I used to be part of a Sunday morning singles group that met in a bakery (the church had part of a strip mall, but didn’t own all of it at the time).
The group of believers that met was exactly what God had planned because we all had actual COMMUNITY, quite spontaneously and without manipulation.
Something weird started going on at that church (Brownsville “revival” was influencing the pastor) and of course this beautiful thing God was doing in a bakery had to be disturbed. HAD TO, because it wasn’t big enough. The visions of the ministry “team” were HUGE and befitting a MIRACLE-WORKING GOD!!!
Problem: GOD does not part Red Seas but ONCE. After that, “tell your children what the LORD your GOD did for you”. Same thing with Penetecost and ACTS. GOD establishes something and then withdraws signs so FAITH can settle and dominate (IMO,of course...I am not going to argue about the sign gifts so let that go...)
Anyway, the bakery fellowship was destroyed, fizzling out as men tried to make bigger something God was doing smaller on purpose. A similar destruction occurred when a Baptist church I went to decided their choir was no longer cool. Good business for the band, I guess, but do you think for one minute God didn’t see the tearing apart of the choir FELLOWSHIP that occurred so the leadership could upgrade their church to the latest phoney baloney?
I’d love to be a part of a bakery fellowship again. You cannot MAKE something like that happen.
This is my testimony from a previous, now locked, thread:
My older sister – now in heaven – was always the ring leader.
It so happened that an old retired Baptist preacher heard about the bakery shop kids and came by to meet us. He was moved by what he saw and he used his life’s savings to build a tiny little church up the street.
Naturally all the kids got the rest of their families to join them in meeting in the new church – and before you knew it we were all baptized Southern Baptist. The church grew and split and had missionary churches of it own.
If it had been someone from another Christian “label” who found the bakery shop kids, built the church and baptized us, I’d probably be wearing a different label today. LOLOL!
As it is my "letter" has always been in a Baptist church, though that point is meaningless to me because at the root, I will always be that bakery shop kid – a Christian, plain and simple.