Thank you all.

The basic issue is that I need out of the army because of issues that it brings up mentally from the past for me, as well as, it's extremely taxing on my wife and myself.
We are able to hold together because we love eachother dearly, and we're not fighting or threatened by seperation or anything to that degree...it is simply painfull for both of us to constantly be seperated by my duties while we both deal with our own trials with very limited support from eachother because of the distance (physically) between us.
I'm in Korea, and she's back home in Alaska.

I need out, and I need to get back to my wife.
We were never meant to be apart in this manner.

The only reason I can say that God has put me here was so that my wife and I could see just how much we love eachother and to let our commitment to eachother grow so much stronger than any person on earth could ever imagine possible.

But now...it's time that I return ... for more reasons than our love and relationship...back home.

This is an odd request, but I would appreciate prayers on my discharge from the army.
I am presently trying to be seperated from the army for personal reasons.
Thank you.

Gracey:

I would be very interested in your church if I were living or happened to be around where it is.
Where is it, in case I happen to be going by that way.
I would love to check out a church that spends more time worshiping.

However, I think I am missing the point here.....

Well, the quote in which you were responding too does no real good out of context as perhaps you might have taken it.
It is meant to be mixed with the section you quoted next.

It's simple.  You can usually tell between a christian who thinks, ponders, and meditates on their beliefs and "why" they hold them, and a christian who simply accepts.
Generally, I don't bother anyone with these questions period.
But there are a select few who, for some reason, decide that what they have learned in church is what they are going to get everyone in the world to believe.
Basically, pushing their beliefs.

I go in and ask them these questions because they are usually the ones who will miss-understand them which will give me the oppertunity to explain, which will in turn hopefully spark a little desire for them to think, ponder, and meditate on what it is they are actually pushing relentlessly.

These same people tend to be P.A.P's, and hence the point to make sure they understand what they are pushing ... seriously.

Blind faith is fine, but blind agressive faith is not.

It's a bit more complicated than this even, but I hope this generally gives you an idea.

While I can agree with Heidi in certain isolated instances...
Heidi, it would help your points if you didn't blanket your targets with "they".
The entire Church community is probably not that way.
Atleast not yet.

As to the use of the word for Heidi's point...it's not needed.
Heidi is presenting an opinion that is her(?) own about the general conduct of the Church and the belief strongly therein of the acceptance of the Church's (which ever it be in concern) cerminised(sp) dogmatic principle without any real desire to check it agains the Bible and your own interpitation of it.

It's what I call "Limmings in Sheeps Cloathing".
Or "Pat-Answer People".

For instance...this is one of my favorite things right here.
If I think someone is a P.A.P., I'll ask them the all too common quesiton, "Why do you love Jesus?"
There are a few Pat-Answers to that question.
The two most common are:
"Because he died on the cross for my sins."
and
"Because he first loved me."

To the first I return the question, "What if he didn't die on the cross for your sins, but was still the son of God.  Would you still love him?"

And for the second I ask,"What if he didn't first love you, would you still love him?"

Most people get angry or offended with these questions because they mistake them for attacks on Christianity or the validity of Christ as savior.

Not at all the point.
The point is to check yourself and understand why you love Christ.  To point out that even in our religion, we are still selfish and require much improvement.
It's meant to point out that Christ loved you without you loving him, yet we love him because he loves us.
Christian translates "follower of Christ" loosely.
To follow is to head and aim to be like that which you follow.
In this case, Christ.
Thus, in trying to be like Christ, we should be paying attention to the fact that we require his action to love him and that we should be working toward a goal of loveing Christ regardless of his actions.
From here, loving the people of the world regardless of their actions will be easy.

Pat-Answer People may never grasp this...because they will never question deaply enough past what is preached on sunday morning/night, tuesday bible study, and wednesday fellowships.

I believe that something akin to this example is what Heidi was voicing with her(?) opinion.

Hello Turned.
Very intersting.
I can understand your angle.  I was practicing Druidry for a few years myself.  I did not turn to christianity after I dropped Druidry however.  I'm still very much void of an exact religion as I do not accept the church in every form I have so far seen.
I do accept God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost.  I do accpet the Bible.
Am I a good christian?
By all means no.
If I had to honestly list it, I would say I'm among the worst.

About the only thing that I do christian-like is pray to God and believe in God.

So in a sense, I understand, for I myself am regarded my most as someone who has turned my back to God.

Sower, you miss the point.
The pigeon was used as an example so to point out that it is up to each individual to accept it.  You can't very well force the pigeon to eat the bread in your hand.  If you do try, they will only fly away.  Man is no different.
Offer and he may or may not accept depending on the person.
But force anything upon man and he will revolt.

