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Post by Howie on Sept 4, 2007 20:13:51 GMT -5
How are professing folks supposed to be different from the world? Clothing? Involvements? Affections? Who they marry? Entertainment? Workers often state the bit about being different yet they offer few examples. A brother worker did say we don't try to be different just to be odd but I wonder. Another worker said the world may think we are brainwashes..Where did he hear that term? TMB?
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Post by Minnesota on Sept 4, 2007 21:14:34 GMT -5
The women in my part of the US are different. They always wear buns, always dresses or skirts, no jewelry except for a pin on their blouse or in their hair, no makeup, rarely cut their hair but may trim it a bit, they can pluck eye brows a bit and shave legs, they rarely wear bright/vivid colored clothes, and are very prim and proper.
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Post by nitro on Sept 4, 2007 21:41:15 GMT -5
Going to a meetings doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
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Post by wingsofaneagle on Sept 4, 2007 21:50:40 GMT -5
IMO there should only be a difference between those who love God and those who dont. And that is evident only by their spirit.
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Post by my two cents on Sept 4, 2007 22:08:06 GMT -5
Right Wings!
The difference is also those who have a love of truth, and those who don't.
If you love truth, then distortions of that truth will disturb you and take away your peace.
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Post by wa1nate on Sept 4, 2007 22:35:24 GMT -5
How are professing folks supposed to be different from the world? Clothing? Involvements? Affections? Who they marry? Entertainment? Workers often state the bit about being different yet they offer few examples. When you say "the world," I assume you mean "the average person?" I would say that my parents were different in their priorities. God always came first. That was what made my parents different from the parents of the friends I had. You don't need to accuse me of being "exclusive" because I know Christians from other denominations (including the Church I go to in town) that put God first in their lives as well. To me, growing up in a 2x2 home, I always thought that to be what the workers meant.... that no matter how busy we get and how many other things we love to do, nothing gets put ahead of our relationship with God.
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Post by monica on Sept 5, 2007 15:55:44 GMT -5
I think Minnesota is very liberal when it comes to appearance.
Most women even the baby boomers wear knee length skirts, trim their hair a great deal, get manicures, pedicures and so forth. Many even color and layer their hair. It is nice to see less focus on the outward. Afterall what we wear or don't wear is not going to make us closer to God.
Having said this I am speaking mostly of meetings in the metro, outstate MN I think is still a few years behind the times for the most part.
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Post by think2much on Sept 5, 2007 16:04:55 GMT -5
How are professing folks supposed to be different from the world? Clothing? Involvements? Affections? Who they marry? Entertainment? Workers often state the bit about being different yet they offer few examples. When you say "the world," I assume you mean "the average person?" I would say that my parents were different in their priorities. God always came first. That was what made my parents different from the parents of the friends I had. You don't need to accuse me of being "exclusive" because I know Christians from other denominations (including the Church I go to in town) that put God first in their lives as well. To me, growing up in a 2x2 home, I always thought that to be what the workers meant.... that no matter how busy we get and how many other things we love to do, nothing gets put ahead of our relationship with God. Did God always come first or did the MEETINGS/WORKERS always come first? There's a big difference. In our home we were raised (professing) to be moral, respectful, etc, which I'm thankful for, but rather than God being first I think it was more of a case that the meetings had priority over other things. We almost NEVER talked about spiritual things or God in our home. That was reserved for meeting time. And yet, most "worldly" people would say we were very religious. It's rather ironic, now that I think about it.
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Post by wanttobewithGod on Sept 5, 2007 16:09:48 GMT -5
think2much. In my opinion, meetings vs workers are very different things... meetings are all ABOUT God and workers are...well, workers. Hehe. You know what I mean though. So many say here that the 2x2s follow the workers and not God, but I guess I just don't agree with that at all. Maybe some, I don't know all 2x2s obviously...but nor does anyone who posts here. I just think that concept gets very exaggerated here. Of the 2x2s I know....they all put God first and not the workers. M. I guess part of what I'm getting at...is a lot of people put church (any church) /SLASH God first in their lives....(as they equate going to church with part of serving God) but they don't put the minister up there in the same regard. I don't think a lot of 2x2s are that way either. But..we can agree to disagree if you do. M.
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Post by wa1nate on Sept 5, 2007 17:30:10 GMT -5
Did God always come first or did the MEETINGS/WORKERS always come first? There's a big difference. I can only speak for my own experience of our family. God came first.
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Post by think2much on Sept 5, 2007 17:45:24 GMT -5
Just so you know, WTBWG, I go to meetings, and I'm not trying to diss the fellowship. However, my experience, and the experiences of many people I know in the fellowship, bear out what I said in my earlier post: often the emphasis growing up was on the "Way," i.e. the meetings and the workers, and God got second billing. Sure, God/Jesus got talked about in the meetings (usually, but not always), but at home He was rarely mentioned. We discussed who was coming to gospel meetings, which workers were in which fields, what color of shirts we were going to wear to convention, and whose wife was sleeping with whose husband (sorry, that's probably what we'd like to have known but we lived in a G-rated home ). We LEARNED how to be professing and to be different from the world outwardly, but the spiritual side of our lives was relegated to the meetings 2 or 3 times a week. Interaction with the fellowship and "professing" always seemed to me to be more important than actually knowing some kind of spiritual awareness in our lives. "Finding God" or "knowing Jesus" never seemed a high priority (nor was even discussed) but "being the right example" was everything when we were growing up. Basically we were raised to be upstanding Pharisees.
