Chart: A Seekers' Progression towards NT faith and practice

[RZehr]

Sounds like you have a great church Wade.

[Ernie]

I get a sense of what your saying but with ultras I think they know your family ties are severely weakened with your commitment to Christ being stronger than blood lines so I haven't seen the assumptions you speak of. My experience is that they fully understand you don't have much close social connections - but they also have no desire to compete or win you over if you still have contact with family.
When I spoke of some of my challenges and loneliness in the past my minister chuckled and said, "Purging!". He was right. I need to stop focusing on self and still need to and then things start to fit together but it wasn't without a time(years) of getting over myself... They have no desire to fuel attention on self and sometimes the fix for a self-centered person like me has being not giving into my pity party.
The local church plant isn't shy to ask my wife to make a meal even though she hasn't applied for membership. Getting people involved with purpose is good.

At the work bee today the first 5 people that showed up were the minister and three seeker men and my 14 year old son who begged and convinced me to take the day off so he could come work too.

So Wade, we got to know you soon after you lived at the other side of the continent. We heard very different things then from a church in the same fellowship as the one you are at now.

So if you are comfortable sharing, What is difference between the churches and perhaps what is different about you now that makes you able to enjoy your present situation? Do you think you would have the same experience on the other side of the continent if you were to attempt to join there today?

[Ernie]

So... what changed between the Jews and the CM's?

The early church slowly tilted to gentiles and became effectively gentile dominant at some point. What did the Jews do different? or was it entirely due to the Apostles having authority to fix problems on a broad scale?

The Jews in Palestine didn't do very well with Gentile believers. They even "exported" some of their biases to Antioch which was also a Jewish stronghold, and Peter and Barnabas even got caught up in it.

Many of the churches west of Antioch did much better at blending Jews and Gentiles I think. I think the same thing could happen today if CA's could get past some of their biases.

[Wade]

I get a sense of what your saying but with ultras I think they know your family ties are severely weakened with your commitment to Christ being stronger than blood lines so I haven't seen the assumptions you speak of. My experience is that they fully understand you don't have much close social connections - but they also have no desire to compete or win you over if you still have contact with family.
When I spoke of some of my challenges and loneliness in the past my minister chuckled and said, "Purging!". He was right. I need to stop focusing on self and still need to and then things start to fit together but it wasn't without a time(years) of getting over myself... They have no desire to fuel attention on self and sometimes the fix for a self-centered person like me has being not giving into my pity party.
The local church plant isn't shy to ask my wife to make a meal even though she hasn't applied for membership. Getting people involved with purpose is good.

At the work bee today the first 5 people that showed up were the minister and three seeker men and my 14 year old son who begged and convinced me to take the day off so he could come work too.

So Wade, we got to know you soon after you lived at the other side of the continent. We heard very different things then from a church in the same fellowship as the one you are at now.

So if you are comfortable sharing, What is difference between the churches and perhaps what is different about you now that makes you able to enjoy your present situation? Do you think you would have the same experience on the other side of the continent if you were to attempt to join there today?

When I first became a Christian it was about three years before we found Mennonites/Anabaptists even ever existed at the present or in the past. Only knowing about Protestants and Catholics it seemed to make the most sense to attend a Protestant church. Pretty well every sermon we got to hear that there is nothing you HAVE TO do to be saved - faith only and anything else is works religion. I knew this was wrong but struggled to understand how to change my thought process. I carried that HAVE TO focused mindset with me from the world, it was taught in every Protestant church I seen - (notice however that it is incredibly deceptive and Protestant being the pushers of this mindset are the first ones to say they don't...) and I carried it right into Mennonite churches once I found any. I wanted to obey scripture but was mixed up in pushing myself and others that we HAD TO.

My focus was never about earning my salvation or believing or practicing works religion but I some how needed time and enough challenges to start to get the difference between WANT TO and HAVE TO as simple as it seems... This put me in position of what PeterG talked about in trying to attain some level of perfection that was unreasonable. Furthermore, not being a member and attending a church that drew and often pointed to distinct lines between members and non-members and what each is allowed and not allowed helped me to look on with a stronger lens of judgement. I allowed it to become an excuse for me to look on and do nothing well expecting the church to be fixing and helping out with all the things I seen wrong in their lives and mine. I don't know if I went back across the country with a different mindset now if it could work out? It's no secret this church had many internal struggles and in many ways I doubt it would work out with them now but I pray the best for them.

It was a post by Soloist years ago with a quote or link I think written by Michael Sattler about WANT TO and HAVE TO that sticks out in my mind as a real turning pointing in simply understanding that a saved person just simply WANTS TO follow and obey Christ and I was no longer confused in relating to constant bombardment from "Christians" railing on me for doing something scripture said but also helped me not place constant expectations on others at the same time.

