Have you ever?

[Beautifuldisaster]

In these days of attending church buildings-
I have been told repeatedly by good ministers that we should not forsake our gathering together esp in these dark days. Many churches that teach truth are so very rare and yet they say being a loner(someone without a church) is dangerous. It is sad to hear them say this on social media and forget that many of us cannot find a local biblically sound chuch. Often they will address how apostate the church has become yet offer nothing but a heavy burden on the people who are in famine for the word.
So the topic is have you ever??
Last church we (my husband and I) attended was an event that has never happened to me! Long story short I went to bible study wed night and the Pastor decided to make me an example of how he despises anyone with the knowledge and wisdom to enter. He picked a debate(which I am more than willing to do based on scripture) in front of everyone. Ok he says show me where the bible says this particular thing. I gave 2 examples..he quickly diverted attention and mumbled only to continue later to have me show him more examples to satisfy his need that my view was wrong. To me it was neither here nor there but I could see it was a matter of his "title" on the line.
Anyways some very strange things happened to us such as a man full of drugs tried to break down our door basically out of his mind and cracked it. The police came while the man was in the yard and did nothing our manager did nothing!! It was amazing to me. I knew something spiritual was behind it and prayed. We called the Pastor only to get ignored and publically rebuked while he was on the pulpit that next sunday! Not a prayer, mind you but a how dare you call the Pastor for any sort of help.
While I was setting there observing all the words that were being preached I had a extreme panic feeling of I had better run out of this church. I stayed seated and crossed my legs as to hold on to them while the feeling enveloped me.
Later my husband asked what I thought of the church and service being kind I was vague and he said I asked you because I had a dreadful feeling come over me while we were there. My mouth just about fell to the floor. That is when I put everything together! There was really bad things going on at that church!
I want to encourage my brothers and sisters that it is good if we can fellowship together yet in todays day do not be harsh on yourselves to walk away from such places that may show signs there is something not right. Continue to pray and study and in todays day we can fellowship thru these avenues without feeling that we are in opposition to the Lord. Amen!

[creationliberty]

In these days of attending church buildings-
I have been told repeatedly by good ministers that we should not forsake our gathering together esp in these dark days. Many churches that teach truth are so very rare and yet they say being a loner(someone without a church) is dangerous. It is sad to hear them say this on social media and forget that many of us cannot find a local biblically sound chuch. Often they will address how apostate the church has become yet offer nothing but a heavy burden on the people who are in famine for the word.
So the topic is have you ever??
Last church we (my husband and I) attended was an event that has never happened to me! Long story short I went to bible study wed night and the Pastor decided to make me an example of how he despises anyone with the knowledge and wisdom to enter. He picked a debate(which I am more than willing to do based on scripture) in front of everyone. Ok he says show me where the bible says this particular thing. I gave 2 examples..he quickly diverted attention and mumbled only to continue later to have me show him more examples to satisfy his need that my view was wrong. To me it was neither here nor there but I could see it was a matter of his "title" on the line.

It's difficult to discern when we don't have enough details about what the subject matter was. I'm not saying it never happens; certainly it does, but we'd need more details to understand what was going on. It is a common theme for pastors to blind-side you when you're least expecting it to massage their self-esteem.

Anyways some very strange things happened to us such as a man full of drugs tried to break down our door basically out of his mind and cracked it. The police came while the man was in the yard and did nothing our manager did nothing!! It was amazing to me. I knew something spiritual was behind it and prayed. We called the Pastor only to get ignored and publically rebuked while he was on the pulpit that next sunday! Not a prayer, mind you but a how dare you call the Pastor for any sort of help.

Does he record any of these message?

While I was setting there observing all the words that were being preached I had a extreme panic feeling of I had better run out of this church. I stayed seated and crossed my legs as to hold on to them while the feeling enveloped me.
Later my husband asked what I thought of the church and service being kind I was vague and he said I asked you because I had a dreadful feeling come over me while we were there. My mouth just about fell to the floor. That is when I put everything together! There was really bad things going on at that church!
I want to encourage my brothers and sisters that it is good if we can fellowship together yet in todays day do not be harsh on yourselves to walk away from such places that may show signs there is something not right. Continue to pray and study and in todays day we can fellowship thru these avenues without feeling that we are in opposition to the Lord. Amen!

That's true. We ought to fellowship one with another, but that verse is overtly emphasized, while all the many verses about sanctification are ignored because they doesn't benefit a pastor's paycheck. I just wish there were more details to your story; I'm interested in hearing more about it.

