[SuperScout]

Originally Posted by 77 Freedom

Unfortunately the modern church as we know it is NOT the church of the apostles and Christ. Everything that we consider to be "church" is an invention of Man in the last Millenium. Steeples, pews, Preachers, raised pulpits, stained glass, The pageantry of the service, the candles, etc. etc.

The 'church' at least in my opinion, is not the building, the sanctuary, the temple of any other edifice. The real church is the body of believers. In my bodyof believers, we worship together, and just so happens to be in a building other than someone's home. We do hold each other up, and we do hold one another accountable. And being United Methodists, we eat often!

Thats why its called religion. Its something you do over & over again the same way. The original church met wherever they could gather. The worshipped & praised & uplifted each other. They ate together. Sang together. Prayed together. Carried on dialogue with each other. This was and is the way Church is supposed to be.

In the early days of Christendom, there was one man who was usually dominant, because he was either a called apostle, or who who had actually seen the Risen Lord, or was a first generation convert. Having one person dominant is not necessarily a bad thing; sometimes a leader is necessary so that chaos doesn't prevail. And often times, they had to meet wherever they could to avoid the arrest and capture by the Roman authorities. Many of these same conditions still exist in communist-controlled countries and where other forms of tyranny exist.
No one man is dominant in a worship service. When politics are injected into worshipping God then I think the wrong person is being served. ( or self-served )

When politics is interjected in a worship service, federal laws are also broken.