Originally posted by RBerman
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The mutuality aspect makes this discussion difficult over the internet, because we don't really know each other. We should have an attitude of servanthood, rather than church first and foremost being about what we get out of it. At the same time, if the edification is not actually mutual, then there's clearly a problem. If I sat down to a meal that never was served, or that was rancid, or that was nothing but junk food, my hunger instinct would not allow me to give up on eating. I would eat elsewhere; the hunger would grow and grow until sated. I've visited plenty of churches and thought, "I prefer my own church," but relatively few of which I thought, "If this were the only church in town, I would just stay home."
When someone says, "There are no good churches, so I don't go," in most places in North America that would reflect poorly on the speaker rather than the community. There may well be exceptions. But typically, when someone comes to my church with terrible stories about how bad all the other churches are, more likely than not they'll be telling bad stories about my church too somewhere else, next year.
When someone says, "There are no good churches, so I don't go," in most places in North America that would reflect poorly on the speaker rather than the community. There may well be exceptions. But typically, when someone comes to my church with terrible stories about how bad all the other churches are, more likely than not they'll be telling bad stories about my church too somewhere else, next year.
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