Finding a church is always a problem.  It seems to have become even more
difficult than ever before.  I know how hard and difficult this is from
personal experience.  So I was meditating about this situation the church
finds itself in these days.  How do you know if you are in the right church
or not?  How can you find the church the Lord wants you to be in?  Jesus
answers this question pretty well.  In Luke's Gospel, Chapter 15, verses 3
through 6, Jesus uses an owner of sheep as an example.  He explains that
there is one man, who owns a hundred sheep.  Upon discovering one was
missing, he left the 99 sheep and went out looking for the one lost sheep.
Upon finding the lost sheep, Jesus says, the man rejoiced.  Have you ever
had a pastor, that was so dedicated, that if you left his church, he would
come and find you and encourage you to return?  I have known a couple of
pastors, shepherds, who would do exactly that if someone left their church.
I personally had one pastor that was of this nature.  Otherwise, of my
nearly 48 years of walking with the Lord, having many pastors over nearly 5
decades, I personally only have one Christian friend, with whom I have made
an agreement, that if either of us ever walk away from the Lord, either due
to sin or lack of desire or confusion or whatever the reason, we have agree
to come after the one who has walked away and do everything in our power to
bring that one back.  We are just Christian brothers and we have literally
been there for each other more than once when the wheels have come off our
relationship with the Lord or when we have face spiritual heartache.

I left a large church once that averaged, one summer, 1800 people every
Sunday during all three months of that summer.  I ended up becoming the
youngest deacon, at age twenty-one, that church ever allowed to serve as a
board member.  I preached several times on Wednesdays and during chapel
services in their 1000 student Christian school and spoke in Bible
conferences there.  I was supported by that church financially as a guest
speaker when I traveled for several years and spoke in churches.  My oldest
sister taught in their kindergarten for 26 years.  All three of my children
attended the Christian school operated by the church.  When I left, with my
family, in January of 1986 to join a Charismatic church for the first time,
I wrote the pastor a 9 page letter.  I gave him my testimony of how the Lord
had been leading me in the past 4 years and how that had led up to my
decision to leave the church to join a Charismatic church.  He answered my
letter and basically said I was theologically and doctrinally wrong but he
wished me the best.  He never called me.  He never came to see me, even
though we literally live across the street from the church.  In his letter,
he never tried to get me to think again.  He never asked if I would go out
to lunch with him and talk about what had occurred in my life and why I was
leaving.  Six months after we had left, two men, both deacons from the
church, knocked on my door one evening.  I was home alone, for some reason,
so I invited them in.  I wondered if they were there because we had left.
They talked with me for over a half an hour but nothing was ever said except
that they hadn't seen me much lately.  They never asked if I was going
elsewhere or if I had any problems or needs of any kind.  It appeared they
did not even know I had left the church and become a Charismatic.  This same
church, by the way, allowed my three children to remain in their Christian
school.  When the school board voted on scholarships?  My children were
passed over because, we were told, we were Charismatics now.  This same
church stopped doing business with me, I ran their entire tape ministry for
many years, because, they said, I was a Charismatic now.

So this is my personal opinion.  It isn't Gospel.  It isn't even really
doctrine, although I have already told you what Jesus said about the
shepherd and his concern for just one lost sheep.  By the way, these were
100 sheep and not 100 goats.  Sheep are depicted in Scripture as Christians,
and goats as those without Christ.  So, again, this is my personal opinion
so take it for what it is worth.  If you are in a church with a pastor who
would not care if you left, wouldn't come to at least discuss it with you in
person, forget this telephone call garbage, and didn't care enough to try
and get you to return, you may have a pastor but you don't have a shepherd
for a pastor.  He may be called but not to pastor/shepherd sheep, and you
won't be ministered to when you need it the most.  In short, you don't
count.  Cynicism or truth?

I was recently accused of being a cynical Christian and that if I didn't
change my ways, he warned, some people might take me wrong.  After days and
weeks, and now months, of reflection, meditation, and prayer concerning this
man's comments to me, I came to the conclusion, but what if I am right and
they are wrong?

Phil.