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« Do Any Churches Still Truly Believe? »
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If your Christian church practices the Faith they preach, please let me know. I’d like to know where/when I can attend. I’m convinced there are many all over the country who still believe God and want the opportunity to worship God with others who trust Him like Daniel did when it meant being thrown into a pit with Lions.

All over America Christian churches proclaim “The Power of Faith”. They teach that God is All-powerful and All-loving and All-seeing and that if we choose to follow Him and make Him the Lord of our lives, He will save us from the power of our sin in our lives. (I believe this is true and I have chosen this path)



Pastors are preaching that there is nothing too hard for God. I have heard a pastor say from the pulpit the following: “I have come to the conclusion that God is powerful enough to keep me from getting Covid; and if He decides to let me get covid, He is powerful enough to heal me; but if He chooses not to heal me, then that’s ok too, because I will be with Him”. 



These words sounded to me like a powerful proclamation of FAITH in the God that created everything, much like those words spoken by Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they were about to be thrown into a furnace for choosing God over the Government. It sounded like the beginning this “House of Hope” helping its saved church members to shake off the shackles of Fear caused by the lies about Covid. 



I returned to church the next week, looking forward to seeing this powerful message displayed in the way the church shook off the shackles of required social distancing and masks and all the other things we had allowed to infiltrate the church. Instead I saw more of the same fear than before. In entering the sanctuary, I found all doors locked except one, so that the man at that door could seat me far enough from others to maintain “social distancing”. When the music pastor broke to encourage greeting those around us, he said, “we don’t shake hands or hug anymore, so just look across the aisles and smile with your eyes at each other”. (Because they won’t see your real smile through your mask)



A month or so later , after much prayer and Bible study, I had a meeting with the senior pastor. In the meeting I said, “this used to be what you called ‘A House of Hope’, but then we became ‘A House of Fear’ when we closed down only to open later wearing masks and separating everybody with ashera poles between the rows of seats to ensure social distancing, etc... Now, after your powerful message about faith, we are ‘A House of Mixed Messages’. He was open to hearing why I thought this was the case, so and I explained it to him. He noticed I referred to notes during our talk and asked me to send them to him so he could discuss it with the other pastors. 

It wasn’t long before I saw some changes and most of the (ashera) poles came down between rows of seating except for a few sections of the church to accommodate those who still had fear or were especially vulnerable and needed this to feel safe.

I thought this was a good compromise. Most of the church was open to normal fellowship and nobody bothered those in the sections set aside for the vulnerable other than to smile and wave at them.

Then came the “new wave of cases”. Up went the ashera poles again. Enough! I understand an initial, knee-jerk reaction when fear struck the first time, but how can you say you saw the error of your lack of faith and ‘repented’ if you justify going back to the same path when a similar opportunity to exercise your faith arises?

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I write this diatribe to ask the question of people all over the country:

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IS THERE A CHURCH THAT STILL PRACTICES FAITH? I’m not talking about handling snakes or seeking to do things in order to force God to save us; I’m talking about worshiping Him as we would normally worship Him even if it means He may allow us to get sick or be imprisonments for not worshiping the way the government says we should.