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“LET THE CHURCH FULFILL HER ASSIGNMENTS” (by John Waddey)

October 8 2006 at 10:07 AM
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Response to “JUST WHAT ARE THE CHANGE AGENTS DOING THAT IS SO WRONG?”



-----Original Message-----
From: [fortify_your_faith@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of john.waddey
Sent: Saturday, October 07, 2006 5:13 PM
To: fortify_your_faith@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [fortify_your_faith] A Lesson to Fortify Your Faith - 10/07/06


LET THE CHURCH FULFILL HER ASSIGNMENTS

Dear Christian Friends:

Today's lesson deals with the mission Christ assigned to his church. It pleads with brethren to allow the church to do her assigned tasks rather than creating their own organizations to do them. If you find the lesson helpful I encourage you to share it with others.

John Waddey

___________________________________


LET THE CHURCH FULFILL HER ASSIGNMENTS


When the founder and head of the church ascended to his throne, he left written instructions for his people (Matt. 28:20). First he designed that in each community his disciples organize themselves into congregations (Matt. 18:20; Acts 2:41-47). Each of these congregations would have elders and deacons to lead them in their work (Acts. 14:26; Phil. 1:1). Collectively all the churches made up the universal kingdom of Christ (Rom. 16:16; Matt. 16:18).

To his church, Christ assigned some duties fundamental to her mission and expansion. First, among these is to teach his message and recruit new disciples (Matt. 28:19-20). Secondly, she is to educate, nurture and shepherd his disciples so they will grow up in all things unto Christ (Matt. 28:20; Eph. 4:15), become functional, dedicated disciples and be faithful unto death (Rev. 2:10). Third, she is to minister to the poor and suffering of humanity in the name of the Lord (Jas. 1:27; Gal. 6:10). All of these duties are incumbent on the individual Christian as well as the congregation. The universal church cannot fulfill these requisite duties save through the individuals and congregations that compose it.

There is a wide-spread tendency among men to doubt the ability of the church to fulfill the tasks assigned to her. Hence men are ever inclined to create other organizations to do the work of the church.

  • Some are convinced the church can't do the job, others that congregations won't do it.
  • Some sincerely believe they have a better way, method or organization to do the work than through the church.
  • Some want the recognition, honor, glory and income that derive from creating and, directing an organization that does the work God wants done.
  • Some look at the business world and other religious bodies and admire their bigness, their great resources and success and long to duplicate that in the service of God. So they set about to plan and organize a business to do some particular task assigned to the church.

We freely concede that these folks have no evil intentions of harming the Lord's church. But in greater or lesser degrees they do so by robbing her of the duty and responsibility laid upon her by her creator. We do not dispute that they do some good through their efforts, perhaps much good. No doubt many folks are blessed by their labors, but we restate the ancient maxim, that the end does not necessarily justify the means. Such thinking is flawed on several counts.

  • It assumes the church is incapable of doing that which God assigned her to do.
  • It assumes that man's plans are better than God's (Is. 55:8-9).
  • It assumes that which is done on a grand, universal scale is better than that which is done in smaller, incremental units.
  • It assumes the ways of business and industry are superior to the simple ways set forth in Scripture.
  • It assumes the recognition and applause of the world for their large-scale undertakings justifies their projects.
  • It overlooks the fact that when we create that which is huge and commands large resources, worldly men are motivated to compete for control of it, and when they get control, they quickly corrupt it.
  • Such humanly designed projects often lead their promoters to view the church, less as the kingdom and body of Christ and more as a cash cow to finance their projects.
  • Our history demonstrates that promoters, ever desiring and seeking for bigger things, conclude the church cannot adequately provide the needed funds and thus they extend their appeal to non-Christians and other religious bodies. To gain their support they find it necessary to adjust their message and practices to please these worldly sources of revenue. In so doing they lose their Christian identity and become just another Protestant eleemosynary organization. Doing good, but no longer as the outreach of Christ's true church.

We appeal to members of the church of Christ to let the church do the work God assigned to her. She is fully capable. Let the glory of meeting the needs be hers. Believe that God's simple way is always better in the long run than our vast business projects. "Unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations..." (Eph. 3:20).


___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now

E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

 
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...........................THE BOOK

What Happened At the Madison Church of Christ?


There are thousands of churches being taken over across America.

This book is only about one of those churches. It's about the Madison Church Of Christ. By studying the methods used here along with the resource references you might be able to inoculate your church. At the very least you will recognize the signs early on.

Many of the current members of the Madison Church of Christ still don't know what happened.
Some never will know! This book is for them as well.

Madison Church of Christ was a 60 year old church. At one time it was one of the largest churches in the US, and the largest Church of Christ.

It thrived for many years on the vision of it's elders and those of it's ministers. Those visions undoubtably came from the the inspired word of Jesus Christ.

At sometime in the last 10 years there was a deliberate plan by a majority of the elders to take the Madison Church of Christ into a more worldly realm.

They used secrecy, covert planning, and outside sources to scheme and to change the format and direction of the Madison Church of Christ.

The Elders knew that the membership would never approve such a plan. Using the tools of the "Community Church Movement"(consultants, books, seminars, meetings,planters,seeders) they slowly started initiating change so it was never noticed by the members until it was too late.....

At the heart of the plan was the fact that old members were going to be driven off so new techniques could be used to go out and reach the unchurched through new "Contemporary Holy Entertainment" methods developed by the "Community Church Movement"

Old members had to be kept on board long enough to get their plans ready, or the funds would not be there to pay for the new building. So by the plans very nature, it had to be secret.

The church had no plan in effect to renew or approve elders. There was never any need. The elders had always been "as approved by God". 10 of the last 15 elders would begin to shed some doubt on that.

The Elders did not even need a majority at first, because some of the elders went along unwittingly.

This edition starts shortly after some of the members begin to smell something strange in January 2001. Later editions may go back and fill in some of the timeline.

To even start to understand whats happening here, you must read the background materials in the first of the book.

This is only the first edition, and not the end. New editions will be printed as needed. To keep abreast of current changes, please visit our web site; http://www.concernedmembers.com/madison

Here is the list of players;

5 Godly Elders
10 Not so Godly Elders
120 "Deacons" (allegiance unknown)
2,800 - 4,000 church "members"
2 "teners" (people who have publicly confessed to have broken all ten commandments)
Unknown number of "sinners" (This is what the 10 elders call us.)
Unknown number of "demons" (Flying everywhere, to many to count)
 

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