May God continuously guide you as you continue your service to the lost. I need to ask some questions about the autonomy of the church. Allow me to relate our situation.<\/p>\n
My home congregation is a large congregation and members come from different areas. At the moment some of the members are having a hard time attending the services of the church because the road to our building is under construction. It may take two years before it is finished. The members affected by this road construction decided to worship in the house of one of them, apart from my home congregation. The questions are:<\/p>\n
These are all about church management, and I really need your advice.<\/p>\n
Thank you so much.<\/p>\n\t
A church is a group of local Christians who gather together to work and worship as a church. When Paul talked to the Corinthians, he talked about “when you come together as a church<\/em>” (I Corinthians 11:18) and “if the whole church comes together in one place<\/em>” (I Corinthians 14:23). We have multiple congregations because it isn’t possible for all Christians around the world to gather together to worship. Geography divides us, so those in a region gather together.<\/p>\n Your area became divided because of the road construction. You now have two areas that are not easily accessible to each other. The result is that you have two groups meeting in two places and, thus, you have two churches. The problems and issues in one group will be different than the other group. When the construction is finished, they can merge back into one church, but until that time they will be functioning as two independent groups.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: May God continuously guide you as you continue your service to the lost. I need to ask some questions about the autonomy of the church. Allow me to relate our situation. My home congregation is a large congregation and members come from different areas. At the moment some of the members are having a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[448],"class_list":["post-33269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-church"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":66857,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-one-congregation-withdraw-from-another-congregation\/","url_meta":{"origin":33269,"position":0},"title":"Can one congregation withdraw from another congregation?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 2, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Can a church withdraw from Christians who are not members of the local congregation? 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mark those who cause division and hindrances -\u00a0Romans 16:17 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Philippians 3:17\u00a0- Mark those who are good examples 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Galatians 5:15\u00a0- Don't bite and devour each other. C.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Can a church withdraw from another church? Hey Brother Hamilton!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36850,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-far-can-a-church-go-in-assisting-a-congregation-in-a-disaster-area\/","url_meta":{"origin":33269,"position":1},"title":"How far can a church go in assisting a congregation in a disaster area?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 23, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How far can a congregation go to help another congregation in need? For example several states away a congregation's building gets destroyed by a hurricane along with several members homes. Because of the devastation, they have no access to building supply stores and the like. They are not just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7060,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-should-i-leave-a-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":33269,"position":2},"title":"When should I leave a church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am looking for guidance on where I should worship in general and more specifically: If there are multiple sound congregations nearby, must I worship with the most local? Am I free (in God's eyes) to change which local congregations I worship with as I please? When must I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39947,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-the-church-right-to-withdraw-from-a-couple-who-lived-together-without-being-married\/","url_meta":{"origin":33269,"position":3},"title":"Was the church right to withdraw from a couple who lived together without being married?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My husband and I are faithful members of the Lord's church. We are active in a congregation in which a situation has occurred which has caused division in the congregation. The situation is this: a man and a woman who have been baptized and are members of the Lord's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38885,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/placing-membership\/","url_meta":{"origin":33269,"position":4},"title":"Placing Membership","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 22, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Lee Moses Sometimes questions arise as to whether it is scripturally necessary, or even scripturally permissible, to \"place membership\" with a congregation. A modern brother or sister may raise the objection: \"I'm a member of the church of Christ, and that's good enough for me.\" What this person means\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36549,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-does-the-bible-teach-that-not-belonging-to-a-congregation-is-a-sin\/","url_meta":{"origin":33269,"position":5},"title":"Where does the Bible teach that not belonging to a congregation is a sin?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I came across your question\/answer page online. My question is, where does the Word of God teach that not belonging to a congregation is an unforgivable sin and one will go to hell for not belonging to a congregation? I've heard Church of Christ preachers speak as though\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}