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What's So Uncool About Cool Churches
The Gospel Side ^ | September 23, 2012 | Matt Marino

Posted on 08/12/2013 5:32:45 PM PDT by LUV W

Unintended Consequences: How the “relevant” church and segregating youth is killing Christianity.

I recently spent six-months doing a rotation as a hospital chaplain. One day I received a page (Yes, hospitals actually still use pagers). Chaplains are generally called to the rooms of people who look ill: People gray with kidney disease, or yellow with liver failure, discouraged amputees, nervous cancer patients. In this room, however, was a strikingly attractive 23 year-old young lady sitting up cheerfully in the hospital bed, holding her infant daughter and chatting with family and friends.

Confused, I stepped outside and asked her nurse, “Why did I get paged to her room?”

“Oh, she looks fabulous. She also feels great and is asking to go home,” the nurse said.

“…And you are calling me because?” I asked in confusion.

The nurse looked me directly in the eye and said: “Because we will be disconnecting her from life support in three days and you will be doing her funeral in four.”

The young lady had taken too much Tylenol. She looked and acted fine. She even felt fine, but she was in full-blown liver failure. She was dying and couldn’t bring herself to accept the diagnosis.

Today I have the sense that we are at the same place in the church. The church may look healthy on the outside, but it has swallowed the fatal pills. The evidence is stacking up: the church is dying and, for the most part, we are refusing the diagnosis.

(Excerpt) Read more at thegospelside.com ...


TOPICS: General Discusssion; Ministry/Outreach; Religion & Culture; Worship
KEYWORDS: christianity; churches; disciples; ministry; worship; youth

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To: warsaw44

I always thought Tylenol was so harmless it can’t cure anything, even a headache. That’s why doctors and hospitals prescribe it like candy because they know it won’t lead to lawsuits and the placebo effect usually gives them the results they need.

I think the only way you can die from Tylenol was for someone to tamper with the bottle, which was what led to all the special packaging after someone around 1980 started poisoning bottles and then putting them back on the shelves.


51 posted on 08/12/2013 7:21:18 PM PDT by OrangeHoof (Howdy to all you government agents spying on me.)
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To: warsaw44

Also, in the case of my wife, it was an accumulation of the drug in her system vs. taking an overdose. I’m difficult to live with, but not that bad :-). Hopefully a doctor familiar with the drug that resides on FR can provide more insight.


52 posted on 08/12/2013 7:22:16 PM PDT by edh (I need a better tagline)
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To: LUV W

The charismatics have infiltrated our church and have taken control of the music every other week. I don’t go to church to be ool; therefore, I don’t need Guitar Zhero from the choir loft. I hope our new bishop stifles them.


53 posted on 08/12/2013 7:27:41 PM PDT by goodwithagun (My gun has killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car.)
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To: warsaw44

A friends daughter took a dozen when she was a freshman in college. She nearly died and has suffered from liver disease ever since. Liver damage is the most widely known effect of Tylenol abuse.


54 posted on 08/12/2013 7:37:29 PM PDT by pgkdan (Marco Rubio can go straight to hell!)
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To: mylife

Cowboy churches are quite common in Texas and they are nearly all very conservatve.

There is a long history of these churches in the West.


55 posted on 08/12/2013 7:38:11 PM PDT by buffaloguy
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To: warsaw44

Happens everyday. That is why max dose is 3 grams per day.


56 posted on 08/12/2013 7:39:40 PM PDT by Getready (Wisdom is more valuable than gold and diamonds, and harder to find.)
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To: mylife
Then there are all the Cowboy Churches

There is a Cowboy Church in Meeteetse, Wyoming right where I was born in 1939.

My dad Sold the place about 1950.

57 posted on 08/12/2013 7:46:44 PM PDT by Dan(9698)
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To: Hot Tabasco

Coming Home Network



58 posted on 08/12/2013 7:48:28 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: yellowhorse; Hot Tabasco

The way our Protestant denomination puts it, we display an empty cross instead of a crucifix because “He is Risen”.


59 posted on 08/12/2013 7:51:21 PM PDT by ntnychik
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To: abigail2

I love you man. Jesus died for your sins—past present and future. Give me a list of the things you think you must do to be saved, First, read John 3:16 — then we’ll talk


60 posted on 08/12/2013 7:51:41 PM PDT by SADMILLIE (r)
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To: LUV W

Self-esteem is what 2013 considers spiritual feeding.


61 posted on 08/12/2013 7:56:02 PM PDT by AD from SpringBay (http://jonah2eight.blogspot.com/)
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To: AD from SpringBay

Yes, words that tickle their ears but do not feed them with God’s truth! Sad.....


62 posted on 08/12/2013 8:11:13 PM PDT by LUV W (All my heroes wear camos! Thank you David, Michael, Chris Txradioguy, JJ, CMS, & ALL of you heroes!)
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To: LUV W

Quite an article, though of course not a popular idea in today’s ‘McChurch’.

Once you get past the too-loud guitars, ‘worship team’ members dressed in cutoff shorts and flip-flops leading worship and marketing exercises disguised as worship, you get a good look at some of today’s churches.