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Post by wanttobewithGod on Sept 5, 2007 17:51:01 GMT -5
Well then, I guess I can relate to some of that. I have to say that God was also a focus in our home, with my parents asking me what God would think of this that or the other, but I agree that the primary issues were my example, outward appearance and the like. ....not that I think awareness of those things was WRONG...but I agree that there should have been more doctrine/spiritual discussion in the home or outside of meetings as well. Mich
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Post by when you on Sept 5, 2007 19:43:07 GMT -5
The difference is also those who have a love of truth, and those who don't. When you use the word "truth" are you referring to the 2x2 church, or are you referring to Jesus Christ? The two are not the same.
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Post by Kathy Lewis on Sept 6, 2007 10:53:04 GMT -5
Dear Howie,
How are professing folks supposed to be different than the world? This is an excellent question. The workers are more vague now in how they say things than they were when I was young. We used to hear frequent messages on "The Walls" or "Living in the center of God's will." The workers told us that we must live inside the walls and not associate with the world. "The World" was anyone and anything outside of the workers' system/secret society.
Every year at convention we were given a few sermons on the appearance rules and what we were not supposed to do on Friday nights, Saturday nights or Sundays. Usually this was done with supposedly true stories about bad things that happened to people who disobeyed the workers. They didn't use scripture to back up their rules.
They inferred that they were against "worldiness," "vulgarity and vanity" or secular ideas, music or activities but actually they were far more antagonistic towards Christianity than they were towards true "worldliness." The workers would read the newspaper at great length and sometimes quote things from secular magazines but they said Christian magazines or books were published by the Devil, the enemy or for money.
The workers inferred that they were against sensuality, fornication and adultery. But the only time they really ever spoke against adultery was in reference to what they called "spiritual adultery" which was their code word for "Christianity." The workers didn't ever refer to workers' sexual indiscretions with the term adultery or fornication....they would use other terminology such as "trouble with women", "problems with Delilah," "nerve trouble" or someone "had to take a year out of the work." But if a professing person or young person was known to be promiscuous, they were targeted for shunning or told to not take part in meeting.
The workers allow people with status and money more leeway in what they can do but the rest of the people are expected to live under the rules of no fun, no frills and the girls and women must be as dowdy as possible. The requirement that girls and women must always be dressed as if for meeting is a costly and uncomfortable way to live. When we were professing, I always wore nylons and heels and skirts or dresses and so did all the other professing women I knew. That was the way we were to be a good example to others.
The workers always used to quote the verse "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever" which they meant to say that professing people had to be the same yesterday, today and forever. However, I have a hunch that they have not been able to pull off that sleight of hand in the past few years.
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Post by old timer on Sept 6, 2007 11:11:22 GMT -5
How is it that Kathleens experience of what the workers say and do is so different to mine. Ive listened to them and watched them for 40 years, and don't recognise what ive seen as the same as she describes.
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Post by my two cents on Sept 6, 2007 11:12:36 GMT -5
when you,
The "truth" I was referring to was the kind found in the statement asked in Court. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" kind.
But interestingly enough, "Christ" would also fit into my original statement that you inquired about.
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shushy
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Post by shushy on Sept 6, 2007 11:13:42 GMT -5
[Going to a meetings doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.]
Hahahahaha..... @ Nitro
Jesus mixed with publicans and sinners was called a wine bibber. Was he worldly because of this? My memory of the meetings was if you went to pubs, or mixed with those types of people you were on your way out!! a fence sitter who never really had 'it' anyway. I think to much emphasis was placed on the word worldy. Its the man made laws that support that.
My parents love Jesus. Respecting elders was equally as important to respecting workers. I think the worker thing got stronger as yrs went by because of the life they lead.
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Post by no doubt on Sept 6, 2007 11:30:21 GMT -5
old timer
Regional differences/teachings/phases/ passed on from the older workers to the younger ones probably accounts for a large portion of the differences between what you heard and the other listener heard said.
Rather like in a family, where the parents will pass on certain teachings and sayings to their own children, and their nearby relatives will have heard those ideas expressed. But distant relatives might not have, because they only had brief visits with those other relatives.
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Post by Guest 1 on Sept 6, 2007 18:09:31 GMT -5
Old Timer, I was brought up on the other end of the world to Kathy and can confirm that all that she mentions (with some slight variations) and more, were the experiences of those in my region.
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Post by wingsofaneagle on Sept 6, 2007 18:40:16 GMT -5
[Going to a meetings doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.] Hahahahaha..... @ Nitro Jesus mixed with publicans and sinners was called a wine bibber. Was he worldly because of this? My memory of the meetings was if you went to pubs, or mixed with those types of people you were on your way out!! a fence sitter who never really had 'it' anyway. I think to much emphasis was placed on the word worldy. Its the man made laws that support that. My parents love Jesus. Respecting elders was equally as important to respecting workers. I think the worker thing got stronger as yrs went by because of the life they lead. This reminds me when i was home in November. I went out to eat with some of the friends and Norman Nash one of the brother workers. We had a great visit and when we left the restaurant we were all standing around outside just chatting. Norman asked me if I was going home (as in back to my brother's house) and I said to him "no i was thinking of going over to that pub over there...there's lotsa sinners in there... wanna come?" You should have seen the look on his face and then he started to laugh. I was only half joking though. I wasnt going to the pub but I also didnt see the problem with going there with him either. Could you imagine? ;D
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Post by wingsofaneagle on Sept 6, 2007 18:45:20 GMT -5
Seriously though. Shushy you are right, Jesus did go amongst the publicans and sinners. He didnt distance himself from the "down and outs", or the sinners or the drunkards or the prostitutes. We don't see any of the workers working amongst these kind of people today in the US. It seems like its up to the friends to bring lost souls to meeting. Theres no evangelism on the part of the workers. Jesus didnt just walk the road to Jerusalem. He walked many other roads and we should too IMO.
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