We have been studying What Is The Church? And I thought you might be interested in these articles regarding some of our brethren’s departure from the Word.
WORLD CONVENTION IN NASHVILLE
Mark McWhorter
The World Convention of Christian/Church of Christ/ Disciples of Christ will be held in Nashville July 30th—August 3rd, 2008. Among the speakers will be Mike Cope of Abilene Christian University, and Rhonda Lowry, who is the wife of Randy Lowry, the President of David Lipscomb University.
Cope will give the worship lesson Friday night, August 1st, from 7-9 p.m. and Mrs. Lowry will speak at the combined Bible study period on Saturday, August 2nd, from 10:15 to 11:00 a.m. It seems interesting that both still claim to belong to the church of our Lord.
Those behind the convention desire to see a unity of the three groups under the title of the Convention. Yet, the Disciples have been trying to unite with the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians and Catholics.
www.mtmcvb@chulavistabooks.com
JEFF WALLING & THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Jim Waldron
On June 29, 2006, Jeff Walling spoke before about 6000 at The North American Christian Convention in Louisville, ky. At which time he advocated unity between the churches of Christ and the Christian Churches with their instruments. This he did without a word to call the latter to repentance over the fact that their preachers caused the division in the first place in the latter half of the 19th century. This they did by introducing machinery with sacred music (Eph.5:19) and "the society."
In the autumn of 2006 a dvd of Walling's speech was sent to a cappella churches of Christ across the country. This was done by Rick Atchley, the senior preacher for the Richland Hills Church in Fort Worth, tx, and Dudley Rutherford, senior pastor for the Shepherd of the Hills church in Porter Ranch, ca. Those receiving the mail-out were asked to view the dvd in which Walling, in words and action - a Bible swap with a senior minister of the Christian Church - advocated unity in diversity on the instrumental music question. Is it not appalling, that change agents from among us (See 1 John 2:19) such as Mike Cope of Abilene University and Jeff Walling of Providence Road, Charlotte, nc are promoting unity with the Christian Church, while Christian churches are seeking to unite with the so-called Disciples of Christ?
Improving Our Worship in Song
Scott Brown
A simple and immediate fix for poor congregational singing is to sit together. This is such an easy thing to do and difficult to implement at the same time. We know that people are creatures of habit. Some like to sit in the same seat year in year out. But that "habit" can be detrimental to the effectiveness of a congregation offering the best "sacrifice of the lips" to God.
When watching a chorus sing standing on risers, are they scattered out? Of course not! They know that to do their best, they must stand together and have their minds on what they are doing. If they are scattered here and there and not watching the director, playing with the baby, etc., what will be their effectiveness as a choir? They would be rated poor to extremely sloppy! Is that what we want the God of Heaven to think of us when we sing praises to Him in our assemblies?
What about the effect on the song leader? Many times a leader will ask the congregation to move up or sit together to help the singing and help him lead better. What is the result many times? I can tell you from experience that many times it is blank stares. Our brothers and sisters tell us oftentimes that if there is anything they can do for us, be it cut our grass, baby sit our children, bring food or whatever. But ask them to move up to help with the singing mmmm.
Again, what is our purpose in worshipping God in song? To ask that question is to answer it! Will you do what you can to help the singing in your congregation and help the leader by being attentive and cooperative?
Sitting together can have other benefits besides improving our singing. Can you think of a few? ~ Scott Brown ~ scott409@sbcglobal.net
Sand Writing
Author Unknown
A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. In a specific point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face.
The one, who got slapped, was hurt, but without anything to say, he wrote in the sand: "today, my best friend slapped me in the face".
They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who got slapped and hurt started drowning, and the other friend saved him. When he recovered from the fright, he wrote on a stone: "today my best friend saved my life".
The friend who saved and slapped his best friend, asked him, "Why, after I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now you write on a stone?"
The other friend, smiling, replied: "When a friend hurts us, we should write it down in the sand, where the winds of forgiveness get in charge of erasing it away, and when something great happens, we should engrave it in the stone of the memory of the heart, where no wind can erase it"
Learn to write in the sand.