Why Congregate

In every free government from the beginning of man's history the people congregated together to help maintain their freedom.

It has been said that there is strength in numbers but the manner society establishes those bands that connect them with another are many fold. The method and manner used to bind society determines the fruit of society.

Man is gregarious by nature.

There is a natural emotional need in mankind to gather with others like themselves. Gathering together in fellowships offers an emotional and even psychological support to the purpose and satisfaction of the individual. The emotional dependence upon the group can become a form of bondage.

While what would qualify as a cult might completely remove a member's support system of other friends and family and even a means of making income, causing a person to be physically dependent upon the group there are other more subtle ways of creating an emotional dependency.

Modern Churches will try to fill an emotional need for fellowship to feed or satisfy an emotional dependency in the congregant. This is of course catering to an emotional weakness of the individual and will open a door to a controlling spirit in the leaders of the congregation who will try different methods of securing his position of loaned power like banning members from meeting or communing with others outside the Church.

We see the opposite with Jesus who met with both sinners and saints, Jew and Samaritan and even Romans. In fact he came that the whole world might be saved.

If we break this down into the psychology of the individual we can see that people who have trouble with neediness often get involved with very dependent partners so they don’t have to feel their own neediness. They sense their neediness makes them subject to control of others and they resent that power or the people who exercised the authority that power has given others over them. That resentment draws them stealthily to do the same to others that was done unto them.

We become the product of that which we will not forgive.

To accomplish this and function in the world their unforgivenss is creating they will actually project their neediness in some form into their partner or friends or other congregants.

People put leaders and their associates on pedestals of power and influence [princes, presidents, pastors or fellow pirates] leaving the members to take a an appearance of a subordinate position in the group. They can even seem to take an almost childlike position in their emotional dependency. This is a father child type relationship and taken to extremes leads to abuse and on a grander scale to tyranny.

But if you look deeper you may also find such, supposedly dependent and helpless people to be extremely controlling and manipulative once they have the leaders or at least their narcissistic egos dependent upon the group for support.

Fellowship of lies

Dependence and being needy carry a charge negativity in our culture but we can cover that over with words like fellowship. We have to realize that much of this is not consciously done. But just searching for a church or congregation that makes you "feel comfortable" especially if it takes you away from others you have called friend or brothers brings a possible dependence vulnerability or personal neediness into question.

Individuals who take on a roll of dependence or appear helpless often have an unhealthy desire of controlling their partners or fellow congregants for personal emotional gain. This commonly arises in male female relationships where there is an unconscious resentment for previous authority exercised earlier in their life. In the case of physical abuse victims you will often find a woman escaping from one abusive relationship only to inter the arms of another individual who eventually abuses them.

Society and community and therefore the church congregation may repeat this pattern.

Some may force or entice others to assume the role of emotional caretaker [guide or guru, mentor or master, pastor or pope, president or prime-minister] so they may manipulate their emotional protagonist [leader, preacher, pastor] into giving what is wanted, be it emotional or eventual financial support.

We may have all seen how children will try to get their way by nagging and fussing. There are also children who get their way by softly and meekly pleading for what they want in a sort of projected false humility or helplessness, while in fact they are merely pulling the strings like a professional puppeteer.

Both play the same roll of controller from a different fantasy or imagined dependence. Psychologists call the roll playing needy as “Omnipotent babies” who likes to appear helpless and childlike but secretly wants to pull the strings of their the pastors or partners like puppets the secretly imagine them to be.

The natural structure of the kingdom of God expressed in the practices (Rituals and Ceremonies) of early Israel and the early Church guard against the emotional dependency the creeps into any social structure or gathering. But there is no structure that can give total immunity without the Spirit of God dwelling in the hearts and minds of the people.

Forgiveness and giving in the Spirit of Christ is essential.

People who demonstrates emotional dependency and helplessness often have little tolerance or real love and patience than the pastor or person who seems needless.

They are both in denial about their real need but are compensating in different ways.

Christ is sufficient, but you have to accept and love the real Christ who says you should seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. You should not be denying and projecting your needs.

Matthew 18:3 "And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Being a little child to what Father?