[Beautifuldisaster]

Yes..I am sorry for not fully recording in detail..the events would take awhile yet the teaching was on 1 Peter 3vs 19 and the question was about hell ( yes hell which is compelling for me after all these events that happened.) The study was not recorded as it is a small group he asks the questions and mostly everyone sits and wait for the answers. Yet I had recently studied this topic and so I answered and in the answer I said Jesus went down to hell. He immediately stopped me and said where does the bible say down...that it is to hell not down. I quoted Lazarus and the rich man and eph 4 verse 9. Of course I have more today but that was all I could recall on the spot.
That is why to me it was not here nor there as I seen it was a debate not of salvational issue.
Yes he has a youtube channel that records his sunday sermons but not his wednesday.

[Beautifuldisaster]

So when I had said Lazarus he said well there were 2 Lazarus s and then mumbled..I thought he should know which I was quoting. His church is called westview christian center. You could look it up on youtube. I did research on this church after this incident and they have encounters.

[anvilhauler]

As is usually the case, this "pastor" lacks humility and doesn't see himself as a usual member of the congregation and is prepared to study and discuss a topic with others and see others as equals.  If he had accepted Christ with humility and a broken and contrite heart he wouldn't be that way and he wouldn't treat others that way either.

As children of God, not only does God want us to have a perfect relationship with Him but also a good relationship with our fellow siblings in Christ and doing what is right and being kind and caring towards one another as laid out in the scriptures.  Being a bully or lording it over others in violation of the scriptures doesn't do any good at all and is purely destructive.

[creationliberty]

Yes..I am sorry for not fully recording in detail..the events would take awhile yet the teaching was on 1 Peter 3vs 19 and the question was about hell ( yes hell which is compelling for me after all these events that happened.) The study was not recorded as it is a small group he asks the questions and mostly everyone sits and wait for the answers. Yet I had recently studied this topic and so I answered and in the answer I said Jesus went down to hell. He immediately stopped me and said where does the bible say down...that it is to hell not down. I quoted Lazarus and the rich man and eph 4 verse 9. Of course I have more today but that was all I could recall on the spot.
That is why to me it was not here nor there as I seen it was a debate not of salvational issue.
Yes he has a youtube channel that records his sunday sermons but not his wednesday.

Good job on that, you answered correctly. If this is the place you're talking about...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCozLffPSWLk1HJzR2qPzz4Q
Then yeah, it's the same ho-hum lukewarm church building that we've all typically dealt with. I didn't listen to any of them, but you can see the Christmas tree in the background, so that tells us a lot without having to hear any of it.

[creationliberty]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPmi1mUEcIs
I couldn't help myself, I did end up listening to part of the latest one on their channel. The "James and the raiders" thing he mentioned made absolutely no sense.

I can already tell just a minute into this that he's going to be pushing "keeping the sabbath." That shows us that he doesn't understand what the sabbath is; that it is prophetic of Christ, and that Christ has fulfilled that prophecy, and so He is our sabbath rest.
https://www.creationliberty.com/articles/sabbath.php

He said that God provided Jesus so we could get back into relationship with God. I'd ask him the same thing he asked you: "Where in the Bible does it say that?" Of course, the Bible talks about us being reconciled to God through Christ, so don't misunderstand my meaning, but if Christ was required for relationship with God, then how did Abraham have a relationship with God? This is where many preachers, like this guy in the video, don't have a clue about who Christ was, and why He was sent unto us, and I cover that more in my notes on the book of Romans, specifically chapters 4 and 5:
https://creationliberty.com/articles/bookromans01.php#4
It's more that by one man sin entered into the world, and many sins and death through one sin, and therefore, by one sacrifice for that one original sin, all sin is remitted, and life entered into the world, but all men are saved by grace through faith in God, and therefore, it is Christ (i.e. God with us) that we look to for our salvation, but even Christ told us that we are to pray to our Heavenly Father. Abraham was justified by faith in God, that God can and would do what He said He would do, and thus, when we believe Christ, we also are justified by faith in God that He can and will do what He said He would do, for we trust in His Word that He will save us by His Son.

@2:05 "I wanna' talk about faith today"
*gasp*... You're kidding?
Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing to talk about faith, and there are chapters in the Bible I'll cover later where we'll get into that more, but that's the theme of most teachings I hear from preachers because it's an incredibly easy subject to teach. Basically, when it comes to the doctrine of faith, there's not much he can say that could be proven wrong. He'll work harder to avoid more complicated topics because, like the issue with hell, he can quickly be proven wrong and be shown to have no understanding of the matter because he's a natural man that does not have the Spirit of God in him.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
-1Co 2:14

And he brings up a projector screen with the a new-age bible version. And that's where I'm stopping. I have no more interest to listen to this guy because he's so leavened already, I know for a fact he's going to be teaching false doctrines along the way. Well, at least discerning him was quick, and we didn't waste much time there. 

