What is a Church?

  
Whose Church do YOU belong too?

Who is your Spiritual Leader?

Does your church tightly control the flow of information within its ranks? 

 * Does your spiritual leader use public shaming as a method to gain the compliance of followers?

 * Is your spiritual leader intolerant of questions or critical inquiry?

 * Is your spiritual leader the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation? 

* Does your spiritual leader have unreasonable fears about the outside world such as evil conspiracies or persecutions? 

* Are you discouraged to associate with former members, being warned that they are "evil" or "defiling"?

 * Is leaving your group to join another church equal to leaving God? 

* Does the surrounding community view your church as a cult?

 * Does your spiritual leader consider it evil persecution when criticized or questioned? 

 * Do the goals of your spiritual leader seem to supersede any personal goals or individual interests?

 * Do you fear being rebuked, shunned, or ignored for expressing a different opinion? 

* Do former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances?

* If you have a criticism is it politically correct to call that criticism bitterness on your part? 

 If you can answer yes to many of these questions, your church may well be a full blown authoritarian cult.

 I am not sure Who wrote this,  it certainly should cause you to examine !

What do you have to Say?

 The Bible Says: everyone who confesses Jesus Christ as Lord is a part of the church.

Therefore: Who is the Church?

Ernest Southcott, said :

"The holiest moment of the church service is the moment when God’s people—strengthened by preaching and sacrament—go out of the church door into the world to be the church. 

"We don’t go to church; we are the church."
 
The church, therefore, is not a place. It is not A building, it is not A location, and it is not A denomination.

 We  i.e. God's people who are in Christ Jesus ... R the church!

GOOD, BAD and ALL things in between! 

RIGHT? 

Maranatha