speaking of bars...

Jimmy and Tammy Baeker's son (Jay Baeker) held a church on sunday afternoons/early evenings at the masquerade(largest 3 room venue in atlanta mostly does rock and industrial stuff with some dance) and he served beer during it and booked mainstream bands, then would discuss Christ with the attendees.  He has left town but was getting around 400-450 to come


i'm telling you... it fits right in my new life motto I stated in another thread

love God, love others, party hard

lol, ah those screwballs... so crazy.



Thats awesome Dave, I'm glad you've had a positive experience like that.  I'm trying to work it out in my head that I probably shouldn't be categorizing all my experiences in the good and bad fields, rather that they are just experience over all.  Both present opportunities for growth if I am open to learning from them.

I'm including those in what I said. Even in listening to those "Get right with God first" sermons, I have never heard some one say "You have to totally stop sinning before you can be useful to God." I've heard "Get right with God first." That covers sooo much more than sinning. How can you be "right" with him if you don't have an active relationship with him?

Maybe it's just bad phrasing in most cases rather than what you are seeing. Maybe, those churches should be called cults rather than churches. You know... that God Hates Fags church say that it's baptist, but they are ANYTHING but that. I've heard too many ppl talk about that church as though it's an SBC one which is absolutely is not.


A few weeks ago, it was dancing I know what you mean about the woman, but I have NEVER heard an SBC minister teach that submission meant being obedient and rarely has it been taught w/o covering a husband's responsibility to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. After all, in order for the husband to do that, he has to be willing to die for his wife. The wife, in that perspective, maybe geting off easy


Ok... I'm confused: Which churches are conservative and NOT evangelical??? Seriously.


I've known ppl who have too. In just about EVERY case though it was b/c the person allowed the church to have more control over them than it should have. In fact, that was usually b/c of the shoddy discipleship of the small group leaders. This is a problem that extends to even emergent churches as well.

What else could you mean by sin management though?


Different definition of "right" I guess. Yours is correct, but getting right with God in all the ways I've heard it used in the south means: Confess/repent your sins and start spending time with God.

The phrase has very little to do with whether or not we are made whole/right the moment we get saved.

Sorry, that wasn't really directed at you... well... maybe it was... but it was more for the ppl I have to deal with regularly at the U.


Oh good. I feel better now. 'Cept... I still don't like the SBC and a host of OTHER denoms being left out of the "us evangelical" category. BTW, denominations by regions are REALLY flaky. For example: The Lutherans are very conservative in MN and go on all sorts of evangelical mission trips, but here in Atlanta, they're about as liberal as you can get. I have been to several Lutheran services in multiple churches where God was never mentioned once in the sermon. This scares the crap out of me.

What I'm getting at is that when I listen to sermons that focus on "sin management" as you are calling it, I'm hearing and understanding that to mean what glm's saying.

^ word.

you're right about the selfishness,but what is someone to do when for instance your church is selling pews in the front row to the highest bidder? you break off from the methodists and form the free methodists.

what do you do when your church is selling indulgences, and selling pardons from purgatory?
 you start the reformation.

what do you do when your church says the holy spirit no longer moves in the lives of people?  you form the assemblies of God.

what do you do when your church says all you have to do is give enough money and get right enough with God and all your dreams will come true?  you start an emerging church movement.

i love how every time someone has any criticism of "the church" people start saying stop stereotyping & let's work together....and my favorite: "quit bringing a spirit of division".  Iron is supposed to sharpen iron..we're not supposed to sit in our comfortable little drawers & rust (heheh..i like that metaphor)

it's not commical...i guess you don't go to an AG church. you do listen to TD Jakes, though, and i'll tell you there's TONS of guys like him & Osteen & Joyce Meyer out in " the midwest". 


name 10 churches in the US that fit all your criteria above.  Rob Bell's seems to....and....?

i'm still waiting to see the "realness" in the church to the level you're talking about.  I know there's lots of great churches out there that do a lot,but how many churches do you really know that a prostitute would feel welcome in?  be BRUTALLY honest now...
     bring it down to a level we all understand.  how many of you have tried to do a dance for your kids & gotten the cold shoulder from your churches?  it's certainly NOT forbidden anywhere in the bible. 

so what's the problem?  we like our "home away from home" to be neat and clean, not messy and dirty.  we like to forbid the real freedom Christ gives us because we're terrified it might lead to dirty dancing...when kids are getting pregnant in youth groups across the country.

so what do we do? we talk about sin management rather than falling in love with God.  (ya like how i brought that full circle?   )