The other big change that happened for me was coming to terms with God calling every Christian to BE the church. Not in the sense that any one person can be the church but I was waiting to be a member, and then if I were ever to preach I'd have to be ordained, I was evening neglected needs I seen because I didn't want to infringe on something that I wasn't fully submitted or worse yet accepted into with not being part of a church or filling my expected position within that church. When I finally grasped membership wasn't some special right of passage and acted on leadings that I believe God was pointing out I started ministering to people's spiritual, emotional, and physical needs in a very different way - it was about sharing His love as His Spirit leads and not some systematic doctrinal way. Little did I know how much that would minister to my own needs and short comings. Serving in the name of Christ becomes such a willing excitement.
I might share a bit more later....

[Ernie]

This is great, Wade. Thank you for sharing!

[Wade]

This idea of taking personal responsibility in BEING the church rather than expecting others to be the church really convicted me...
I finally humbled myself in submitting to attending the local Independent fundamentalist Baptist Church. Some of David Bercots CD's on being a radical Christian really challenged me in truly asking myself if I was really as loving and serving person as I could be.
It may sound strange for those of you who grew up with it but it really stretched me and put me out of my comfort zone to start making sure we joined the Baptist Pastor attending every nursing home service. Then things like the pianist wouldn't show up and the Pastor would ask my family to stand up and sing a song or two of acapella which made mine and my wife's flesh recoil - neither of us are the type of people that do well in front of crowds. But after a while these people with dementia that couldn't even tell me there own names seemed to remember us and our children. One man who couldn't talk anymore could at least get out some words from Jesus loves me and tried to say things when we went around after service and shook hands and talked with the residence. Another man that couldn't talk one time grabbed my hand and in silence wouldn't let go, after what seemed like a couple minutes a tear rolled down his cheek and after a year of not hearing him speak he mustered out a, "Thank you.". I'm tearing up now... One time the deacon of the Baptist Church and his wife came and after service the deacons wife was sitting with a resident and when I got to visiting that resident she says to, "Wade, this is my mother Mary. She hasn't talked since her stroke three months ago.". I could see an excitement in her mother's eyes as she watched the children. Finally about ten minutes later Mary staring at our daughters standing in front of her said, "Pretty girls!". God was showing us miracles in simply honouring Him by visiting the fatherless and widows.

Going door to door handing out Bible's with the Pastor on Saturdays really stretched me to in being dead to self and what people might think if me as I tried to share Christ.

Eventually, like I said with Lester's counsel we attended an Easter service three years ago at a CA church five hours away. We visited the minister for lunch after the service and there was a down to earth openness that really impressed us.

We went back in the summer for tent meetings of which the minister had us stay over in there home. He apologized for not coming out to see us yet and promised he would. About a couple months later his family and another older couple showed up a Saturday evening to spend the night in our basement and conduct a service in our living room... I recall the minister asking if they had put us out to much by staying in our home. In short I said yes and this was by far a first for us but we were more than happy to do it again. So there is something different about the church here is that even though they are ultras very seperate from the world they came and spent the weekend in a strangers home with there young children along not knowing what they were coming into.

Those visits became regular about every six weeks from two different families each time. Many times there was no ordained leadership so one man would lead out in Sunday school and another would do the preaching.

We found interest from locals start to grow and before we knew it we had dropped out of the Baptist Church and we were hosting services in our livingroom every weekend. God continued to stretch us out of our comfort zone...

Then one Sunday afternoon our children wanted to visit the Baptist Church for their evening service after still meeting the Pastor for nursing home services we were in town anyway and reluctantly I had to humble myself again as my pride thought I was finally having something I thought was more biblical going on. That evening some how through a series of other local churches dropping out I found myself accepting the responsibility of having a regular nursing home schedule to preach at. I was excited and absolutely horrified at the same time...

It was funny one time one of my father-in-laws friend showed up (a radical Catholic who has spent time in prison multiple times for breaking the local hospital and destroying abortion equipment). He looked startled to see me and asked what I was doing? I said I was here for the church service. I could see the expression of deep thinking on his face as the last time he saw me I would have been an atheist. I helped him get his mom and others seated as his mother couldn't remember her owns son name but shared with him about getting to see my children often - our youngest always ran to her to give her a big hug when we came. I think he just about fell out of his chair when I stood up at the front to preach and a few minutes in his phone rang and he picks up his phone and says loud enough I could here, "George, you're not going to believe this I'm listening to your son-in-law preach right now.".

Being subscribed to Plain News and watching CAM programs has really challenged me. One article on visiting the slums really convicted me. I prayed and prayed and then one day a man approached me in the grocery store parking asking for money. It turned into a 45minute discussion with an invitation from this man to come visit because he is lonely.
Finally when I went it was a shack in the toughest part of town ( probably not near as rough as many bigger cities) drug addicts all around, a prostitute knocking on his door, and etc. I visited him at least once a week which again stretched me in being honest with how much I really love the least of these...

Sorry I meant to get to talk about the local church more but this all played into my perception of those Mennonites excitedly visiting and staying in our home...

[Ernie]

And here is a new improved version for those who like this one better.

https://churchplantersforum.org/wp-cont ... eekers.pdf

[Only an Anz]

Most seekers leave when what was formerly a seeker church turns into yet another ethnic church, which eventually starts excluding the seekers socially.

Yes, I think this is noticeably the case with a church not far from me.