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In a small group that's easy, though. In a bigger church setting it might be kind of hard to monitor, if it even should be.

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ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

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In a small group that's easy, though. In a bigger church setting it might be kind of hard to monitor, if it even should be.

True, but on the other hand, someone disruptive isn't going to have the same kind of opportunity to be argumentative in a regular church service as they would in a small group.

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ORIGINAL: stellaluna
I personally believe that no one should be turned away from the church, but I also believe membership is for believers only. And I also believe that leadership positions should be filled only by members.

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ORIGINAL: buckifn

The church is not a building, but is made up of US, THE BODY OF CHRIST.

Therefore, anyone who accepts the Lord Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour is part of the church.

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ORIGINAL: stellaluna

This begs the question: how long do you let someone attend.

In a large church you probably wouldn't know if someone was a serial visitor, but I have a little story that's related. A few years back I was part of a bible study made up of about a dozen people, mostly new Christians who had serious issues with going to actual church buildings. It's a long story.

Anyway, there were a couple of people who weren't believers who wanted to come and I resisted. I didn't think our group was an appropriate gathering...IOW I didn't feel this group was spiritually mature enough at that point to open it up to argumentative unbelievers. (These two people were admittedly more interested in debating, not what you might call "seekers.") Plus, our group had other issues that really needed to be resolved before any new people came into it. Even though our group leader agreed with me, he left it up to the group to decide whether to allow them to come and the group voted yes.

Our bible study was completely derailed. One or our new "members" quit coming after just a couple of meetings, so he ended up being a non-issue. But the other was a woman who was wiccan and insisted on defending her beliefs and questioning ours. This went on for a couple of months and when I suggested to a couple of people that she be asked to stop coming (since our meetings were pretty worthless at that point), I was the one who was called out as the "bad" Christian because "Christians aren't supposed to judge."

The group broke up shortly after that and I've seen all of those fledgling brothers and sisters fail to grow or drop by the wayside. I have strong feelings now about when unbelievers are allowed and when they aren't allowed to be part of such groups.

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The church is not a building, but is made up of US, THE BODY OF CHRIST.

Therefore, anyone who accepts the Lord Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour is part of the church.

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ORIGINAL: Calea37

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ORIGINAL: stellaluna

This begs the question: how long do you let someone attend.

In a large church you probably wouldn't know if someone was a serial visitor, but I have a little story that's related. A few years back I was part of a bible study made up of about a dozen people, mostly new Christians who had serious issues with going to actual church buildings. It's a long story.

Anyway, there were a couple of people who weren't believers who wanted to come and I resisted. I didn't think our group was an appropriate gathering...IOW I didn't feel this group was spiritually mature enough at that point to open it up to argumentative unbelievers. (These two people were admittedly more interested in debating, not what you might call "seekers.") Plus, our group had other issues that really needed to be resolved before any new people came into it. Even though our group leader agreed with me, he left it up to the group to decide whether to allow them to come and the group voted yes.

Our bible study was completely derailed. One or our new "members" quit coming after just a couple of meetings, so he ended up being a non-issue. But the other was a woman who was wiccan and insisted on defending her beliefs and questioning ours. This went on for a couple of months and when I suggested to a couple of people that she be asked to stop coming (since our meetings were pretty worthless at that point), I was the one who was called out as the "bad" Christian because "Christians aren't supposed to judge."

The group broke up shortly after that and I've seen all of those fledgling brothers and sisters fail to grow or drop by the wayside. I have strong feelings now about when unbelievers are allowed and when they aren't allowed to be part of such groups.

Hi Stella,

Well, that is a pretty sad story!! First of all, I think there is a difference between someone attending the church and attending a Bible study.

You were right in your initial feeling of not allowing those two to attend; they were there to debate and disrupt and their mission was accomplished. If I were leading a Bible study and knew someone (wiccan) like that was there we would be spending 99.9% of our time in group prayer (not to mention the time before that would be in prayer.) But it sounds like the others were new and struggling, so better to not allow someone who you know is there with the sole purpose of disrupting.

Is there any way to contact those people who drifted away and get them back in a study?

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ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

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In a small group that's easy, though. In a bigger church setting it might be kind of hard to monitor, if it even should be.

