WARTS, PIMPLES, INGROWN, INFECTED HAIRS

Greetings you saintly church members...may I see you I.D. Badge please? NOTE: These photo's are various gatherings of the church.

The controversy has raged through out the ages. What controversy? The B.C. controversy...aka the Building of the Church controversy. Each side has their scriptures loaded and ready to fire. Do we meet in an "organized" fashion...or do we just "hang out". Do we construct a metal shed and go bare bones...or do we construct a state of the art edifice to entice the masses...or do we dust off our couches in our homes and just sit around and connect. Do we open the doors wide open to whosoever...or do we just surround ourselves with just people that we like. Do we sit in an audience while people perform for us...or do we enter in and worship for ourselves. Do we simply make a joyful noise without instrumentation...by making melody in our hearts and plucking the strings of our hearts...or do we ramp it up to Old Testament proportions and bring out every instrument known to mankind to worship God? Do we have a structured, systematic, orderly service...or do we sit around until the Holy Ghost shows up...and then through something against the wall and see if it sticks.

Throughout the years...I have been in every kind of gathering known to mankind. I have met in the home and I have sat in a shed in Peru. I have been in a place called The Church by the Lake Next to the Slaughterhouse in Africa...and I have gathered with the saints in upscaled homes. Depending on what we believe (and everyone who believes something...believes that they are right)...separate in to nice tidy denomonations so we can be sure that we don't get contaminated with the beliefs of others...after all we don't want the speaking in tongues cooties rubbing off on the last apostle died miracles ended proponents. Heaven forbid if the take communion one time a year people collided with the lets take it everytime the door opens people (after all it says as often as you meet). NOTE: I have taken communion in my home with a group of students from M.T.S.U. using hot dog buns and Tang. It was one of the more moving communion services that I have particiapted.


I got saved in the driveway of Brenda Sue Williams...a cute little Independent Baptist girl...who attended a place called Temple Baptist Church. After I had a conversion experience in my 1964 Mercury Comet...parked in her driveway...I went to "church"...where I walked down the aisle...shook hands with a man who mumbled something (I could not hear him because the music was "just too darn loud")...as the one piano, without amplification blared on. I then was baptized... got feed the Word of God...memorized scriptures...and got disappointed by tarnished saints.

I next went away to a Bible School in Chattanooga...where I attended Highland Park Baptist Church...where the 3rd Largest Sunday School in the WORLD was located (according to them anyway). Again...good times and bad times were had.

By 1972...I was getting tired of the "organized church"...and started going to peoples homes...where it was more relaxed...there were refreshments...music...people could share their hearts...and the small, home meeting turned into an infected hair...of people who thought they were more spiritual than others who "had the truth" that the larger organized church did not have. During this time...I also attended home meetings that turned into the development of a thing called The Full Gospel Businessmens Fellowship International...Murfreesboro Chapter. Again...this was supplemental to the "church"...aka a Parachurch organization. A parachurch organization..is called along side..to help the "church" accomplish what the organized church could not pull off. Also at this time...I was attending Miracle Baptist Church on Sunday mornings...The Lord's Chapel on Tuesday nights (for those who needed a dose of the Holy Ghost that they were not getting on Sunday mornings in their regular church)...and attending home meetings in peoples homes...again, smaller groups with a more intimate, more spiritual viewpoint than the "organized church".


Well...after meeting in the small home meetings...and attending the larger organized Spirit filled church...the only thing left to do...was to leave the Baptist Church...and start another church. That's the nature of America...if you have a Mexican eatery...or a Chinese eatery...what do you need to have open up in your town? Another Mexican or Chinese eatery. After all...you can't have too many won-tons or burritos.

Now I was attending a place called NEW LIFE CHAPEL. A place where disgruntled...Spirit seeking people could have a place to go...and alternative to regular...structured... and organized religion. We would even have meetings in homes... aka cell groups, home meetings, home ministry centers, two or three gathering places, etc. I stayed there for 15 years until people in leadership got tired of all of the bickering, backbiting, confrontations, different viewpoints, of each other and the people. So we dissolved the church. That sounds better than a church split or a church breakup.

