For those of you who are not ready to step foot in a church building yet, The Wartburg Watch and Wade Burleson of Emmanuel Church in Oklahoma have begun a new ministry:
eChurch@Wartburg
Why eChurch?
"In our three years of writing this blog, we have become aware that a fair number of people have been so hurt and disillusioned by the church that they have dropped out of attending church altogether. After reading story after story about painful experiences, we don’t blame them. We both have been there.
Yet, many of these folks want to be around other Christians as evidenced by the numbers who visit blogs. Most of these have maintained their faith, but some have walked away or are seriously questioning if this faith is real.
So we wanted to provide a place in which a reader could get some of the benefits of church without the requirements that are often inherent in church attendance. We look at this place as a kind of halfway point between no church and church." ~TWW
This is awesome! My husband and I will look into this!
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty, I find the idea of online churches pointless, and that mega churches only do it to spread their influence. But hearing this is awesome. Finally an online church that's purpose is to bring healing and reconciliation to a group that has been hurt but still seeking God. Great to hear!
ReplyDeleteThere IS no such thing as an "online church". Forget the fact that the internet was not around during Bible times, but for those who would advocate such nonsense, you need to read and understand that the real meaning of "CHURCH" is. By the way, it' in the Bible! :)
ReplyDeleteJust like a host of other things, just because you assign the name "church" or "Christian" to something doesn't make it so.
2ndly, people get hurt ALLLLLLLL the time, be it while attending a mega church or some small country style church. Hey, people are people and they hurt, ok?
You can have an online group of people offering some sort of "healing/comfort/advice/etc", but let's get real and drop the name church from this, ok?
I don't want to use this as a sounding board so I'll bring this to an end, but so much more could be said about this "group" of people who are hurting as a result of ___________ (what?!?!), the Mars Hill Church? Sure, they might has issues, but come onnnn....blame it on what took place while attending that CHURCH?!?!
Whatever