{"id":4242,"date":"2005-02-06T23:30:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-07T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/retro.piorevangelho.online\/?post_type=jetpack-portfolio&p=4242"},"modified":"2026-02-19T15:18:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T18:18:40","slug":"a-church-with-strange-purposes","status":"publish","type":"jetpack-portfolio","link":"https:\/\/piorevangelho.online\/en\/estudo\/uma-igreja-com-propositos-estranhos\/","title":{"rendered":"A Church With Strange Purposes"},"content":{"rendered":"

As soon as I arrived, I found it quite strange to find a guest pastor preaching both in the morning and at night, but what impressed me most was the content of the morning message\u2014certainly not for its biblical accuracy\u2014whose title was...
\u201cLiving out God's purposes as a church \u2014 Why a purpose-driven church?<\/span>\u201d
To put it simply, it was the introduction to "The Purpose Driven Church"... and a rather strange one at that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Sunday, January 30, 2005, was a very symbolic date: the anniversary of the church of which I was once a member and, upon reflection, its last, because it was also the celebration of its definitive entry into the prophesied Laodicean era, becoming a wretched and apostate ecclesiastical enterprise\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coincidentally, it was Carnival.
While the world followed its natural path to forgetting God through sex, alcohol, the invocation of entities and idols, and in the name of a fleeting, insane, and senseless "joy": immoralities and aberrations that not even a thousand "Ash Wednesdays" could justify!
At times like these, I get a faint glimpse of the true extent of God's love, because He doesn't immediately destroy this world... as He did with Sodom and Gomorrah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Satan was being worshipped in the streets, my greatest concern was for the Church, and I spent a good deal of time trying to understand how such pernicious content had entered "my Church"\u2014Baptist, belonging to the convention!\u2014the place where I grew up, learned the Word of God, and considered my second home, maintaining vertical and horizontal fellowship without major problems.
After a week I wrote this article to state, without any fear, that no ecclesiastical institution can save anyone\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For by grace you have been saved,
through faith;
And this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God.
It is not from works, so that no one may boast.<\/span><\/div>