8. There is no hell (there is only there is only the grave)

-This one does not seem so bad to me. There are some revs who agree on this too.

Hey thanks for the new look room and features... LUV the use of the good ol' Rev icons; it gives it some flavour. They think they're so different, the RCI and RF but it's all brushed with the same tar. The RF logo is blowing even more of it's own trumpets... out of its $%&!**. I have not come across another church that seems to be so in love with it's logos. They would jump on anyone that dared to wear a cross or a dove or put a fish on their car... or use the fish symbol in anyway... God forbid looking like a pentecostal or a catholic. I remember buying every new Revival shirt or Revival bumper sticker with so much excitement at xmas camps and rallys.. that's so sad.

and no... you'll probably not get any money from me. I'm a stinge. I remember in my last days at the Rev I used to enjoy not titthing anymore... they owe me dammit. I should go back and take a large amout of bricks from the walls for all the building fund money i've given. You're right Merry, so many people expect a free ride from their church as if it's government funded or something. There really has to be some sort of contribution from members to keep things running.

I agree with H&S that people can contribute to their church if they want to.  But ti demand 10% of their wage (they usually demand 10% of the gross wage before tax too) is just ridiculous.  Especially if you're poor.  I remember when I was on the dole I used to feel obliged to give 10%.  Here I was trying to pay my rent and eat while giving 10% of my dole money to the church.  Jeesh!!!  Talk about sucked in.

The tithe to Israel was a type of tax anyway.  Israel was a nation not a small organisation within a nation.  So the Old Testament precedent of a tithe doesn't apply to a church situation anyway.  It's funny how churches like the RCI/RF and AOG, etc all take the Old Testament laws that suit them and ignore the ones that don't.  "God demands you pay 10% of your money to us, no tattoos, etc...would you like a ham sandwich or buy a shirt made of a weave of two different types of cloth?" 

What I am talking about was when I was in the AOG, not the RCs.  Sorry, I should have made that clear.

And it wasn't that anyone was looking over my shoulder watching what I put in the bag.  It was that they told me that God wanted my 10% no matter how much I earned.  In fact, there was even an element within the church that said that I should tithe with greater vigour when poor so that God would bring me out of my financial hardship.  I am talking about the pressure of the teaching not individual leaders or people.  They taught us what God 'wanted' and then it was up to us to apply it.  I was trying to be a good Christian as defined by the teachings in my AOG church.  What I am tryning to say is that the teaching was flawed, not that someone stood over me.  But the the teaching was pushed within my AOG church.  We were even told to give to missions OVER AND ABOVE our regular tithe and not instead of it. 

Tithing was something that was not enforced on an individual level, but we were certainly made to feel guilty for not doing it.  And I promise you, I didn't want to let God down.  I have since realised that God doesn't need my money.  And when I was really poor (relative to Australia anyway) then it was then that the church should have been giving money to me, not the other way around.

I remember being 'told off' from the platform during one of those 'make you feel guilty tithing talks' that we were a bit slack because we didn't even tithe 10% of our time. I added up the average time most of us sat through hot sunday afternoon etc. and found that we were actually... Can ya feel that legalistic vibe. Some of those gung ho house-leaders (myself included) gave such shoddy and unsubltle unproffesional talks that Im amazed the assemblies put up with us. Listening to a leader prattle on for 45 minutes stringing together about 60 scriptures to back up between the two different types of love has stunted me forever.

They get so desparate to find content for a talk that it usually has to be filled with hundreds of analogies... if I hear the analogy of the Hot boiled froggy or army analogies once more in my life I will fill my ears with silicon.... sorry about the rant.

I remember the 'look' i got from various people handing the bag around when I, again, did not put money into it. Once I put a $2 scratchy into it... because it amused me to do stuff like that. It became forever one of those dumb pastor jokes that got menioned every second week... and I was sorry I did it because of the cheesy jokes it inspired... the things ya gotta do to entertain yourself at Revival meetings.

ROFL!!! about the $2 scratchie LOL  What a laugh!  Can't believe you did that...you had guts.

Oh well, I guess I must live under a rock because I don't ever remember feeling any pressure to tithe at either the RC's,  RF's, AOG or the COC...*shrugs*

Oh H&S you should have heard the pearler of a talk one of the leaders gave in ****** explaining how the people on the day of pentecost heard them speak the language they were born...ROFL!!!  He reckoned that when you hear someone pray in tongues you can sometimes hear a word here or there that is a word in English and that was what it meant in the bible.  That was one of the first times I ever started questioning...then promptly felt guilty afterwards of course

I know this is coming a bit late but after reading the last response about tithing, but I just remembered an interesting situation arose that I would like to share which I thought quite funny at the time.

A lady in our assembly actually won a brand new BMW in some sort of raffle. I asked her how the hell was she going to put the bumperbar and the wheels (worth about 10% of the car) in the bag as it came around. She replied she probably wouldn't as it would bring undue attention to herself and besides, she might start a trend. Imagine placing 10% of anything you obtained through the Grace of God in the bag! Still, a good point I thought. Money or wages are not the only form of wealth one may acquire.

It was also very interesting to see how certain loving bretheren and oversight became quite polarised over the whole affair. (Was it the ill gotten gains of gambling or what?) (AND we don't expect everyday plebs in the assembly to be given a new car. What's wrong with an old Magna dear Lord?)

Incidently, speaking of which, at one time I bought a rather fashy new up market car (for my job). A week later, a whole talk was dedicated to warning folk of the dangers of greed and to be wary of certain folk who love causing dissent among the bretheren. (Who was causing the dissent I wonder?)

PS Got to chauffer lots of assembly weddings though, even if I didn't get invited to the reception.

Reply to : BraveBear

Hey Brave Bear,

Reminds me of the time we bought a nice shiny red Porche complete with whale tail. Of course, we'd worked damn hard for the money, but thats irrelevant. Shortly after we bought a huge house on acreage as well. Always thinking of the brethren, we made sure it had plenty of room for house meetings and entertaining the saints. The senior pastor was one of our first house guests to play on our tennis court, swim in our pool and spa, and break in the billiards table. During rally, we catered for a BUS load from another assembly.

It never ceased to amaze me how, every so often, we would get a talk on people who put their faith in fancy cars like Porches and who bought mansions with their filthy lucre. Yet the same red Porche was often called upon for assembly weddings, chauffered by us, even though we were seldom invited to the reception and certainly never offered recompense for our petrol or time. And of course, when half the assembly would turn up at our place for 'fellowship' events, I spent most of the time running around meeting the needs of visitors and then cleaning up the mammoth mess the next day. True to form, very few said 'thanks' but a lot gossiped about our material goods for weeks afterwards.

I just put it down to jealousy at the time, bewildered that my brothers and sisters would make such a big deal about us being 'rich'. In the eyes of the Lord we are all equal, but not in the eyes of our fellow revivalists. I know we were invited into the 'inner circle' because of what we had and yet, when we struck financial difficulty some years later because of bad business decisions, it was blamed on us 'taking our eyes off the Lord'. At least there were plenty of other tall poppies to chop off, including yourself.

And incidently, if you hadnt parked your shiny new Jag in the pastor's exclusive parking spot, he probably wouldn't have noticed it.