Dear friends in Christ,

Remember when I posted about my sweet church changing to a contemporary service and putting up an overhead screen & how I was longing to have a very different kind of corporate worship experience? Well... one of the dearest, sweetest families in church left. I called the wife. She is a very good friend. I told her to spill her guts, no matter what, and she did. They are going to home church. I kept thinking "amen, amen" while she talked to me. She is a kindred spirit. You ladies would love her, and you men would love her husband.

The elders asked the husband to come before the elder board and explain why they left the church. The husband agreed to do this, even though he doesn't have to. He is going to speak next Tuesday night. The elders want to know why he took his family out of the church so that the elders can make changes so no other family wants to leave. I think it will be a sweet time, not a big pow-wow, because this man is just so humble before the Lord. I told the wife I would fast that day because we all want the Lord to speak through this husband.

The husband is going to tell the elders that the church is dead, that it has the form of godliness but no life. He may tell them that they are going after a different form of worship than we had before, but for the wrong reasons (to attract more people). He may tell them that there is nothing wrong with contemporary worship per se, but nobody in our church has been trained or called by God to lead worship that way, so it's just an exercise. He's going to say that if the church does want to go toward a third wave style of worship, the entire format of the church service will have to change. You can't do the third wave thing with three praise songs, announcements, a hymn to dismiss the children to Children's Church, a 20 minute three point sermon with a few jokes thrown in, and be out by noon.

My husband and I were in the Vineyard movement during the 80's and it was awesome. But something happened in the early 90's and some pretty weird and non-Biblical stuff started going on. It was wrong and we got out. For 12 years we've been in this little Bible church just soaking up the Word. We had experienced the Spirit while we were in the Vineyard, but the Bible says to worship God in spirit and in truth. We noticed there was lots of spirit (woo-hoo!!) but less and less truth.

I don't know what the elders will do. We may end up having a church split over this, and we haven't had a church split ever. But more than likely the elders will decide to keep things the same in order to avoid having a church split. But if they elect to do that, the church stays dead.

You know that scripture about Christ saying I wish you were either hot or cold, but because you're lukewarm I'll vomit you out of my mouth? That's how I feel about this. But I must examine my own heart. Where am I? Do I have a hot, burning passion for my Savior? Or am I just going through the motions myself? See? I'm just as bad and just as guilty. Please pray for me.

What does God really want of His people? I mean the true remnant, not the usual Sunday benchwarmers. Pleae, y'all pray. I know we've discussed all this before, but it hasn't gone away, has it? God is still calling us to Himself, isn't He? How do we get out of the religion part of this and truly follow Christ in simple faith?

I appreciate your prayers.
-Donna