The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Openness in the Christian community

How open and vulnerable should we be as Christians when we are meeting together for corporate worship? Please explain why you think and feel as you do.

We should be... single choice
	Completely 100% open and vulnerable
	Only confess the little things and keep the big things to ourselves
	Share nothing unless specifically asked
	We shouldn't be open in community at all
Votes accepted starting: Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:00 AM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

I believe that we as Christians should be completely open and vulnerable because it is right. We are not to lie to each other and hide from each other, and we are deffinitely not to try and hide our sins and mistakes from God.

Also, if we can't be open and vulnerable and honest in church, then where can we be honest? The church should be where we can be MOST open and vulnerable, not least.

I start my 80th year tomorrow, so why not be open :-) I try to be overcome a tendency to be a "people pleaser" which is a weakness. Being open helps.

I am all for being open and vulnerable, however when Christians (well meaning or not) throw it back in your face, you soon learn who you can be open and vulnerable to.

Tom

Well, how "open and vulnerable" does the Bible say we should be when we come together for corporate worship?

You know Jeremy I don't know about your worship service however the church I go to has a portion of it that is classically termed "corporate confession" where we are to think on our need for forgiveness and see it in the work of Christ. Now what that isn't is a bunch of us screaming out our sins to each other. So what do you mean by open?

Is it right to throw Hand Grenades into the worship service every Sunday? What about the weaker brethren and sisters in the Church? Its not that "we can't be open and vulnerable and honest in church," but that we should use wisdom in doing so. One is not lying if he does not say all that concerns himself and God. Is God a liar for He did not tell us who all the elect are? Though one should always be honest, one must use wisdom in sharing anything. There is a time to share and a time to shut-up. Moreover, just what part of the worship service was all this going to take place and still keep things decent and in order?

Illustration: A pastor was very honest. He told it all from the pulpit. He spoke of his smoking dope, his alcoholism, his problem with pornography, and so forth. Weeks later it was discovered that many members of the Youth Group began looking at pornography on the Internet. When caught they said something to the effect, 'if the pastor can get forgiveness for it, so can we.....' Even Christ spoke in parables at times so others would not know the truth! (Matt 13:10-13; Deut 29:4; Jer 5:21; Ezk 12:2). Furthermore, He hid part and parcel of His plan from His disciples early on, so they would not be discouraged---wisdom, as He used the time to build them up ...

Confessing our sins one to another (James 5:16) does not necessarily mean to the WHOLE Church (though there may be a valid time for this; i.e. Church discipline). In context it speaks of telling them to the elders when one is ill ... Moreover, it is wise to have an accountability partner (I suggest 3) in which you share different things with depending on their strengths and weaknesses.

USE Wisdom.

What exactly do YOU mean by "in church"?

I would agree to people being open and vulnerable, depending upon how one defines those terms too, as a member of Christ's Church. But I also believe that one is to use discretion, to speak wisely, and judge rightly in matters of hearing and speaking the truth in love, not excluding the confession of sin(s), etc.

So, how about defining terms so that at least "I" know what it is exactly you are talking about? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/scratchchin.gif" alt="" />

In His grace,

You beat me to it, Kyle.

(By the way, Jeremy, I couldn't choose any of the options you gave for your pole the way the question was framed.)

This is an area of concern for myself for the church and is something I believe I will always take in interest in. I believe that the church has given up a lot of ground in the area of counseling to secular institutions. The counselors that I’ve met, who call themselves Christian counselors, haven’t impressed me. It is my opinion that the church should have a strong counseling program for anyone who needs help with their sin issues. It is my opinion there are many people in the church that struggle with their sin, especially newer believers that do not have a strong faith yet. What makes it even worse for people in our culture today is that the secular world tells us that we need to make excuses for our sin and not take ownership of it. It's frustrating to know that sin, repentance, mortification of the flesh and obedience are not projected from the pulpits of the mainstream church anymore.

The church is where people need to go for healing. But as others have already stated in their reply’s here, it should be done in a proper manner. I’ve been apart of charismatic communities where people shared “all” their problems with everyone in the community. This was in my opinion not a good situation. I fully believe that people need others to pray for them and their problems and needs, but that doesn’t mean that they have to know every detail. First of all, we are all still fallible and sinful, so unfortunately people, even Christians can still be judgmental. So I witnessed that in this particular community where people were encouraged to share their sins, that some with real problems would share and of course there were others who never shared. But the ones who shared it seemed to me, were the ones who continued to struggle week after week and were not ever really getting the help they needed and on top of that, they would start to be politely “ignored” by the rest of the community that continued to encourage people to share their sins. Second, the focus was wrong because everything was left up to prayer. Don't get me wrong, prayer is powerful, but so is instruction. There was no “official” one on one counseling or any type of true “action” from the community to help. So it became apparent to me that this type of “openness” wasn’t helping.

But of course it depends on what type of “openness” you are talking about. The one type of openness that I feel that should be practiced and is vital for the body is letting people know about prayer concerns. I’ve seen people over and over again tell others that they had just been in the hospital or that they had just lost a job. When asked they say something like: “Oh I didn’t think it was important to tell everyone.” Or “I was too shy to tell someone.” I feel that the church should work very hard at making people feel comfortable to share their prayer concerns and get others to pray for them.