We are to call no man on earth Father. Not our Pastor or preacher or any leader and certainly not any ruler who exercise authority. We are not to put men on pedestals of power or influence but look to our Father in heaven.

So, how do we avoid the addiction to an emotional dependency that comes with a cell congregation. In the article [http://www.smallgroups.com/articles/2000/emotionaldependencyincells.html Emotional Dependency in Cells How to identify and break the bondage of dependent relationships] by Steve Prokopchak we see a clear case of emotional dependency. How do we set the dependent free while remaining free of their natural trap of co dependence.

Prokopchak asks "A primary function of the cell group is to lend itself to closer, more intimate relationships. But, what happens when these relationships become ingrown or dependent and a destructive bondage develops?"

First we must accept that a dysfunctional home is the product of a disconnection with God and His Holy Spirit and dysfunction is a product of an unhealthy relationship with two or more disconnected souls or persons.

In other words two souls have been disconnected from the righteousness of God and they are trying to compensate in some form of social relationship.

They are both needy and are not helping but often making the situation worse. An illusion of aid is given at the price of more dependency and an inevitable return to a cyclical process. People learn to manage the problem but never overcome it.

Like modern medicine we are only dealing with the symptom and not the source.

We may try to list off things that lead to an emotionally dependent Like Feelings of Insecurity but the truth is feelings of security are just as dangerous because they are feelings and may have nothing to do with the real us.

Just like having a low esteem being very self confident and self assured may only be a product of personal pride and arrogance.

Certainly having a dysfunctional family background can contribute but when the bible says "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children" it does not say we are condemned to repeat the same sins done to us. Forgiveness works.

The need to criticize others and even ourselves is judging, not forgiving. Also forgiveness is not absolution it is only forgiving from our personal position as a victim or perpetrator of unrighteousness and letting God judge. Any judgment or condemnation of ourselves or others is simply us playing the roll of God which takes us all back to the original sin.

Fear is a symptom of a lack of faith and faith is gift. Faith, probity and allegiance are similar terms. Seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness is about doing something to return to your Fathers house where your first allegiance should lie. If you want to live in your Father's house you must seek to serve your Father.

We often realize our lack of faith and forgiveness and our selfish nature and rather than repenting, changing our thinking and ways we play the roll of the devout martyr, wearing our proverbial sackcloth, dawning the garb of the ascetic, fasting and denying, natural relationships and joy, even sabotaging the very relationships we claim to seek.

We are continuously pulled back to commune and fellowship as if we need that connection to recharge our batteries. That is sure evidence we are not connecting with God. If we are not connecting with God it is us that is blocking that connection. That is usually because we will not repent.

We generally do not know what we are to repent of but it is simple. We are still trying to play a god, seeking to control others, rather than serve god by seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

The kingdom of God is where God rules us so that we seek to come together not to get something from someone else but to serve like Christ did. We gather to give and forgive not to get recharged or a sense of fellowship and comradery. That is one reason long distant congregations are a place to start.

In long distant congregations we are not as easily tempted by the emotional dependence. Like a field of grain or garden the seeds are scattered to give each plant room to grow in the light of day.

Financial Dependence

While in many cults, members may live with other members in a group living environment and become financially dependent upon the group, kingdom living encourages financial independence. Should a cult member decide to leave the group, it becomes physically difficult or even impossible to sustain oneself outside of the dependency that has been cultivate in the individual.

Winston Churchill wrote that: “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” but isolated independence is the road to poverty.

Society, free or bond, will the product of the virtue or vice of the people for the power an precepts will be born first in their hearts and in their minds.

Reasons to congregate.

There are many reasons to congregate together and those reasons are an expression of intent. Intent is seed of all action in your life and determines the fruit of your life.

Your reasons for congregating should be the purposes of Christ. You should gather:

• To save others
• To serve others
• To love God and one another
• To bear witness to the truth.
• To bring sight to the blind

Intent is a child of the heart and action is the offspring of the soul. According to Paulo Coelho “There is always a gap between intention and action..” and the distance between the two is the inverse measure of your sincerity.

Reasons you should not come together:

• Save your self
• Make life easier for you
• Feel good or even just feel better
• Look good or better
• Lord it over others

Without love there can be no liberty.

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