Brenda and I church hopped for a while...from everything to nice pew filled churches to hot store front churches (where the preacher preached about the sin of men coming to church in short sleeved shirts...and I was the only one in a short sleeved shirt) YIKES!!! I also spent time on my couch in my living room (my own little home church with Brenda)...as I worshipped at the altar of Abbott and Costello on my boob tube. We were going through the adoption process at the time...and the lady we interviewed with wanted to know where we were now worshipping since our church had closed down? I told her on my couch watching Abbott and Costello. Here comment...as Brenda sunk down into the counselors couch..."Well...that's not very fulfilling, now is it." In my mind, I was thinking...yes it was.


Eighteeen years ago...Brenda and I showed up at Smyrna Assembly of God...aka Smyrna Assemblies...aka S.A. During our tenure here...there have been many incarnations of the nature and flavor of this body. We have gone from total corporate gathering...to adding in home meetings...cell groups...turning Sunday nights into individual teaching pods...transitioning from the original sanctuary to a dynamic ministry center complete with a working stage for plays, concerts, etc.

Smyrna Assembly with Pastor Ronnie Meek has empowered people to fufull their ministry, vision, destiny. Smyrna Assembly is a place where wounded warriors can come and lick their wounds...and get back into the battle. Smyrna Assembly has been a place where people can get equipped for the ministry. If you have a heartbeat for the Creative Arts...Smyrna Assembly is the place for your training ground. If your heartbeat is Missions...Servanthood...Holy Sweat for the Lord...you can get as dirty as you want to be...as we springboard as close as Wherry Housing in Smyrna to the the jungle/bush of Africa. If you want to be taught the Word of God...there are many opportunities including The Ruminator Sunday School Class...Barbie Loflin with her Wednesday night offerings to the dynaminc pulpit ministry of Ronnie Meek, etc. I hear every now and then someone say..."I'm just not getting fed here" You can have a banquet table set before you...but if you don't pick up a fork and eat...you will starve to death...and enter into "failure to thrive."

You may be asking yourself...Self...why is Ruminatin' Rod...rambling about this stuff. Because... after all my years of experience...in the multiplicity of settings of "the church"...I have come to the conclusion that I like the large, corporate gathering like we have at Smyrna Assembly...but just like man cannot live by bread alone...you cannot live by large corporate gatherings alone. There must be on some level small, intimate interaction with face to face people...not just the back of their heads. And on the flip side...man cannot live by living rooms alone...you need the gathering of the great assembly...or at least I do.

I hear people talk about how...the organized church has missed it. How the organized church has failed. How the organized church stifles growth and development. But for all of the warts, pimples, ingrown hairs, infected toenails, body oder of the body...I for one...love the Great Assembly...and the small gathering of saints.

Randy Matthews...Danny Taylor...and Mike Johnson (three Contemporary Christian musician pioneers) recorded an album together. One song said..."I believe in this...you believe in that...this and that are keeping us from loving one another."

We can either isolate ourselves in our living rooms...or isolate ourselves in our ornate structures. Either way...we isolate ourselves from God.

"If therefore there is any ENCOURAGMENT...if there is any CONSOLATION OF LOVE...if there is any FELLOWSHIP IN THE SPIRIT...if any AFFECTION...and COMPASSION...make my joy complete b being of the same ind, maintaing the same love, united in spirit, intent on ONE PURPOSE. Do NOTHING form selfishenss or empty conceit, but with HUMILITY OF MIND, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. HAVE THIS ATTITUDE in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard EQALITY with God a thing to be grasped... but EMPTIED HIMSELF...taking the form of a BONDSERVANT...and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in apppearance as a man...He HUMBLED HIMSELF by becomeing OBEDIENT to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:1-8)

As we hole up in our homes and our large edifices...and we load our spiritual guns for bear...consider an attitude adjustment...as we yield our rights...to be right.

Love and Love the Church Kisses
Rod "They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love" Boyd