{"id":7432,"date":"2014-08-31T01:10:07","date_gmt":"2014-08-31T05:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allandouglas.dougbittinger.com\/blog\/?p=7432"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:39","slug":"church-invaluable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/church-invaluable\/","title":{"rendered":"CHURCH  INVALUABLE"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5914 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/AP-171x300.jpg\" alt=\"Calvin S. Metcalf on church \" width=\"171\" height=\"300\" \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In spite of adversaries and critics the church of our Lord Jesus Christ continues to have a redemptive role in contemporary society.\u00a0 In no way has modern technology diminished the need for this fellowship of faith.\u00a0 Although our procedures and programs may change, the gospel of grace has an unchanging appeal for all who need love and forgiveness.\u00a0 While church, by no stretch of the imagination, is a majority effort, it does have a healing effect upon the total community.\u00a0 Withdraw the church from society and there is a lost dimension of righteousness that is necessary for stability, productivity and progress.<\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Church at its best gives the Word of God priority and keeps the Lordship of Christ as a goal for its fellowship.\u00a0 In no way is there a perfect church.\u00a0 No one church can claim spiritual superiority over any other church.\u00a0 Hopefully, each church is a growing, repenting, struggling family of believers who have become church for the glory of God and the service of humankind.<\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As church we face the future keenly aware we have no future without Christ.\u00a0 &#8220;Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus&#8217; blood and righteousness.&#8221;\u00a0 The only way we can venture a dream about tomorrow is because we know who holds that tomorrow.\u00a0 We are secure in His promises and certain in His ability to be with us even to the end of the age.\u00a0 We move forward in faith not because we are so great, but because we serve a great God.\u00a0 Our future is in the hands of Him who said, &#8220;On this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div align=\"left\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Therefore, we celebrate the church today as a people who are enjoying the spiritual benefits of our predecessors.\u00a0 Our real challenge is that we pass on this high and holy calling to all those who shall come after us.\u00a0 From the hands of our spiritual parents we reach forth a hand of hope to our spiritual children.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In spite of adversaries and critics the church of our Lord Jesus Christ continues to have a redemptive role in contemporary society.&nbsp; In no way has modern technology diminished the need for this fellowship of faith.&nbsp; Although our procedures and programs may change, the gospel of grace has an unchanging appeal for all who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/church-invaluable\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;CHURCH  INVALUABLE&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matters-of-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19173,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7432\/revisions\/19173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}