I spent many years "church hopping" trying to find a place that suited my spiritual needs and it was till i went a non-denominational church that I found what it was that was missing and creating a void in my life.
I found the difference to be how they lived the bible not just preaching it IT is one thing to go to church to just say you went, according to God's word he wants us to live his word. When you find a church that is actively searching God and putting themselves first in front of finances, friends, hobbies, and even family then you can say that you are living the way he is instruction us to and the second most important thing is the relationships building relationships in the church can help keep you held accountable to the word.

So whether it is denomination or a non-denominational church the important thing is that you look at the quality of the church not at the quantity of people going. Millions of people go to Catholic churches yet it does not mean that everything they teach HAS to be followed. A lot of old churches such as Catholic for example hold true to most of the bible but have also come to start incorporating certain traditions that have no place because they are just that traditions not biblical teaching.

When all is said done you have to make the decision as to what you believe and how much of your life your life are you going to dedicate to God keeping in mind that this life is just a speck of time compared to the eternity you are going to be spending in the after life.

May God bless your life and Help you find your way to the Body of Christ.

Just curious, what have Catholic churches added or taken away from the bible? Catholics, to my knowledge, believe heavily in scripture, which forms the basis for the things you see in a Catholic church.

You claimed you don't support the separation of the church, but I do sense some venom in your words regarding certain other denominations (such as Catholics), which leads me to believe you do support the separation. I think this was the point Dune1 was trying to make.

John 13:34-35
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

The issues always come down to interpretation. Trinity is one that has divided certain people, as well as free will vs pre-destination. Then you start getting down into the nitty gritty details, and you start branching even more. For instance, what does the verse above mean to you and your branch of church? The meaning will vary depending who you ask. Some may say unconditional love/acceptance, but others will say you will love all in spite of their imperfections, but still not tolerate blasphemies, etc, and speak out against them (out of love). If you follow by Jesus' example, that makes it a little easier, as he was not completely tolerant of things that were wrong and against God (eg; flipping the coin changers tables in the temple). This is but one verse, out of many. The gospel of John has many things like this within, that have hugely different meanings depending on which church/person you ask. Many of the verses do have numerous multiple meanings within them, which is an important thing to study, beyond just a simple read-through.

In any case, rather than point fingers, it would be best to discuss the issues we disagree on. While some obviously won't be resolved (such as Trinity vs. not, free will, etc), a vast majority of other things will be already be agreed on, especially the most important; Jesus.

jbowlinjr: Each individual person has to make that choice, to follow God in their daily lives. I do agree that some churches educate on this better than others, but it certainly applies equally to all, and even within churches such as the one you attend, I'm sure there are many that do not actively strive to live for God in their daily lives. This is a bane everyone is faced with, it's not an easy thing to do, or an easy path to follow, even when you're in a place that actively tries to help you do so. Some would argue that anything is better than nothing, even if I personally find that to be a cop-out. Really truly though, it is not our place to judge other people, especially in this regard, as we are called to love them as Jesus loved us. "Take the log from your own eye before you criticize your brother". I would add: and even then, always do so in love.

Well, I don't know all the crazy weird details on denominations I just know and have seen things that certain denominations do that aren't correct or aren't needed when the denomination says it is.

for example Catholics pray for the dead after they have died.. That's just useless, you can't pray for someone who is alrdy dead. they have been judged and they are where they are and all has alrdy happened.
And I'm not sure whats up with the Catholic thing with being so BEHAVED in our praise and worship and what not. Thats all hogwash. David praised to the point to where people thought he looked like a fool and he said he was willing to look even more foolish in his worhsip. I also highly disagree with the confessing your sins to a priest. You don't need a priest to be forgiven your sins, just ask God from your heart to forgive and then repent.

I've seen so many stupid rules and "policies" like that for alot of denominations. Jehovah's Witness is another TERRIBLE denomination, all they do is decive people with a bunch of lies about Christ.
That's probobly why I seem harsh against these denominations because all it does is decive people and lead them not down a path of not truth, but down a path of lies and deception like things need to be done certain way with all the stupid rituals and all that jazz.

