A Sore thumb in church: Virtual pastors and Congregation

1 Corinthians 12:27 KJV
Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular

1 Corinthians 12:25 KJV
That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.

Ephesians 4:4 KJV
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

Ephesians 4:16 KJV
From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part , maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

1 Corinthians 12:24 KJV
For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together , having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked

James 2
1 My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. 2 For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; 3 And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: 4 Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? 5 Hearken , my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? 6 But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? 7 Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called ? 8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: 9 But if ye have respect to persons , ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. 10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

Mark 9:35 KJV
And he sat down , and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.

Mark 10:44 KJV
And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.

What is it with church even thou we do not tend to we tend to honour people more than others, When we are desperatly broken. What do we do when someone is crying in church and in need.
As Art Katz do we live in the Cinema Church were there is no response to the person next to you and you do not know whether that same person will be with you next week.
I have had that happen I am sitting in Church with them one week next week had a stroke or next week dead.

As one who is interested in computers what would virtual congregrations and pastors be like, just turn on a button and the kinect based, hologram comes to life with a preprogrammed high tones in the sermon depending on which denomination it has a database in which sermons from different denominations are plugged in and length on whether anglican or any other denomination with entire access to systems of commentaries and databases of previous sermons and knowlegable enough to even ask questions with a siri based access to vast numbers of theological questions

Then links in to the latest news briefs to comment on whats happening in the world, Yet a lifeless hologram that cannot deal with peoples need

Then there is the people in the pew who might aswell be holograms aswell as theatre presentations which can program the audience to stand up and sit down to sing in tune

A virtual congregration and pastor without no conflict or people doing what they are suppose to and without the holy spirit just mindless robots not even thinking why they do what they do or even why they believe in what they believe ? A habit of routine which might aswell be better programmed by holograms.

I always remember bringing in a Homeless man who took of his socks and used a carving knife to sort out his feet as they were terrible to a meeting and he sorted out his feet in the meeting.

It is with the mildeu of life people have a surface christianity that when God pierces the surface as being through 3 church splits I know.

Masks of pretence, Hiding behind theology and using theology to not love. When financial problems, people who are unsaved, relationship problems and things that lie underneath the surface

Why do we stand up and sit down, why cant I question the man preaching ? What if I pray ?

William booth used to go to churches were there was actual barriers between the poor and the others in church
During the apartide there was divides then
Are we a product of our culture? or are we a citizen of Heaven
The methodists were bombarded and so were the early salvation army with rubbish and other things people hated the early methodists

Now to bring up the sore thumb issue , Martin Luther was a sore thumb in his time as he decided to question the norms and william tyndale

I always feel like a sore thumb in church as I read alot yet, I so cry after the holy spirit not married so unsuitable for leadership and my life is a complete mess.
Broken so much inside , broken by the world and persecuted christians and lost souls going to Hell

If we had revival would the church accept it ? Probably not
We tend to critise people for people being slain in the spirit but we are not on our knees in church.
We tend to correct error but to have no truth in its place

Is Jesus where the knowledgeable or the where the weak, poor

At the moment I am just broken, All I have wanted to know who I am in Christ, what is God will for my life.

I always remember going to church and the situation was terrible, do we have the holy spirit in our lives enough to detect what is going on in the Heavens and whether the man next to use will die tomorrow

What is Gods perspective on our lives? What is the heavenly view of our churches or even our lives?
As Job in the scriptures did not even understand what satan was doing I have never understood how job even got to know what satan was doing ?

We can pretend to be good before others but what about God as he is the only person that really matters. Is the spirit of Truth do we lie in church or have that holographic exeprience or do we need the holy spirit to disrupt our lives to realise we desperatly need Jesus

As God sees everything as it really is I cry over the mess my life is ? and the worst thing is that I cannot do anything without christ either I cannot change without him. as I am desperatly wicked.

It is hard like David in psalm 119 I know more than my teachers because I love your law, Do we have pastors that love Jesus and then love scripture or are just Holographic pastor preprogrammed with out hearing from the lord and spent time in prayer

I dont think I can cry Jesus help me anymore as my heart is breaking. We preach shallow sermons to shallow audiences for shallow lives.