That was the point.

Yet, Buddhists and Muslims have free will as well, and even combined, we still have more Sects and splits then they do. Why is that?

Why is it that one tree has more branches than another?
Why is it that two rocks thrown in a pond create a different amount of ripples?
Why does one house get hit by a flood while another stands?


If you want my opinion on the subject on the other hand...There's two ways to look at it...

1: The Dark Version
Because Christianity is primarily a western religion and western populations tend to have the attitude that is just right for getting into arguments and then deciding to go off and do it their way since they can't get anyone in another group to agree with them.
We argue.  Alot, about some really asinine(sp) stuff.
And we let it get to us way too much.
And thus, we seperate ourselves from eachother way too easily thanks to pretty petty issues.

2: The Brighter Possibility
We adapt to fit the concerns of the local groups at hand rather than making the local groups conform to our concerns.

This is much like business.  Multiple branches of one division with the same root but operating to serve the needs of very diverse audiances.


And of course, there is also 3: Both.

In some cases, it's probably the "time issue". A lot of folks would rather not spend the time to do that most important of things....worship. Worship is a desire of God, but if we worship correctly it fills us spiritually, as well.

Time is not the issue, as what I'm saying is that it's rather a MISS-allocation, for me, of time in church.  Too much time spent on preaching, and not enough on worship.  And that goes for the countless churches I have attended in protestant sects.  Now, Orthodox tends to do less preaching, but it still lack horribly by instead taking up the time with practiced routines, not to imply that they are bad, for I certainly think not of them.  Only to say that it is not "worship" and adornship and meditation which I very so much crave.

This, I think, is dependent on the church

Well, so far I can only speak for all the very many churches of various styles and denominations that I have gone to...a quick brief outline (and there are more):
Non-denominational
Evangelical
Baptist
Church of Christ (both sub-sects)
Korean Evangelical
Lutheran
??(don't remember the name but it was about as close to catholic as a protestant church could ever get)
Catholic
Greek Orthodox
Russian Orthodox
Church of Scientology (highly debatable sect)
"Holy Roller" (excuse the slang, I can't remember the actual denominational name for these)
Southern Baptist

There are more, and even some I can't remember the names of at all...17 + years and being in a military family gives you an opertunity to see many churches, as well as my home town has somewhere near 20+ churches, or something of that caliber when, there is 15,000 people on the entire island.
Then there's my relatives who we always have gone to church with when visiting....

All together, I am not satisfied with church, I've always felt the need for more of something, and became immediatly sick mentally anytime a preacher or the like began to speak.
I can't talk to him back...why listen?  I've heard the rants from the pulpit all before, over and over and over again. All of them the same, but with a twist of difference depending on the preachers interpitation which is taken to be of higher exactness with accuracy to the words truth because of their training and schooling.
Personally, I have zero faith in any man.
I am highly considering going to pastoral school for the soul reason to be my own pastor, and to retain the right on paper so that when people say that I shouldn't try to understand the Bible without guidance, I can show them the paper and tell them that I could join me for study if they would like.

I appologize...I wouldn't actually do any of that, save for the schooling.  I do get frustrated at alogations or implications that one is incapable of studying and understanding the word of God without guidance from someone educated on the Bible.
I thought that the Bible talked about how the stupid and simple would be more blessed in the end of everything for their minds would not be torchered with questions that drive them mad like those who are educated...
Something to that degree anyways...
So...why all the fuss about educated people and the Bible?  

wow...this is getting horribly off topic...I have many things that I want to discuss...but here I will attempt to re-adress my on-topic issue.

I would simply apreaciate a church that just meditates and prays as an alternative service to the normal "educational" version of service.

The reason Paul didn't consider homosexual marriages is simple.
Rome had homosexuals, but there were no marriages per say of them.  Nor was it something that was ever condoned by christianity.

I don't think that it's really a bad thing for anything happening today as it is.
It is simply the way that it is.
There is no reason to revolt and fight back.
If the world does not want Christ, then there is nothing that anyone can do to change that as the world has made their choice of free will.
Those who wish to follow will follow christ.
Those who wish not to, won't.

What the topic ends up being is this.
How much presence of influencial power is christianity losing in the process.
To which one can only reply, "As it will be, through prayer and grace, that which is seen as to be done by God."

And in this case, that which is to be done, is to let man have his free will to choose to turn his back on god, or spread his arms wide open to him.
If man turns his back, do not hate them and revolt for you will only find yourself sucked into their world of fighting for worldly things such as power.
Instead smile with a glint in your eye, and pat them on the back, walk away and pray to God.