This post was edited by weasleface on Dec 13 2011 03:00pm

Who are you to say what a denomination is doing is "useless" or not? Unless you literally have figured everything out there is to know about the universe and god, I don't think you are in a position to judge like that.

You may disagree with them, but to judge them like that is not exactly very Christian.

Let's try to have this conversation with less venom please. Ask and yee shall receive!

Praying for the dead:
Here is a write up I found with a quick search on google: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080207143205AAt1sWt -- check the first reply

Conservative worship:
Matthew 6:5
5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.

Confession of sins:
James 5:16
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

Here's another page about confession of faith and sins: http://www.churches-of-christ.net/tracts/job068u.htm


The point is that these traditions and practices have a basis in what the bible teaches. The first article I linked to explains this in a bit more detail, and explains how the church was tasked with keeping the oral tradition. Do not be so quick to dismiss that which you do not fully understand. Let's discuss these things and get them out in the open, so that we can understand one another, rather than continue to perpetuate this divide.

You may not know this, But the devil is even working through CHURCHES!
Alot of these churches are decieving THOUSANDS!

Have none of you read what Jesus said? "Many will claim to come in my name, And they will decieve many."

whether you know it or not they are amoung us right now, in churches, in denominations and all that.

Jehovah's witness teach that only 144,000 people will go to heaven. That's straight up deception. No one knows exactly how many are going to enter heaven
They also teach that when you die your soul is non-existant
Another thing they teach is that it is sin for blood to enter the body or the mouth.
On their website they call black people negroes lol
I've read some of the scriptures they use to back this stuff up and it doesn't even apply AT ALL lol

Jehovah's witness also doesn't believe in hell
And to be a Jehovah's witness you HAVE to be suscribed to a magazine.
They don't believe Christ was a savior but they believe he was an angel
And They are not allowed to do ANYTHING that might involve the slightest bit of violience (paintball, military, video games)
the wholle this is deception, don't give it to that crap.
And there is sooo much more stuff like that, that is just decieving people and leading them down a path of guilt from everything they do.

This post was edited by weasleface on Dec 14 2011 09:53am

I don't know anyone that claims JW or Mormons are Christians, but here are a couple pages I found that detail it on why they are not:
http://carm.org/is-the-jehovahs-witness-religion-christian
http://4witness.org/mormon/jwldschr.php

(weasleface, please see my reply in post 25)

Praying for the dead is more of a Catholic Tradition, Not a Christian one.

But I've heard the confess your sins to one another verse before. There's nothing wrong with it but it doesn't say confess your sins to a priest specifically.

And yeah I'll calm down some here lol. sorry, I feel very strongly about the denomonination deal.

As Njaguar said, The Jehovah Witness "cult" is not part of Christianity. They will pass out leaflets trying to disguise what they believe and make it seem that they are in line with modern Christianity, but they are not. One of the basic doctrinal beliefs is that Jesus was God. They don't believe that (amongst many other things). So to continue to bring up Jehovah Witnesses as a "denomination" is just silly.

There are many differences within the protestant denominations and the catholic belief system. I don't agree with some things on both sides of the fence. But I have taken the time to do research and find out why I don't believe in them and what in fact is true. It seems you (weasleface) just have a "in general" idea of what other denominations and catholics believe. I suggest you dive a little deeper and see exactly what they believe and don't believe. Then find out why they do/don't believe what they do. Acts 17:10 is a good example of this. Paul was preaching to them about Jesus and the bible said they examined scripture DAILY to see if what Paul was teaching was true. Earlier in the same chapter you can see that Paul is reasoning with the people of Thessanolica to get them to believe in what he said. Educating oneself and others is taught about in the bible.

Weasle - If you ever have any questions about denominational beliefs feel free to pm me.

This post was edited by Dune1 on Dec 14 2011 10:51am