a monarchy (like the other colonies could). Or one could say 'well, the americans had strong leadership of their own and weren't getting the right kind of representation in the government in europe.' The same thing happens in our churches, if we look at it one way it's divisive, if we look at it from the other perspective it's liberation to break free and do something better... if the US had stayed a british colony? Who knows how we would be today? Someone could probably argue better in some ways, and others worse in some ways. The fact of the matter is that there was a split.

Denomninations are the same way, some splits in churches happen because of ambition, others because of circumstances, others because of good intentions... somehow God is going to use it all.

God told man to populate the whole earth, he had to destroy the tower of babel to get his people to do it! They disobeyed him by not going out, their main sin was that they didn't follow his command to spread over all the earth, not just because they built a tower.

Maybe God created denominations so that the Word of God would go out... maybe the Catholic church (besides it's corruption and problems with doctrine) wasn't getting the job done, so God initiated the breaking of it, maybe Lutherins and Calvinists weren't getting the job done, so God had to grind them up a bit, maybe Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians and Presbiterians weren't getting the job done so he had to throw them into the meat grinder. If we think about it, we can see God's hand into dividing up our mass enterprises to make us go out! And guess what, it's worked better that way.

With the division of protestants from catholics he got twice as much missionary activity, with the division of protestant denominations he got even more, and more, and our God is a missionary God, that's what he wants! [b]This is an epiphany! God is behind denominations! They're one of his box of tools to get his word out to all peoples! Praise God![/b]

1 Corinthians 1:10-13 "Now I beseech you, bretheren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgement. 11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my bretheren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. 12 Now I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. 13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptised in the name of Paul?

I would put things in bold or italics but I haven't tried this out enough to figure all of that out. My point is this, denominationalism is not of God. The church of Corinth was clearly heading into denominations and Paul was correcting them here early in the letter. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time to post so I read these forums a great deal. This issue is a little endearing to me because I grew up in SBC's.

I currently go to a bible church that is independent. I really have nothing against SBC's or denominations. What bothers me is to go out on the street to pass out tracts and to witness to people and hear an answer all of the time, "yeah, I'm a baptist, or I'm a presbyterian or I'm a pentecostal." When we get down to brass tacks, "are you of Christ."

I grew up in and live in the Southeast, the bible or baptist belt. Just a few days ago there have been articles out about the SBC and baptist churches in general doing a better job in cracking down on abusive pastors (ie sexual) My point in saying this is that when we put an emphasis on an organization and attach it to
Christ as opposed to lifting up Christ alone, we give opportunities like this to arise and allow the unbeliever to wag his finger and besmirch the name of Christ. Baptists will let you down, Methodists will let you down, Reformist will let you down, But Christ will never fail.

Long story short, I am of Christ!!! Praise God, Hallelujah!!! :-D

One concept that i have come to realize is, thank God for denominations. I forgot the scripture basically shows an element of division as a good thing. It sort of relates to how someone like John Wesley starts a movement and then usually after a generation or so, it starts to wane. Majority continues the downward slope while a handful who are wholehearted standup against it and start their own 'denomination' or 'offshoot'. Then the next generation of that group starts to wane and a handful of that group leaves and starts another 'offshoot'. That in a nutshell is how denominations have started. Wholehearted ones leaving a compromising church. Not all division is bad.

I thank God for Christ. I don't think there is a scripture about division being good other than in a discipline situation. Isn't is interesting that could very well be why we have so many divisions, discipline.

Something else occurred to me as I was thinking of this thread. Denominationalism often leads to a pride of one's certain denomination. Again, growing up a Baptist I know how the chest sticks out when proclaiming "I am a Baptist, or I am a Methodist, or I am a Presbyterian." More importantly many times it comes down to

[b]"I'm this and thank God I'm not one of them."[/b]
I am not saying that this is what anyone is implying, I am saying that this has been my experience as I have perceived it.

I like this, " He that glorieth, Let him glory in the Lord." 1Cor1:31.

Lord Bless,

sean