Wrong expectations on church?

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am just wondering, whether I could possibly have wrong expectations on what the church should be in my life, or what my relationship to the people in the church should be.

Is it wrong to expect that the church should be like your second home or family?

I really think that the only real friends I can ever have, will be people who love and follow the Lord wholeheartedly. But... is it too much if I expect people to get involved in my life outside of the church service?
I decided to be part of a local church that's about 30-40km away from the town where I live. Because here, I could not find 'a place of rest', a church that I could visit without having fight within myself...

And the godly people in the church are like probably the only Christian people that I interact with live most of the time (I mean in person and not online etc. ) So could it be that I have wrong expectations on church to be my home, family and on Christians in this church to be my friends?

Jesus sure had a lot of followers inside and outside the church, but then again, it's very hard for any of us while still in this flesh to be like Jesus.

Esther-

You are not wrong in your thinking. Unfortunately the majority of evangelicals have the idea of "going to church" where you are with other believers for a couple of hours and then go home. In many cases you don't see anyone again until next Sunday unless you run into someone at the store.

Some churches do try to address this problem with "cell groups" that might meet with varying frequency.

The way our society is arranged it is difficult to live in community with other believers.

Is it wrong to expect that the church should be like your second home or family?

Yes it is wrong. Church is not our second home. It should be our first home. Even above our home if our home is made of unbelievers. When I was unmarried and still connected to my parents who were unbelievers, my church was my first family not my unbelieving parents. Jesus too lived like that ....

- Matt 12:48 - "Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

So in my Church in Dallas TX, we meet on Friday and Sundays. On Fridays we meet in the evening and stay in fellowship as late as 11PM! We encourage everyone to talk from what the Lord has been doing in their life. Even on Sundays we start our meeting at 10:30 AM and stay together till 4PM. Again the focus is on fellowship. After our formal meeting which runs for an hour and half, we have lunch together and then discuss in groups. It is these informal discussions in which we encourage everyone to openup from their lives.

Again based on my observation, even in a Church like ours, not everyone is interested in this deeper fellowship. There are still people who meet with us over an year and still leave immediately after lunch. But I am thankful that God has brought about people from different culture and nationalities who meet with us and stay late to fellowship and encourage one another.

But... is it too much if I expect people to get involved in my life outside of the church service?

It is not too much as long as you treat others the way you want them to treat you (Matt 7:12). The problem comes when you do not want to bind with others but expect them to bind with us. I think many who are loners and not part of local church fall under this category. They never learn to give for the Church but always expecting something out of the Church. That is why they are loners.

I am not saying you are like this, but examine yourself honestly. If you want to share your life with others, are you willing to listen to them and share their life with you? Are you willing to invest time in fellowship with them? Are you praying for them with a burdened heart? Often the mistake will be on our side.

Sree said: The problem comes when you do not want to bind with others but expect them to bind with us. I think many who are loners and not part of local church fall under this category. They never learn to give for the Church but always expecting something out of the Church. That is why they are loners.

And by the way, I'm probably one of the most generous and happy givers on earth, I just like to give outside the Church, and let God direct me to where to give.

I never meant giving as giving money, in fact we never ask from money from anyone in our local Church. Giving your time to fellowship with other needy people in the Church, is what I meant. Anyone can give his money for Lords work. But only a humble believer in Jesus will be willing to give his time to build up other believers in their locality.

What I said is truth. If any loner who is not a part of local Church examines himself honestly, he will agree with me. Honest self examination is the problem here.A person who already thinks he is perfect will never examine himself honestly and will not have any desire to meet with fellow believers in his locality as a Church.

In Revelation, Jesus writes his letters addressing to Churches not individual loners. It is by the love that the disciples show for one another in a Church, that people know that Jesus is God and we are his disciples. God's plan in new covenant is not to have individual perfect believers, but a group of imperfect believers who grow in perfection together as a Church. Anyone who is not coordinating with this plan of God is not doing God's will, period. It is their proud thought that they are already perfect, makes them impossible to meet with other imperfect believers.

The reason the nations in west are so degraded in morality is because of the failure of Christian believers to build local Churches that are true representation of Christ's body.

Thank you all for the responses!

@MrBill - I am not sure that I undestand you. What do you mean by "being like Jesus" in that context?