[creationliberty]

Sorry, one more thing; I had to look up their website too. There's this whole thing about church building website marketing that I've never covered with the church that we'll have to go over someday, but they do the exact same thing. I've noticed that a lot of church building websites like to highlight their "GIVE" sections, and this site is no different, but one of the major things I want to point out is that is that Westview is a fine example of one of those church buildings that is a leaf, off of a twig, off of a branch, off of the trunk of a corrupt tree.

Someone who looks up Westview would not be able to find any connection to 501c3, and so they would think there's no problem there, but hold on, look at the fine print at the bottom of their site.
https://www.westviewcc.org/contact-cedar-city-church/
Btw, the website is kinda' terribly designed in my opinion, and they're paying about $50/mo just for the upkeep of it. There are fees I could discern based on what I saw, so in short, they're paying a lot of money for that site, and for such a small establishment, I'm confused how they can afford that.

However, they might be getting infusion of funding from their parent organization:
"2018 Westview Christian Center. All Rights Reserved. Westview is a member of the Rocky Mountain Ministry Network."
Okay, let's go look up the Rocky Mountain Ministry Network.

Though I couldn't find 501c3 connection, I did find that they employed people who had training in accounting for "non-profit organizations." Hmm. But I also found that the Rocky Mountain Ministry Network is a sub-organization that is branched off of The General Council of the Assemblies of God. Okay, let's go look up The General Council of the Assemblies of God.

Oh, well that didn't take long, so yeah, they are a 501c3 non-proft who parents over RMMN and Westview, so they are all a part of a larger 501c3 conglomerate, but don't state that on their individual sites. Here's a page where the GCAG organization instructs all their branches on how to file their taxes under 501c3:
https://www.agfinancial.org/2019-tax-guide/

Here's the general 501c3 information for them. Notice that they don't have a listing for how much money their parent company brings in on a yearly basis:
https://www.taxexemptworld.com/organization.asp?tn=1048449

I did a little more digging and found a financial statement for 2012-2013:
https://www.guidestar.org/ViewEdoc.aspx?eDocId=2597875&approved=True
This shows they brought in $3.1 million, and I guarantee they've grown since then.

I'm going to stop there because I've got other work to do, but that should be enough to show that they do not belong to Christ, they belong to the IRS. And I guarantee they push false doctrine on tithe, otherwise, they would never have gotten to $3.1 million.
https://www.creationliberty.com/articles/tithe.php

[Beautifuldisaster]

Thank you for checking all of this out! There is alot of info you have provided and I am eager to go over on what you have covered. I just wanted to say thank you as when we as Christians see things it is hard to know for absolute surety being that it is a church. Having you look thru this also helps me to know based on the double talk, arrogance, and the intense feeling my husband and I both had from this place we were to run out of that church.

[creationliberty]

I'm glad that helped. I just want Christians to understand that these parent companies work like ANY OTHER normal business would operate. If a parent company has a business, let's say a store, that isn't producing much income, in time, they'll either close down the store, or they'll get rid of the manager and put in his place a new manager than can help generate more revenue. Why is it that Christians don't believe that happens in church building organizations?

What I'm getting at is that, sometimes, the reason a pastor like the one you dealt with will get defensive is to coax his own pride, but also, there's money involved. Many times, if he can't keep control over the congregation, and bring them under submission to him, he'll lose them, and that will threaten his job, which threatens his paycheck, which leaves him with a grumbling belly.
(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
-Phl 3:18:19
Notice that it did not say there would be a few here and there that would do this, but rather, it says MANY would be the enemies of the cross.

[Beautifuldisaster]

As is usually the case, this "pastor" lacks humility and doesn't see himself as a usual member of the congregation and is prepared to study and discuss a topic with others and see others as equals.  If he had accepted Christ with humility and a broken and contrite heart he wouldn't be that way and he wouldn't treat others that way either.

As children of God, not only does God want us to have a perfect relationship with Him but also a good relationship with our fellow siblings in Christ and doing what is right and being kind and caring towards one another as laid out in the scriptures.  Being a bully or lording it over others in violation of the scriptures doesn't do any good at all and is purely destructive.

Amen to that!!