I appreciate the encouragement.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: I appreciated your clarification of the purpose of the Lord’s church on your home page. So many are turned off by the fact that we don’t, as a congregation, give handouts to everyone who stops by. They are shocked that we don’t have a gym or youth group entertainment. Our society needs to know…<\/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_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[127,448],"class_list":["post-43149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-about-this-site","tag-church"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":30972,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-pastor-says-im-disobeying-church-law-by-wearing-color-outfits-to-services-what-do-i-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":43149,"position":0},"title":"My pastor says I’m disobeying church law by wearing color outfits to services. What do I do?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Dear Minister of God, Thank you for\u00a0the clarification of wearing white dresses to church and not wearing jewelry. Our pastor says that I'm disobeying the church law by wearing color attire to church. I feel it is a conspiracy (Isaiah 8:12) he's placing on me. I don't wear jewels\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":39681,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/your-home-page-is-excellent\/","url_meta":{"origin":43149,"position":1},"title":"Your home page is excellent","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I just stumbled across your website - nice job! Your letter on your home page is excellent. I have preached in churches of Christ for over 34 years. As we have all seen, the Lord's church is in crisis, because so many want to please men and not God\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":58913,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-you-think-committees-are-necessary-when-there-are-no-elders-or-deacons\/","url_meta":{"origin":43149,"position":2},"title":"Do you think committees are necessary when there are no elders or deacons?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 11, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi! Thanks for the enlightening content on your site. I read the answer you gave to a question that was about creating committees to carry out tasks for a congregation. You said it was wrong because when the need arose in the early church, deacons were appointed and elders\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":20574,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/who-selects-elders\/","url_meta":{"origin":43149,"position":3},"title":"Who selects elders?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 2, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: We are stuck in the selection of elders for our church, Only one brother qualifies to be an elder. In the absence of a church eldership, who does the selecting of a faithful brother to lead the church? Please help. We very urgently need the answer. Answer: The design\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":69805,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/understanding-christs-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":43149,"position":4},"title":"Understanding Christ’s Church","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 14, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by David Bunting September 26-29, 2026 Thursday (September 26) to Saturday (September 28) at 7 pm Sunday (September 29)\u00a0 at 9:30 am, 10:30 am, and 5:00 pm The Biblical Meaning of Church A Biblical View of the Local and Universal Church The Purpose of the Universal Church The Purpose of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":82678,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-congregations-practice-closed-communion\/","url_meta":{"origin":43149,"position":5},"title":"Should congregations practice closed communion?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My family and I are members of the Lord's church, and we visited a congregation this morning. During the Lord's Supper, we were bypassed and not given the opportunity to partake. One of the leaders noticed our expressions and approached us before Bible class began. He explained that we\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43149","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=43149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}