rather than gathering around Christ we're to gather around Christ as in the center in our
head he's the center of the church he said we're two or more gathered in my name there
am I in the midst I know that has to do with certain things and judgment in other aspects
but he is in the midst of the church singing praise unto God but there's no such thing as
a worship leader either biblically speaking we are all by Christ to offer the sacrifice
of praise by him let us off the sacrifice of praise he's in the midst of the church it says
in Hebrews st. making sing praise to God through the church and if we let him work in us and we
are able to worship God in spirit and truth that's what Christ calls us to but when you
end up gathering around a famous preacher or a doctrinal teaching no wonder there's going to
be divisions because you get most denominational separation today I believe come because men gather
around a certain teaching or a doctrine of a man rather than listening for Christ and they
just they cling to that man's teaching and if they don't agree with him they may go to another place
this will take the truth most false doctrine I believes come out of men who are having not
listen to the Spirit of God who are not sensitive to his leading I have not been taught to do that
perhaps they're just assimilated with their own mind what they believe to be true the wisdom of
men and I believe that's where most false doctrine comes true doctrine comes by the
Holy Spirit the revelation of Christ a false doctrine comes by man's own mind understanding
my name is mike mclean and i'm from Fredericton New Brunswick and Church has been a real journey
for me takes me back to my youth when I was brought up in a very traditional fundamental
Christian family into the church I recognized as I sat in church Sunday after Sunday in that
routine convention that was in our in our life that something was terribly amiss and I knew
instinctively that I wasn't something was all but it was almost like it was dishonest what
was being said was not being lived out in the community little did I realize that that home
Church experience was more Church in the home or honey they shrank the church or a microcosm
of the steeple house down on the corner which I was familiar with and rather I have to say angry
with irritated with so I found myself thinking what is this what why am i confused why am I
upset of one hand we have a block of time at the beginning of this meeting where there's freedom
there's praise and worship there's an opportunity to share but then what happened and I see it more
clearly now there was that control element that came in because someone now took charge of the
meeting and we all became we came into a spectator mode and now we were no longer included our gifts
didn't seem to matter anymore and there was this pole hauling that I experienced many many times
as I entered into these what I thought were home churches we eventually developed our own little
home church where there was a kind of plurality clean collegiality of leadership and I thought
well that's probably as close to the true thing the authentic thing as we're going to get but
there was this frustration again being left with me because even though I was included in that
leadership included in that plurality I recognized that something still was amiss wanting to have God
leave this the Holy Spirit move in that people would be willing to take risks and have one
another we know the term one another in work we will take some chances and if we're off-base we
trust a brother or a sister to come up to us and say you know you were a little bit off here and
they have to begin to receive that correction and we learn how to flow together the leadership comes
in the same way eldership is seen naturally people that have more experience more years more wisdom
people just recognize that I've had people come to me and say Mike I know you don't call yourself
an elder but we nonetheless we see it and I say well if that's the truth then we'll all
experience it together so that there's certain things that we can only experience corporately
as the body gathers we can't do it on our own individually there's certain insights that God
gives us but then there's a there's something to do with the eternal purposes of God for the
church that can only happen corporately and I just understanding that more and more as
this journey goes so simple Church for me in a nutshell in conclusion will be simply this
when people gather together and Jesus shows up we experience the manifest presence of Jesus
Christ among his people not trying to control give him the control completely that's church
Tim and that's one encourage any believers out there that are seeking Jesus in his fullness
and in his body in his church especially people that are still part of the system the religious
system and they're struggling to come out of it I just want to tell you whatever struggles and
hardships and crosses you have to go through he is worth it and that your reward will far exceed
any cost that it'll take for you to see him and find him and I pray and hope that like Paul you
will count all things as dung in comparison to knowing Christ there's one aspect of the atonement
that sticks into my heart vividly is that the veil was ripped from top to bottom not bottom the top
man didn't rip it god of tore that curtain God provided the access to himself for us don't let
anybody so and Stitch that curtain back together you's a believer have access to God yourself go in
there with other believers and learn Christ learn about this Christ of yours and this God of ours
this father that you have don't let man any man become a blockade or a barrier to you Christ is
your Lord and your God and the body of Christ if you can remember this phrase the body of Christ is
not one man speaking in behalf of many but many speaking as one man the new man Christ and seek
other believers speak the name of Jesus and God will bring you in contact with other believers
that are also on that same journey and your life will be full and rich and for time and eternity
and just one when the Lord first got ahold of me I was in the Lutheran Church I'd been brought up
Lutheran and so that was the first church that we went to and actually I was a churchgoer before I
had been brought to know him so there was a lot of work going on then and as I grew in the faith
I began to recognize that there wasn't a lot of true biblical Christianity around me and then
we would be were set on a path of looking for a more biblical Church early on and we continued to
look for a place to where people use their Bibles where they knew the Lord where they enjoyed and
loved one another and and where we had you know where they were looking for a biblical basis for
everything that was done so I remember asking all sorts of questions even early on in the in
that first church about what's the basis for the authority of the pastor where ultimately led us
to was a Baptist Church where everybody did have Bibles and did seem to know the Lord and there
was seem to be a lot of good not just come robbery but but even fellowship friendships some knowledge
of one another beyond Sunday but even then in time we came to find out that that too was only so deep
somewhat superficial it came to understand that in the scripture there was a true love for one
another a knowledge of one another and intimacy relationships I saw things described there that
I did not experience in this church and I realized that if it wasn't in this church it wouldn't give
me any other one that I found because outwardly this one had all those marks but after a couple
years I realized it wasn't there so we knew something terribly important was missing and
was not right we work on relationships we spend time with one another we do get together a couple
of times a week and the main thing that we do is we have a meal together the nine or ten of us that
there are consistent now for four years I would guess we meet on a weekly basis we have a meal
together we fellowship with one another and then we later open our Bibles and we may be studying
a book of the Bible and so we'll have that if something else doesn't intervene to that's more
important that we talk about but we talk about our problems we talk about the things that happen in
the development and the difficulties and the questions that we have and you know we talk
about life and we I think what we do is have life together with a wider body of people than just
ourselves my name is Damian I've been a Christian for about 22 years now I started off came from a
Roman Catholic background and the Lord came into my life had a very very crucial point in my life
when I first got saved I ended up attending a Pentecostal church and you know for the
first couple of years it was a very very positive experience and I got involved in different aspects
of ministry I got involved in phone ministry what I was finding personally was that there
was really seem to be a real lack of relationship between people in the local assembly they just
there just seemed to be something missing and I really didn't seem to know what it was
people didn't seem to have that closeness people didn't really seem to really get involved so much