@TMK - We do not have cell groups but we have a prayer meeting, Bible study and a youth meeting during the week. I cannot be there every time but I am thankful to God that there are some people in the church with whom I can fellowship freely... and when somebody asks me "How are you doing?" - I would be able to share joy or burden, or some new lesson God taught me through this week. I think one of my errors earlier was that I thought the pastor should be the person on whom I can put all my burden. But it's not so! It's Jesus! And when I lean on Him, then having fellowship with other children of God is such joy!

@Sree - you made me laugh :) Indeed you are right. I've grown up in a Christian home, although not all of my relatives are Christians yet... that's why I said second home.

It is not too much as long as you treat others the way you want them to treat you (Matt 7:12). The problem comes when you do not want to bind with others but expect them to bind with us. I think many who are loners and not part of local church fall under this category. They never learn to give for the Church but always expecting something out of the Church. That is why they are loners.

To be honest, I think I would gladly be part of their lives also. But I think I am afraid....
*of being an intruder - because most of them have their own families (with kids etc.) and I am not sure in which sense I could really be part of their lives... I know that some of the children really love me and kind of don't want to let me go after church. We've had several times like spontaneous "Sunday school" - we sit on the grass and talk about the Bible ... and the idea came actually from them! Thank God!

*of being too hasty or emotional in my relationship with the church

*of disappointment

I think I had a period in my life, where I did expect that the church should do things for me. But I think, that's history for me now. I hate when somebody says: "Oh, you are all alone!" It pierces my heart. Then I try to correct them saying that God is with me. I do not want to fall into "self-pity", mourning my (humanly speaking) loneliness. But rather I want to flourish, I want to share and with the freedom that I have to serve others by the grace of God.

Many people today understand the church as a building. This is not a biblical understanding of the church. The word "church” comes from the Greek word ekklesia which is defined as "an assembly” or "called-out ones.” The root meaning of "church” is not that of a building, but of people. It is ironic that when you ask people what church they attend, they usually identify a building. Romans 16:5 says "greet the church that is in their house.” Paul refers to the church in their house””not a church building, but a body of believers.

The church is the body of Christ, of which He is the head. Ephesians 1:22-23 says, "And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” The body of Christ is made up of all believers in Jesus Christ from the day of Pentecost (Acts chapter 2) until Christ’s return.

//afraid of disappointment//

Sort of chuckled at that one. If you attend a fellowship regularly you will be disappointed; it's okay to be disappointed; the key is to avoid being offended.

My wife and I have recently moved from disappointment in the church have been attending to disillusionment. When that happens it is time to move on, which we are in process of doing.

To be honest, I think I would gladly be part of their lives also. But I think I am afraid....
*of being an intruder - because most of them have their own families (with kids etc.) and I am not sure in which sense I could really be part of their lives...

I can totally relate with you. In my case, now that I have a family with me, I invite people to our home. When I sense that there are people around me in my locality with need, I invite them to home, share my family life with them, give them the Gospel and invite them to Church etc. Even so called Christians today have deviated so much from the Gospel, hence it is very important to discuss what Jesus has done for them.
Similarly when people just come to meet with us in Church, if I find them getting committed to Church, then I invite them also. Inviting families to our home is a great way to start a fellowship. We will soon find that there are many needy people around us, only when they open up about what is happening in their lives.

We definitely need wisdom in inviting people as we cannot invite everyone without having some confidence about them. Allow God to guide you in this.

The church is the body of Christ, of which He is the head. Ephesians 1:22-23 says, "And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” The body of Christ is made up of all believers in Jesus Christ from the day of Pentecost (Acts chapter 2) until Christ’s return.

I do not want to post for the sake of argument. But I believe this statement of yours is unbiblical. There is no Biblical account of what you have said at all. It is totally your personal interpretation.

I agree that Church is not a building. But the Church referred in Bible is not comprising of all believers in Jesus. The Church referred in the Bible are group of believers in one locality who gather together to encourage one another.
1. There are clear instructions given on how the meeting should be held, how people of different gifts should function together in a local Church, in the Bible. All these things will be meaningless if the Church refers to every individual believers in Jesus. What is the use of God making one as prophet and another as elder if they are all living individually not connected to one another?