But as far a deep rooted sin issues that continue on in a believers life, something that is seriously hurtful and is effecting their personal lives, then that I believe should be something they should seek “private” and “confidential” counseling for. But it should be a situation where church members should feel very comfortable to approach their elders or the pastor about. In my opinion the church should be strong in this type of ministry. Being apart of men’s programs and small groups for a while, I know how much people struggle with their sin. Life isn’t easy and neither is marriage or parenting. It’s not easy being a teenager or a young adult either. Let’s face it, the world’s not an easy place period. People run into problems all the time and I believe they should feel comfortable to seek help from the church.

Now with saying that, I believe that the answer should always lie with Christ. So, those who are maturing with Christ and who are being sanctified are changing and are able to lead a more edifying and peaceful life. Being apart of a church that is Christ centered and biblical will sanctify people and lead them to stronger faith and Christian lives. So I’m not saying that there is nothing that is effecting us and our faith outside of counseling and that counseling is the only answer, just being a faithful member of a church who preaches the Word of God and the Gospel is extremely edifying. Another ministry I believe really helps are small groups or growth groups or cell groups… what ever term you want to use. I believe that if your church has these types of small congregational groups who meet frequently and are lead by church elders, then they can be a tremendous help for people to get more intimate and open with each other. I for one have really enjoyed being apart of a small group, it really helps in my opinion. But I believe as the church encourages people to focus on putting a sovereign God first in their lives and to live for Him and to use their spiritual gifts for Him and to get involved in ministry for Him and to be Christ centered and to live obedient and disciplined lifestyles then this will be a tremendous help to those to mend their problems without having to codependent on others. God will heal us.

My answer to the poll was that I believe that we should be 100% open and vulnerable but I believe only in a certain way. I don’t believe we should be sharing all our problems with everyone, but we should try to be honest and if we need to talk to someone about some deep issues we should be made to feel comfortable to approach an elder or the pastorate. We should feel comfortable to share our prayer concerns with everyone and we should feel comfortable to build more intimate relationships with others, but that these types of relationships take time and there’s still an understanding of confidentiality.

The one example I have to give with my personal experience is a friend of my wife and I from my old church. She is a single mom with two children and she became a friend of ours a few years ago. At that time she had been a member for a few years and other people in the congregation had negative opinions of her. In fact, certain people were very negative towards her. She has problems. I wouldn’t say, mental problems but more so emotional and social problems and certain specific sin issues. I would say that one of her main habitual sins is gossiping. She spends a lot of time talking with anyone that will listen, about other people. She also has anger issues and depression and she has problems with raising her children. My wife and I though have always looked past this and have remained friends with her and have helped her and prayed for her. We love her as our sister in Christ and we want to see her change for the better and we want her to grow with Christ and develop a love for the Word of God and the light of truth. So we have been her friends now for a few years, but it’s frustrating because she doesn’t listen to our counseling, when we are brave enough to give it to her and she continues to be a slave to her sin issues. What I really believe she needs is professional counseling. She needs to admit that she has problems and she needs to be put in a situation that forces her to start to work them out and to repent. But my old church doesn’t have any type of counseling. Repentance is also not preached or taught at my old church. The pastors at my old church will just refer people to professional Christian counselors who of course are going to charge a lot for their services. But the other problem is that the leaders of my old church including the pastors do not use any type of church discipline, church discipline is non existent in my old church. So you have a situation where this lady’s sin issues are very apparent to everyone in the church but no one is “insisting” on her to seek professional help. No one will approach her and say “you need to get help. Your actions are unedifying to the rest of the body and you are hurting yourself and your children.” So she is being allowed to continue to lead her life unchanged and the result is that she continues to get people mad at her and be depressed and in pain until one day she won’t want to stay in that church any longer and she will move on to another church who basically won’t care either.

Dave.

Dave speaks very well on the subject. Christ is the great physician for healing. I for one am not a proponent of a 100% openess and vulnerability with man. Too may times the body becomes a self help AA meeting. I do not need to know everyones dirty laundry. This is done at times as a false humility. The Body shoudl provide support groups and encouragement for the deepest depths one can be in. But I do not believe this should be done in a wide open setting.

YES! exactly. I like the identification of "false humility." That's perfect. I need to explore this concept further because I believe that it's common in more charasmatic communities.

If anyone could expound on this subject of "false humility" I would appriciate it. Thanks.

Dave.

K2P,

I don't find an answer in your poll that I can agree with but I certainly think we need to be open and honest with our Christian brothers and sisters. However, this will require discretion knowing when and where to open up and what to share. There is a time and place to confess our sins to one another. Matthew 5: 23, 24 tells us to be open and honest with our brother who we may have offended and to be reconciled to him before we come together for worship. We should not be holding on to grudges or remaining in an unforgiven state with someone we have offended when we meet for corporate worship. This doesn't mean the whole church needs to know all the details but we should certainly own our responsibility to be reconciled to our brother or sister as the case may require.




Wes

Paul speaks against false humility in Col 2.

But I am not sure this is in the same context as what I mean by the term for this thread.

We all suffer from false humility at times because we do not want to sound arrogant or presumptious. So in relation to this thread, the main reason I am against a complete 100% openess all the time is it focuses on self instead of Christ. Misery loves company right? And so we embark on how terrible everythign is all the time without being pointed to the Word for help. And the Joy of His salvation"

False humility differs from true repentant humility because it is from self instead of God.

I dont know if this makes sense. I will give it more thought.