Pretty much all splits in the church of Christ involve money
Hi yall,
I am a life-long member of the church of Christ. There is so much division in the church of Christ and there has been for quite some time. There is one common factor behind most splits in the wider church of Christ and that is money....Like how the church treasury can be spent and for what reasons.
The first big controversy was the Mission Society...Obviously a Mission Society requires quite a bit of money or at least it did back in the day. Even having a paid preacher or even a youth minister was taboo among many in the old school church of Christ. Then later on after World War Two the sponsoring church arrangement and outreach-focused ways to spend money like media ministries and funding missionaries become a major point of contention.
Then in the 50's and 60's there was the debate about whether Christian colleges and nursing homes and children's homes were authorized. It caused a lot of controversy and resulted in about 10 percent of the churches of Christ becoming their own separate denomination. Many times in the old school church of Christ families stopped talking to each other for good because of the various financial controversies.
Also there is a small segment of the church of Christ that believes church buildings are unauthorized. Kitchens and gyms became a major flash point because many in the old school non institutional church of Christ believe you will go to Hell if you eat in the church building. That never made sense to me. Also parachurch organizations became very controversial. The big thing to remember is that people generally dont think colleges or orphanages are wrong....They just think the church should not give its collective monies to them. There tends to be so many different churches of Christ in small towns or cities within a few miles of each other.....I have heard of multiple churches of Christ in small towns.
One of the big results of all this pointless division is that pastors cant make a living wage and are forced to live in poverty or close to it. In fact there are people in the church of Christ today who will make a decision to date people based on these financial controversies.....These controversies break up families which is sad to say. Also I would not be too shocked if lack of money was factor in A Capella becoming the standard in the church of Christ while the more affluent disciples of Christ had instruments.
One money fight in the church of Christ is the Saints Only Doctrine which states that only needy church of Christ members can be helped with church money. That goes against what Jesus did because he always cared for the poor and it reminds me of the Good Samaritan.
It seems may be you are not that content with your current church.
I want to say this, some people are moving away from places of drama for them to more structured liturgy church's which are shorter and less intrusive. These sort of types of church's can be experienced in the Catholic/Episcopalian and Anglican church.
Nobody asks me for money at church. They have a donate button on their website and I like donating my tithe anon. Some people I know left their church's perhaps as some pastors were looking for lavish lifestyles.
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The Gifts of the Holy Spirit as a Christian diagnosed with autism
https://www.racheltestimony.com/
I want to say this, some people are moving away from places of drama for them to more structured liturgy church's which are shorter and less intrusive. These sort of types of church's can be experienced in the Catholic/Episcopalian and Anglican church.
Nobody asks me for money at church. They have a donate button on their website and I like donating my tithe anon. Some people I know left their church's perhaps as some pastors were looking for lavish lifestyles.
Well I will always be church of Christ but my current church which is non institutional is too conservative for me. However there are some things I dont like about the church of Christ. i am not interested in becoming Catholic or Episcopalian.
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