Bible

[Diver_Linda]

You want to know what bothers me about todays churches and ministry?
Well, I'm going to tell you anyway and I also will try to make a long story short, LOL.
When I was growing up, our pastor came to every life event in our family and every church members family. Sometimes the wife even came along. Every event was started with prayer. GOD was included in all aspects of our lives. Now, we don't need the pastor to include God in our life events but, it meant something. When I had my first son christened 29 years ago, I invited the new pastor and he refused to come. We had the christening during a Sunday service and had a back yard get together after the service and invited everybody and the pastor to join us. My old pastor would have come and said grace before the meal and a prayer for the life of the child. He would have included the God-Parents and the parents and would have talked to them ahead of time about promising to bring the child up in the word of God. It was not a prior commitment. The answer was simply, I'm sorry, I don't do that.....come to homes after services.
Also, I remember my old pastor coming to check on us if we missed a Sunday. He cared about his congregation. I think he liked my Mom's cooking too. He always showed up at dinner time.LOL. GOD, I miss him!!!!!! He became such an important part of our family that I felt I could go and talk to him about anything. He knew all of us, every one of his congregation, he knew us personally. He retired and moved to Arizona when I was 18 years old. That is when the new guy took over. I got married at 18 and had my first baby when I was 19. Our church grew from about 100 members to a few thousand as the farm lands got sold off to developers. But they added an assistant Pastor. Still, no personalization. Then, they rebuked my sister for missing her tithes and told her she is no longer a member of the church. Since when did money become more important than the soul? She stopped going to church. Then I asked the unspeakable question about salvation and was told, "We only preach the good news of Christ"
O.K. this is longer than planned.
The personalization is what bothers me. That good old home town atmoshere is gone. Pastors no longer care about individuals, they don't care about "knowing" each individual in their congregation.