True, but on the other hand, someone disruptive isn't going to have the same kind of opportunity to be argumentative in a regular church service as they would in a small group.

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ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God
We have some kids who come to our church that are saved, although their parents are not. I would love for their parents to start attending, even if it were just to take their kids and sit with them and make them behave. I would be okay with a non-saved parent coming to church for the sake of their children, even long term.

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ORIGINAL: stellaluna

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ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God
We have some kids who come to our church that are saved, although their parents are not. I would love for their parents to start attending, even if it were just to take their kids and sit with them and make them behave. I would be okay with a non-saved parent coming to church for the sake of their children, even long term.

I want to address this in the opposite direction. I'm sure there are families attending churches all over the place that consist of parents who are believers, but not the kids, and they are considered members as a family. I would never ever tell a parent to leave an unbelieving youngster at home, but I do have a friend who is a youth minister who opened a big fat can of worms over this.

The story: my friend works with high school students and it's not a huge group, maybe 30-40 kids. We all know that kids are likely to bring friends with them to church and they are encouraged to, etc. and this particular group was no different. My friend had his youth doing outreach on a regular basis and all kinds of activities to get them and their friends involved in church, which I think is fairly typical. THEN he dared to set up a day-long program one weekend to really dig deep into scripture and what it means to be a believer and he told his youth group that only born-again Christians should be attending this day of study, or whatever he was calling it. He told them this wasn't a time to invite their friends from school. Also, he had been the youth minister at this church for about ten years, so he had a pretty good idea of who among his youth group members should be there and who shouldn't be, but he also told them that anyone who wasn't sure to please come talk to him and they could decide together.

Well, there were parents who were completely outraged because even though their teens had not accepted Christ yet, they didn't believe they should be excluded. No amount of him explaining what the day was for could assuage them and they ended up canceling the event all together. He told the kids why he canceled, too, and that caused an uproar as well. I was frankly surprised he didn't get fired, but he's still there.

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ORIGINAL: stellaluna
I support him, too, and we've already discussed small groups a little bit in this thread. He used that same argument, saying the church's small groups were not for unbelievers, but the parents didn't buy it one bit.

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Argumentative can also be very subtle from a scowled face to chatting up the people before church and then attacking them directly after. It's the ripples of divisiveness and not always the largest wave that does the most damage. At least imo.

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ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

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Argumentative can also be very subtle from a scowled face to chatting up the people before church and then attacking them directly after. It's the ripples of divisiveness and not always the largest wave that does the most damage. At least imo.

That's a good point, although I know plenty of believers who engage in that kind of behavior as well. It would certainly be difficult to monitor.

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But I do believe the youth pastor absolutely has the right to exclude non-believers from that type of meeting.

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ORIGINAL: kernsfamily
who should be allowed to ATTEND church? Is that really a serious question? All who want to come, and hear "The Word" preached....as long as, of course (as mentioned before), no one is disruptive or anything...
How would you go about telling someone, "Hey....we'll have to ask you to leave...you can't attend church"???? HUH? Last I checked, no one was at the front door of our church checking IDs or asking to see our "membership cards" or anything.

Our church is fairly "seeker friendly"....but, there's still plenty of "meat" in the sermon, that's for sure...the most solidly, biblical preaching that we're aware of.....and, yet, towards the end of the sermon, the pastor always wraps up with the "invitation" and salvation message.....

We have no idea who visitors are, as there are so many different types.....perhaps they are simply in town visiting family from out of state, and took the opportunity to worship with us on Sunday, since they watch our church services on DayStar TV at home. Or, perhaps they are "seekers"....or, they have just moved to the area, and are "visiting" the multitudes of local congregations in our area....any number of reasons. Though, when someone fills out the "Visitors Card", and drop it in the offering, they WILL get a follow up note and phone call.

in ANY circumstance....any and ALL visitors are warmly welcomed, and are never treated like "intruders", or "uninvited guests", as we have experienced in many of the very small churches in our area.

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How long would someone be allowed to disrupt things before they were asked to leave?

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ORIGINAL: kernsfamily

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How long would someone be allowed to disrupt things before they were asked to leave?

what I mean by "disrupting"....any loud talking....standing up and "questioning the pastor" during the sermon (hasn't happened in my church, but, I have seen it happen in others)....