Matthew Stuckey here from Verity Baptist Church Manila and Verity Baptist Church Pampanga
just giving you a quick video to talk about the importance of embracing the style of your
local church.
Embracing the style of your local church.
What do I mean by that?
Well, I want you to understand that, you know, when it comes to you being at a church, no
matter who your pastor is, no matter who's preaching the sermons, there are probably
some things you have a different opinion on.
There is nobody in the world that I 100% agree on with about absolutely everything.
And if you're at a church, you might have some things you disagree with.
For example, at Verity Baptist Church Manila, we believe in taking communion one time a
year around Easter because we believe the Lord's Supper replaced the Passover.
And we believe that this is to be done inside the local church.
But you know, there's a lot of very good godly men and other pastors that they believe differently.
And they believe taking communion in their home, you know, individually or just in small
groups, they believe different sorts of things and that's fine, you know, different churches
teach different things.
And you know what, I'm sure there's members at our church in the Philippines that maybe
have a different opinion on communion and that's fine.
And so I'm not telling you, you have to believe something that you don't believe.
But obviously you don't have the opportunity or the right to teach against what the church
teaches.
That would be wrong to do.
Okay.
But even if you disagree with some things, you can still embrace the style of the church.
Now what I mean by that is the fact that I went to a lot of different Baptist churches
and I was members of IFB churches that ran bus routes and they picked up little children
to come to church.
Their parents didn't come.
They had junior church and Sunday school and all these children's ministries, which are
a very dangerous place for kids.
I was at churches that were not family integrated.
And they didn't really do things the way that I would do them or how I believe the Bible
teaches them.
But here's the thing, I never rebuked, you know, my pastors for doing that.
I never told them, you're wrong.
You've got to change this.
What I actually did was I embraced the style of those local churches and I actually worked
on bus routes and I was there helping pick up kids.
I used to preach at junior church.
I was involved in the Sunday school and the children's ministries.
Now I didn't agree with those ministries.
I don't believe that you should have that at a church, but at the same time I still
wanted to embrace the style of that church because me trying to fight against the doctrines
I disagreed on would only cause problems in the church.
It would not benefit the church.
It would not help the church, but by embracing the style of the church, I was able to be
helpful to that church and many kids in the children's ministry got saved.
They got baptized.
They learned the word of God and so I was able to help out the church by embracing the
style of the local church, even though I didn't fully agree.
Now some people watching this video are probably people that say, I go to a new IFB church
and some of you are not.
The reality is that when it comes to churches, they don't always do things the exact same
way.
Even if you disagree on some things, at the same time you don't have to fight against
your church.
What you can do is be a blessing to that church.
If you're a pastor one day, then you could always do things differently.
You know, that's fine, but while you're at a church, even if you say, I think there's
too many activities, I think there's too few activities, I think there should be a
follow-up program or more of a follow-up program.
I think there should be less of a follow-up program.
I think we should do soul winning like this in public places and parks or I think we should
do it door-to-door.
You know, I don't think we should have a major emphasis on the music ministry.
I think we should have a major emphasis on the music ministry.
Well depending on what church you're at, they might do things on either side of that spectrum.
That doesn't make it a bad church.
If it's a church that's right on salvation and they got some soul winning going on and
you say, I'm a member there, God's placed me in this local church, even if I disagree
with things, you can embrace the style of that local church, even if you don't fully
agree.
By rejecting the style of the local church, you're only going to cause problems for that
church.
And the reality is you can be more of a benefit and a blessing to that church by helping out
in areas even if you don't think it's perfect.
It's just like at work, if your boss gives you orders or instructions, even if you disagree
with what he says, the reality is it's going to work out better for that company if you
just do what he says rather than fighting against him.
And it's the same thing with a local church.
You know, basically whatever church God has placed you in, even if it's not perfect, even
if some of the doctrine's wrong, embrace the style of that local church and be a blessing
to that church.
Thank you and God bless.