Christians were always meant to lose on earth.
They were always meant to suffer.
It is not here that we will ever see the birth of satisfaction and true joy.
That awaits us further on down our roads, but we aren't there yet.  No, we are instead at the point where we must walk amongst man carrying a sad weight with a smile.

Good day fellow man,
just like all history before,
I pray you well on your way,
and hope to find you at the same door.

Those who believe that salvation is for all mankind do everything within their power to send the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the world. They will pray, they will give, and they will go with the Gospel.

I believe that salvation is for all mankind, but I do none of that.

Salvation is an open hand with food for the pigeon.
If it is desired, it can be had.
Those not saved are not cattle to be steered by a dog into a selected location.
We are to provide the opertunity and sources for those who might want to come.  If they choose not to, we can only smile with a glint in our eye.

shut up.
sorry to be crude, but stop blamming ourselves!
Stop pointing fingers at our brothers in faith!
Who cares about who split from who, it's no one's fault!
And it surely does no one any good to dwell on it as a blame-shift item!

Can you imagine the apostles pointing fingers at eachother saying that it was Mark's fault that Peter and Paul disagreed?
It rediculous!

Churches vary in christiatity for one simple reason.
Free Will.
God gave it to man, and man is to use it as he pleases.
If man does not agree with another, it is his full right to go find others who do and leave the disbeliever behind to follow his own version of faith.

Well...since I'm new, I suppose I should kick this off with first letting everyone know what my experiance is with christianity.
I was raised Protestant and went to protestant church until I was 17.  
I attended grade school at a catholic school and attended mass with the school, and went to protestant church on sundays and wednesdays.
At 17 I bounced all around to different churches, at first only protestant and then on in to the orthodox.

I have attended Russian Orthodox, Chatholic, and Greek Orthodox churches.
I lived with a Greek Orthodox monk for 6 months and attended their church off and on.  During this time with this monk, I had the oppertunity to read their version of the bible (which is literally in volumes).
I the middle of everything, I also read up on, and studdied Druidry but found it to be lacking subject even though it was something akin to a very stripped down version of christianity with out actually saying the same words.

In the end, I simply walked away from church alltogether.
I still read(past tense) my bible, and prayed.
Nowdays, I only pray.
I've gotten rather sick of reading the bible because my brain will not shut off the philisophical valve when reading it.
Too many lectures and debates, I think perhaps, for my brain to simply just read and soke in meditation.
There is only one book in the entire Bible that I can read in peace nowdays.
Titus.
I like to hang verses of Titus around my rooms, as well as, simply re-read it all the time.
It's simply the purest book in the entire Bible.

(I'm not mentioning anything in here about my views on other religions [which I have] as the "agreement" states that I should not discuss any other religion than christianity[and oh how I would love to discuss the fear of man found in this enforcement...but I won't...I will only say that Daniel would be a good example to follow.])

Ok...so now that you know where I come from on things.
My first Post debate/curiosity.

Church.
(oh boy, here we go)

Church was created to teach others about christ in a mass multitude.
And since not everyone had a reading level of appropriate messures, congrigational speaking and instruction was a very good and sound way to accomplish the task.
Especially since that's somewhat how Jesus tended to give instruction.

The structure of an "instructor" as the center of attention to a multitude of people gathered to learn about Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit and all else christian seems very appropriate, and it is purely invaluable to new and/or young christians.

Where I see an issue, at least for me, is that this formation of gathering fails to satify the spiritual need of actual worship.
While it's great to learn things, it's absolutely aweful for fellowshiping together with/to the Lord.
Now...it is still considerable to call it fellowshiping and worshiping, I know.
On the other hand, step outside of the defenses for a moment and do try and understand my point without aiming for vengence.

If I'm not mistaken, Paul could easily be said to be the primary founder of churches by following Jesus' method of teaching to masses.
This is an excellent tool and form for teaching, and we all should continue to learn throughout our entire life as christians.
Yet, is it not possible to have both?
To have devoted hours for nothing but worshiping in the form of psalm and prayer, to include long spans of silent prayer and meditation with god.
Is this somehow in contrast to the Dogma of christianity, or have we just simply over looked it because of tradition?

I'm new around here, and everyone will understand just where I stand on everything else later as I've come to this Forum to have people help me pick my brain....but first....

Think for a second...it's all you should need.
God and Jesus, let alone the Holy spirit.
Does anyone picture them outraged or disaproving of the Bible in ALL of it's forms?
God's word is being spread...which if I remember correctly is actually a point made in the bible about the spreading of his word, in whatever form, being a good thing, or something to that degree...(sorry, not big on memorizing verses.)
But then again, if you don't believe that the bible should have been written, then I suppose that part doesn't matter...

Yet, I still have a difficult time comprehending a God who would be upset at someone writing teachings in his honor and form.