We do not know our heritage, the people of faith that have walked before us, we do not know church history, We do not know our saviour ?

I know as a pastors son I was desperate for people to serve whilst in our church. It seems that most pastors do not know there congregation that well to know what they are interested in and who they are ?

Do we have servants or virtual members ?

Hey DeltaTom-

I do not have a strong opinion on this either way as scripture doesn't address it directly.

However, I do have a question for you, or others if they wish to respond.

Would you worship with a local body of believers, attend Sunday School classes, be part of a small group that meets for prayer once a week at the local coffee shop before work, sing worship songs to the Lord at a corporate believers meeting, etc. each week and then be willing to watch a live feed of the Apostle Paul preaching each week as opposed to someone locally speaking in person at that site?

I wonder if the churches that Paul, Barnabas, and Silas founded would have been glad to have Paul, Timothy, Peter, or Titus sharing a message to build their faith each week even if it was via a live video feed.

Perhaps if they had some of the tools we have available today they may well have used them as well. Like cars, computers, telephones,the sermons recorded here on SI, or anything else that can help accomplish more.

Again, just questions and food for thought.

edit: (posted in wrong thread.)

Hi Dom,

Brother you touch on many important issues. Lack of compassion for our fellow brethren and the temptation to disengage is surely a direct result of the lukewarmness of our times. Jesus didn't tell the people at Ephesus that He was removing their candlestick because their doctrine was not pure enough, He said He would remove it for their haveing left their first love.

And because iniquity shall abound in these last days, the love of many will wax cold. The enemy is seeking to wear out the Saints. That is not to say that there is not a remnant that is still seeking God and loving one another, because there is. There always has been and there always will be. This is the issue, I think. I don't believe God cares about who has the best vision through the dark glass, but who is really loving one another with a pure heart- fervently. By this shall all men know you are my disciples if you have love one to another. That is what matters.

God forgive the critical spirits of our times that manifest on many different levels, but stem from the same lack of genuine compassion for man and love for God. It's the recycled leaven of the Pharisees. They were forever wanting to stamp out the fire of God. Why? Because where the fire of God is there is genuineness. People love like Jesus and Stephen when they are truly on fire for God. The enemies reaction? Stamp them out and thrown dirt on them. That's what the enemy wants to do.

Remove the candlestick or pluck the tree by the roots, it's all the same. People want to get on without the manifest presence of God in their life. God was in Christ. Is God in us? Then why is God 'in us' not reconciling the world to Himslef as He did when He was 'in Christ'? It's because many have the Spirit by logical deduction and there is no fruit in their life. They don't know the person beside them is contemplating suicide because many are strung out on their bessetting sins. Just keeping it real. They barely made it to the meeting themselves many times- because they have one foot backslid and the other on a banana peeling. But if you ask them doctrinally they can spout all the right answers off.

Preaching without fire is spreading death. Meetings without fire are death. Christians without fire are death. How do we know? Because Jesus told the people in Revelation 2- when the fire of God's love and compassion goes out there is nothing left to do but remove the candlestick. It has become nothing more than a polished stumbling block in a darkened world. What's the use of a candlestick if there is no fire? Just how I see it. But we can seek the Lord to make sure that we are burning for Him. We can come afresh to Romans 12:1-2 and presnet ourselves to the Lord so that He can send the fire again. Like William Booth declared, "Send the fire!" It's what we need. We cannot get by on some lesser things.

Matthew 24:12 KJV
And because iniquity shall abound ,
the love of many shall wax cold .

This is predicted in Matthew 24 , you hit the nail on the head
I love church history but when we lose sight of god

2 Timothy 3:5 KJV
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away .

But we should never seek power, Jesus and his word is who we should seek

Replying to one of the earlier posts we should every method to seek god

Matthew 11:21 KJV
Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

We live in a age where we have the bible on audio. Bible on mobile phones and so many resources from history unlike any other age, it is not like we like before the 1500s where there were very few bibles in English, we have abundance , we all need to seek more.
If there was one bible left in America or the uk we would have to have the desire to seek it out if we are looking after god
Dom