2. Just take the example of Body, if every part is living separately without connection to one another but only connected to Head then how can it function? Can you keep the heart, eyes, ears all separately and just connect them to Head and make it living as a body?
It is not even a body. There is no living being in this world with such a body! How can we imagine the Body of Christ alone to be a body where the individual members are not connected to one another at all? So just saying we are imaginary connected to one another via Jesus will not work. In a real body there are more connections between organs than just their connection to Head. Connection to Head is very important, without that no body can be alive. But individual connection is also important.

3. Also in Revelation, Jesus did not write any letter to all believers in any locality or globally. He clearly addressed every individual churches in every locality. These places like Smyrna etc, were not too far away from them. They were all part of Asia minor and separated by less than 100 miles. Still Jesus did not address all of them in one letter. He wrote separate letter to each one of them. And also addressing them to the Prophetic elder in the Church. If every individual believers in that locality never submitted to this elder whom Jesus is writing to, then how can they all even receive that letter?

To summarize, in Bible there is no concept of a individual believer living alone without any connection to other believers in the locality. By connection I do not mean occasional meeting. But a committed relationship between them as a local Body. When the Apostles traveled to different places, they evangelized people in that locality, gathered them as a Church. This is what Paul means when he said I planted and Apollos watered. They were all watered by God appointed elders, not by Jesus alone. Indirectly Jesus watered those believers through Apollos and other elders.

Sree I believe you may be mostly correct- there is some confusion in terms regarding "the bride of Christ" and the "Church" with a capital "C."

Technically the true "Church" or universal Church= the Bride of Christ.

There may be some verses that refer to Church as meaning the universal Church, e.g. Mt. 16:18.

But in most cases it seems local church is intended.

RE : /// The church is the body of Christ, of which He is the head. Ephesians 1:22-23 says, "And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” The body of Christ is made up of all believers in Jesus Christ from the day of Pentecost (Acts chapter 2) until Christ’s return.///

Very good.

That is also the theme of 1st Corinthians.

There may be some verses that refer to Church as meaning the universal Church, e.g. Mt. 16:18.

In Matt 16:18 where Jesus mentions that 'I will build my Church'. I believe it is applicable to all local Churches. It is Christ Jesus who builds them. I am not sure how this verse could mean only Universal Church and not local Church?

I am not neglecting the possibility of universal Church. But I am against neglecting a local Church based on our assumptions on Universal Church. Some posts here are classic example of that! No matter what we believe about universal Church, it cannot be supported 100% from Bible because Bible is silent on that. But Bible is very clear on local Church and how it should function. So it is absolute stupidity of believers to neglect the well explained Local CHurches in scripture to hold on to an imaginary Universal Church.

there is some confusion in terms regarding "the bride of Christ" and the "Church" with a capital "C."

I personally believe that every local Church is an individual bride of Christ. They are individual representation of the Body of Christ. They are individually connected with Christ as well. One scriptural proof I can give of this is from revelation -

Rev 1:20 - This is the mystery of the seven stars you saw in My right hand and of the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

Jesus was seen by John among 7 lampstands. Not one lampstand having 7 different branches as Israel was represented. But individually there are 7 different lampstand with 7 connected branches. Each of the lampstands represents a Church.

Now to answer the question on how Jesus saw all these individual brides of Christ as a single Bride of Christ during his marriage is something beyond my understanding. The Bible does not explain that. Let us not add our own imagination to it.

My understanding is, all these individual brides will become a single bride during the marriage. I do not know how. Neither do I need to know how. Just like we do not know how God can exist as 3 different person!

To summarize, the Bride of Christ comprises of all local Body of Christ. People who do not bind with a local Body of believers will not be part of this bride of Christ. How can someone who openly disobeys the binding with local Church will be somehow bound in heaven? Let Jesus alone be true and every man a liar.

Matt 18:18- Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

The OP here is genuinely interested in fellowship with saints in her locality. This is a genuine question. If any other poster believes that he is so perfect and does not need fellowship of believers, then it is left for them to ignore such posts. They do not need to give their answer at all in such threads.
Instead I find it very harmful to devalue the importance of local Church and put their own unbiblical view of Church. I think it is putting a stumbling block in the path of a child of God who is zealous to be part of a local body of believers. Jesus himself gave the curse for such people who put stumbling blocks.

Hence I had to jump to emphasis the countless number of scriptures that talks about Local Church and the importance of being part of one.

