Wsw201
The Northeast (Cape Ann) - New England, during the 70's and 80's - they are mostly Roman Catholic and other churches are dead as a doornail; and in South Florida (Boca Raton/ Ft. Lauderdale area) - transient, non-theological, Non-Regulative Principle "I got my Holy Spirit Feeling", don't bother me with the bible, churches down here.
For whatever reason, God has continually placed us admist a sea of nonsense. Why? Not sure. I am a bit sick of it actually. So is my wife. My Presbyterian friends north of us - about an hour and a half have no place to go either, so that tells you the area down here has sold out. There's about 15 PCA churches around this whole south area (about 150 mile radius) - and still, they keep coming and sell out on worship, preaching and the RP across the board because people continually move in and move out based on demographics and they try to "keep them". Now, they will tell you differently. But you have sit and spend 6 months at a time figuring this out while they "tell you" they adhere to the RP and sound preaching. But, the proof is in the pudding. As a matter of fact, the pudding itself is not there!!
I don't mean to sound completely negative about church life in general down here, but hey, if the shoe fits...
My parents are in Tennesse (in the middle of the state) in their area - not a lick of a good church. One PCA church. When we visited on vacation there, the Pastor preached on deacons - the main point of his sermon from 1 Tim 3 was that deacons are the ones who make sure the lawn is cut and the air conditioning works well (no joke - that was the substance of the sermon.)
Just a couple of weeks ago we had to walk out of a service we were attending. It was basically a commercial for their Christian school, where they had 3 ladies BEHIND THE PULPIT speaking to us. And this guy says he is reformed???
ETC.....
I am glad your experience on this planet has been better than mine. Mine has been, well, eclectic to say the least.
So I await, as patiently as possible, entering into the city whose foundations has as its builder and maker "God alone"....
If you ask me, over the last ten years, who is your pastor? I would say Edwards, Burroughs, Love, Turretin, etc. They speak to me from the grave with sweet words of biblical exhortation that I would long to hear in a pulpit.
Forget the jokes, foget the nonsense - preach the word! be MAN. Stop being afraid of the people. Stop worrying about your job and whetehr the church will throw you out because of sound preaching. Be a man, be a man of God, a preacher of the Word unto death if needs be. Preach the Word. Stop catering to the whims of men's fancies. Stop the nonsense on Sunday mornings hoping to attract people while you repel the Living God from your worship service and call it "church". Preachers need to wake up and fly straight or get out of the pulpit. Better to have 5 preachers in the whole country than 50,000 dolts who ought to be studying their Bible and sitting in the front pew under a good preacher. Get out the pulpit and into the pew! Stop torturing the people of God. Stop! Stop! Stop! The people of God are so tired of it that they are blinded by ignornace and don't know any better while listening to pep rallys. Please!!