[OP_Carl]

Originally Posted by originalsecretplace

So, where does the expected fidelity to a congregation come from? Is it learned by ministers through experience or teachings handed down in a denomination?

It comes from the dark ages. The Roman Catholic Church. Any model of command-and-control priesthood with a passive, submissive and, often, ignorant, laity comes from the manipulations of the Catholic Church into an instrument for political control of the peasantry.

One may also well ask, where does the expectation that a congregation devote its resources of time and money for the purchase, preservation, and maintenance of a church building come from? What is the origin of the paradigm of parsonages? How about megachurches? What if the time that the faithful spent maintaining the building were spent reaching the lost, or what if the money that the faithful spent on the building were used to help the widows and orphans in their affliction?

I want to heed the counsel of good men but I don't see it as a command of God to saty in one place.

Paul gave his counsel and made the distiction between a command of God and his own advice as in the question of marrying.

Can I really die spiritually from this by contraveneing a command of God or is it a place to be careful and not rush in making sure that I'm not hurting anyone by doing so?

Or am I "limiting the life-giving number of connections(joints) that God can supply the members of his own body, his own house, his own handiwork" by heeding the advice?

Why don't you give it a try for a pre-determined trial period. I'm sure you'll quickly learn who your true friends are. As an added bonus, you may get a tour of "small-mind America" as you observe the reactions of the many, many people who will be incapable of comprehending your paradigm.

Originally Posted by originalsecretplace

Being just a saint I'm not encouraged to step up and create the methodology. It seems in order not to be called a wandering star or other things liek that I have to ask others to change their methodolgy?

Maybe it's a bottom up rather than top down change? But then is that against God's model of authority?

The truth is we have no concept of how to construct a new testament system of church methodology and authority. We can only occasionally get a glimpse of the differences between our practices and the original, then look away and rush along as though nothing happened.