It is true that the church is not a building, nor an organisation, meant to serve our selfish needs. But rather its aim is to worship God. I like the word in German "Gottesdienst" - meaning service to God. And while we serve God, we are being blessed by God and our needs (spiritual, physical and social) are being met. But its all about Him in the first place!

Sree, I understand your concern but I do not believe it is biblical to say:

People who do not bind with a local Body of believers will not be part of this bride of Christ. How can someone who openly disobeys the binding with local Church will be somehow bound in heaven?

Because first off, there are perhaps not local churches in absolutely every city on this planet (I might be wrong here, God knows) My point is just that you do not know the circumstances of each believer to judge about that. For example, I've read a book from Amy Carmichael, who tells the story of Mimosa, young girl, who was touched by the love of God - although the missionaries could not tell her about Jesus. But after a short conversation, her heart was so changed that she refused then to do rituals that she used to do before and was punished by her parents for that. She grew up and married, tried to teach her children the fear of God and then years later, when she could contact Amy, she was baptized. The whole story you can read in the book "Mimosa". I share this, just to say that there are people, who perhaps don't even have the opportunity to be part of a church (persecution, prison etc.)

Second, there was a period in my life when I did not go anywhere to church. And the major reason was because I did not want to become hypocrite and because I did not want to break my heart again. Probably some people can manage 'break up' with a congregation easily - but for me it was hard, and at one point I really felt like "kicked out by your own mother" - the church that should be home to a believer, in some occasions, has become a home for everybody but a believer.

Having said all that, I believe that here it's a true saying: "The exception proves the rule." Therefore, I would not judge if anybody does not go to church. But thinking that some believers in Communist countries and Muslim countries do their best to gather even with risk for their life, I would say, by all means try to find a godly biblical church. Because after salvation and marriage that's one of the most crucial decisions, I think, a man makes.

Todd,

... I think Jesus was disappointed with the disciples too. How they could not understand what He was saying (loaf of the pharisees) or pray with Him. I think that's not easy to take. Or the denial of Peter, imagine having a man so close for 3 whole years, who in the end denies he ever knew you! Yet Jesus prayed for Him!

I think that all of us have 'schocked' Jesus likewise. And God has been merciful to me to bring me back, and correct me. And I know that the church isn't perfect but we should pray for one another, encourage and correct each other so that we become more and more like Him!

But not everything that people call 'church' is church in God's eyes! "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." - And there is a point, where the Holy Spirit gives up on a particular "church". So we should just be sensitive to His leading.

I hope honestly, it won't be needful to move on from the current church (except I move to another town). Changing churches very often isn't perhaps very healthy. And yet again, I must stick more to Christ than to people, which means that Christ should be first and not our aim of remaining together.

Just for the record, what I posted here was my own personal belief, and what I gather from my reading of the word, of course we're all going to have different opinions on how we interpret the word of God, simply because the spirit ministers to us differently through each passage. I have no desire, to keep anyone from attending a place of worship, I choose to worship at home, and I'm worshipping the same God as anyone else is in their choice of a place of worship. I do feel sometimes that people that do attend a church building to worship, sometimes feel that others that don't, lack in their relationship with the Lord. If you want to attend a church building for your place of worship, every night and day of the week, I respect that, as long as you respect my choice of where I choose to worship. As someone mentioned in this thread, what about the people all over the world that don't have a church building, and maybe not even a home, all they have is a personal relationship with Christ, these in my world are the folks that have a total desire to worship and seek a relationship with the Lord.

I can totally relate with you. In my case, now that I have a family with me, I invite people to our home.

Actually their hospitality even makes me sometimes feel awkward ...cause I don't always want to be the receiver. One time we had also lunch after service and went then somewhere outside with some people from the church. And I was totally amazed and thankful to God for the fellowship we had.

I am glad when I meet brothers and sisters who want to talk about the things of Christ, instead of changing the topic on something superficial and worldly. To be honest the latter type of discussion you can lead as well with unbelievers...

Sometimes I think too, that being open and sincere in such conversations makes you 'vulnerable', 'predictable' to some extent because you open up to people you don't really know in depth (like I know my family for example). But it is ok... I think the only people that can really hurt you, are those, you love; those, you've allowed to come close enough. But love dares! Even if I get hurt, would I not be just walking in the footsteps of Jesus?!

"For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:" (2 Peter 2:21)

"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." (1 John 3:16) - I want to know what that means indeed...