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A Place To Pray or Play? What is your perception of the church? What is the Bible’s perception of the church? Which of those two perceptions do you believe is the right one to follow? We need to strongly favor what God’s word says the church is to receive the right and honorable view of the church. It is not what I think or feel a church should be. It is totally in God’s mind what the church should be. With the above firmly planted in your heart, find in the Bible where the church God established engaged in an auction, a yard sale, a youth mission tour, a choir, held secular classes, a fish fry, or sponsored a political candidate? The church is an assembly of Christians who pray, sing, teach, give, and observe the Lord’s supper in remembrance of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection (Acts 2:42-45; Ephesians 5:19; Hebrews 2:12; 1 Corinthians 16:1,2; Acts 20:7). There was no assignment given to the church to develop activities for play, pleasure, or party. Grant it, Christians did meet individually from “house to house” to break “bread at home” (Acts 2:46), but Christians in the New Testament understood the church to be spiritual in origin and function. The church is for “the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). If you have determined that the church needs to engage in social, political, academic, or financial programs, you have found the church to be something God never intended nor wanted His church to be (1 Tim 3:15). Know the truth on this matter and be convicted to follow it. Do Bible things in Bible ways! (1 Peter 4:11) — Shawn Bain
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