What my old church was like, Part 1

I told you in my last post that the church I found in college was abusive and aberrant. Let me tell a bit more about this church. I shall not name names, because of potential legal liabilities which I will explain in more detail further on. For now, let's just call them “Group X.”

Group X boasted that they obeyed the Bible exactly. They prided themselves on doing everything “according to the New Testament pattern.” When I first met them, they were constantly repeating to me Acts 2:42, “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and prayer, ”speaking of the practices of the early church. Group X harshly criticized other churches, saying that the other churches did not faithfully devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, etc., but that Group X did. The leaders of Group X accused other churches of being “worldly” and “carnal”, referring to Christians from other churches as “mere believers with a bare salvation” while referring to all who belonged to Group X as “saints.”

Their meetings were deliberately simple. Their Sunday worship consisted of a bunch of men and women in a plain room (why plain? because stained glass and elaborate decorations were “carnal”). The chairs were all arranged in a semicircle. In the center was a table on which was a loaf of bread and a pitcher of wine. The women all wore pieces of cloth on their heads, in order to obey the command in 1 Corinthians 11 concerning women covering their heads in church. There was a time, usually lasting around an hour, in which men and women said prayers aloud, one at a time, with others offering up hymns and other songs from time to time. All the hymns were sung without musical instruments, because according to the leaders of Group X, “musical instruments are never mentioned as being used by the church in the Book of Acts, brother!” After that, two or three men of the group would stand up and preach on a passage of Scripture, with one of the leaders giving the final message.

As far as taking a collection of money, they did not pass a plate, but rather, there was a wooden box in the back of the room where people put their offerings. We were assured every week that the money “is used for the work of the Lord, both here and abroad,” but we never were given any kind of information about how exactly the money was spent. The Group X leaders justified not telling us where the money went by quoting 2 Kings 12:15 “Moreover they didn’t demand an accounting from the men into whose hand they delivered the money to give to those who did the work; for they dealt faithfully.” They criticized other churches for issuing financial statements or making agreements to be financially accountable, saying that these other churches “refused to trust the Lord.”

I only mentioned their Sunday morning meetings. As a matter of fact, they had lots of meetings, especially in their early days (I joined them at the tail end of their early days). At one time, a typical week might consist of the following: Sunday morning worship, Sunday lunch outreach (this meant going out two by two in suits and dresses into neighborhoods, knocking on doors and trying to get people to join the group), Sunday afternoon “ministry” (usually an extended sermon from the head honcho of the group or one of his deputies), Sunday evening “brothers' or sisters' meetings”, Wednesday “chapter summary”, Thursday prayer meeting, Friday “all night of prayer”, Saturday “tape ministry” (consisting of listening to tape recordings of sermons delivered by the head honcho of the group), and, three times a year, “seminar weekends” spent listening to the head honcho or his deputies giving a series of lectures in a stuffy, crowded room.

I mentioned the head honcho a number of times. In my next installment, I'll tell you something about the leaders of Group X and how they were chosen.