My church, which is considered fairly conservative, would do anything to attract a college student including running roughshod over the standards and values of worship of existing longtime members. A lot of times the people the service is designed to attract wind up leaving anyway.


63 posted on 08/12/2013 8:20:17 PM PDT by Colonel_Flagg (Army dad. And damned proud.)
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To: LUV W

“Sinners In The Hands of an Angry God” is one of my favorite sermons. We need that printed for free.


64 posted on 08/12/2013 8:23:21 PM PDT by huldah1776
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To: Colonel_Flagg

It’s disturbing and sad that the ones they are targeting will never really learn the truth from such “worshiptainment”.

I hope your church will someday see the light, and return to their first Love.


65 posted on 08/12/2013 8:28:55 PM PDT by LUV W (All my heroes wear camos! Thank you David, Michael, Chris Txradioguy, JJ, CMS, & ALL of you heroes!)
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To: ntnychik
"And now Mary brought in a pound of pure spikenard ointment, which was very precious, and poured it over Jesus’ feet, wiping his feet with her hair; the whole house was scented with the ointment. One of his disciples, the same Judas Iscariot who was to betray him, said when he saw it, Why should not this ointment have been sold? It would have fetched three hundred silver pieces, and alms might have been given to the poor. He said this, not from any concern for the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse, and took what was put into it. And Jesus said, Let her alone; enough that she should keep it for the day when my body is prepared for burial. You have the poor among you always; I am not always among you." ~ St. John 12:3-8
66 posted on 08/12/2013 8:37:10 PM PDT by Rocky Mountain Wild Turkey ("I have an open mind ... just not so open that my brain falls out onto the floor!!")
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To: SADMILLIE; GeronL

Surrender your will to God. Really let go and let God. We are constantly tempted by evil to become God ourself. We need to be ever vigilant, and return right back when we find we have strayed. Of course Jesus is the only savior. No one can find God except through him. In my opinion we are grafted back into the same vine He is.


67 posted on 08/12/2013 8:48:36 PM PDT by abigail2
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To: GeronL
This is surely an exaggeration given that God Himself asked for “symbols” in his House —the Tabernacle, as a sign that he was among his people. He doesn't need such things but we do need the assurance.
68 posted on 08/12/2013 8:51:02 PM PDT by RobbyS
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To: LUV W; HoosierDammit; TYVets; red irish; fastrock; NorthernCrunchyCon; UMCRevMom@aol.com; ...
+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.

69 posted on 08/12/2013 8:51:24 PM PDT by narses
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To: RobbyS

You don’t replace God with symbols. You cannot pray to the symbols.


70 posted on 08/12/2013 8:54:15 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: buffaloguy; mylife; GeronL

What’s wrong with cowboy or truck stop churches? They serve those in careers that might make it difficult for them to attend conventional churches. Along the same line, the Church of Land and Sea in New York City and the Mariners’ Church in Detroit served sailors during the previous two centuries.


71 posted on 08/12/2013 9:11:19 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: GeronL

No, but the right signs dispose us to pray to the right god, just as the right kind of music does. We are sensible beings, not angels.and sound is not our only sense.


72 posted on 08/12/2013 9:11:52 PM PDT by RobbyS
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To: GeronL; Colonel_Flagg
You cannot pray to the symbols.

....or to cymbals! :)

73 posted on 08/12/2013 9:13:25 PM PDT by LUV W (All my heroes wear camos! Thank you David, Michael, Chris Txradioguy, JJ, CMS, & ALL of you heroes!)
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To: edh

edh, God is good, All the time!


74 posted on 08/12/2013 9:14:23 PM PDT by RoadGumby (This is not where I belong, Take this world and give me Jesus.)
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To: warsaw44

14 extra strength tylenol tablets in a day are enough to cause an overdose.


75 posted on 08/12/2013 10:07:41 PM PDT by JCBreckenridge
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To: LUV W
Church of the Holy Cymbal Chimp!


76 posted on 08/12/2013 10:57:19 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: mylife

I remember the beginnings of cowboy churches, made sense then and still does. People that rodeo for a living travel constantly and seldom are at home.

Many rodeo people are Christian and want to attend church but it was difficult for them to find out necessary information- time, location, etc. to attend church in a town they may only be in for a few hours or a day. Add to that mix that most are driving trucks, pulling horse trailers and don’t want to wander about town too much. Due to clothing and cultural issues they also did not feel welcome at many churches if they did manage to hunt one up.

Cowboy church solved those issues, the church service is held right at the rodeo grounds so not hard to find, others there dress and act as you do and in fact are your friends that you rodeo with so it is like a community church wherever you may be.

Cowboy church has grown to include many other people; mostly rural people who again may not feel welcome at the church in the nearest town/city. I am not sure why you are against Cowboy Church, it is much like the small town church of our past. I think judgmental people like you are the reason Cowboy Churches exist.


77 posted on 08/12/2013 11:50:47 PM PDT by Tammy8 (~Secure the border and deport all illegals- do it now! ~ Support our Troops!~)
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