I was raised by charismatic parents and with family members of many other religions so I feel I have a basis for comparison. I just think the church lacks a certain amount of spirit and community with I think people need to feel really connected.
There’s more to it than just social. It is the commandment of the Lord to love one another. How do we do that but through service. In many of the Protestant Churches that I attended over the years which was most of them, there were support groups on about every topic imaginable. We were holding each other up in prayer, instruction, teaching and fellowship. No one felt left out. We had groups for various addictions, unemployment, new moms, newlyweds, weight lost, finances, divorce recovery, sickness, grief recovery, singles, worship, acting, growing through the word, prison ministry, nursing home and elder care, healing, restoring broken marriages, anger management, depression, counseling, soup kitchens, clothing banks, etc. The Church was the center of the community. During the week we would also meet in cell groups for Bible study, fellowship and prayer. We would go out after service for breakfast and talk about the great things God was doing in our lives. Our whole perspective centered around Jesus and the community of believers. I could call up a pastor on duty and he would come out to my house at 2:00am in the morning to pray with me if needed. Bearing our burdens for one another. So yes, there is a real big difference.
There was this one pastor who came to this small town to pastor a small church. No one knew him when he came to town but when he left every one knew him. He would bring food to single moms who had no food even though they never attended his church. He would get the men in the church to fix single parents roofs, their cars or whatever needed fixing without asking anything in return. He really demonstrated the Love of God. By the time he left, there were 3,000 people in his church and everyone knew who he was. It was an old mill town with just ordinary folks.
This was the way it was in the first century churches when Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor 1Cor13:1-16
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, **but do not have love, I gain nothing.
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4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. **But the greatest of these is love. **
Blessings to all
