Agape meal

[BreakFree]

Hello,
I'm asking this out of curiosity.
I left the CF in 2018 before covid and the introduction of the agape meal.
Would anyone like to share what their experience is of the agape meal.
Thanks

[guest]

I actually left the cf 'fellowship" shortly after the agape meal took over and communion went bye bye. When it was announced from the pulpit that we would no longer partake of communion but now have an agape meal, I was heart sick. When the edict from Pope vic came down introducing the agape meal, (and the many weeks before with Peter Hay spouting out the popes new dogma) a lady in the congregation who suffers with Alzheimer's and rarely speaks, grabbed my arm and said; "I DON'T LIKE THIS". I agreed and left shortly after.

My experience was one of confusion as people were trying to figure out how to proceed. Then, of course, pope V began to pick on the body and telling them what they are doing wrong. Crazy, but expected, so I wasn't surprised. Still, it made me mad. The end for me was when pope told us we had to repent of our sacramental vies of communion....WHAT???!!! After years of the importance of communion being preached. all the sudden it's over and that lovey 'present truth' rears its ugly head. I hear there are others that leave right after the service, so they don't have to be judged and told what they are doing wrong.

Anyway, it's not good in my opinion, and it continues to confuse people. Younger members getting together are (or were) having a great agape party together with various adult beverages.

[guest]

I left sometime after the 'Agape Meal' replaced the communion. And I can tell you, it was a head-scratcher (at best).

During the COVID lockdown, there were certain periods when we were only allowed to gather in small groups. Something like you could only have one 'household' over to your place, and it had to be within 5km (something like that; I don't remember the exact details). During this time, some congregants took the initiative to have communion in small groups, in line with government restrictions allowed at the time. Did the 'presbytery' say, "Good on you; after all, 1 Cor 11:24 commands us to do this..." ?

No. They castigated them because communion in these small groups wasn't 'under the hands' of the presbytery. Then, all kinds of ridiculous rules about communion were introduced at the next opportunity. When things opened up a little more, communion was organised to be distributed by the presbytery. Communion wasn't legitimate unless an approved 'worthy man' attended. Fast forward 6 months, the congregation was castigated for being 'sacramental', and the communion was scrapped. No apology for the ridiculous communion rules instigated over COVID. And no apology to say, "Sorry, we shouldn't have been taking communion for the past five decades. That was all just "Sacramental"'. Then, the CF jargon kicked in, and the sacraments became dirty words within CF circles.

Talk about a head-scratcher...

[LordHaveMercy]

I was just thinking back to my time in BCF and remembering how totally shallow the Christian conversation was around the agape time, and well anytime “brethren” would get together. I don’t mean shallow like how’s the weather, but shallow in the sense that the “Christian” and “biblical” conversation people would have was just soooo parroted from the pulpit and bland. It’s hard to describe.
For example, “so and so in the body ministry today said blah blah blah and I am just so ministered by that”. What do you mean??! Those words mean literally nothing. And then we would all smile and nod and agree heartily. Gross!! I can’t believe that was me. But then again being born into the cult I knew no different. I think the worst part too was just everyone trying to force some sort of testimony or reminder of what was heard in the word into every general conversation. The young adults were the worst for this because they (me at the time included) are so heavily indoctrinated to make sure our conversation was “honouring” and “building another up” and always referring back to the present truth word.
The more you could steer a conversation back to the “word” the more righteous you appeared.

Since leaving my understanding of theology, church history, biblical interpretation has greatly increased (Im still only scratching the surface, I knew absolutely nothing of general Christian wisdom before).

[Paul Kovaks]

The Agape meal push illustrates perfectly how warped xCF are. At that time, the only two couples we still had slight contact with tried to use their Agape teaching as some sort of magnet to draw us back in!

xCF have so brainwashed everyone that they think it’s somehow a clear evangelistic point!

Within 5 minutes of catching up they told us that what everyone else is doing - for millenia - is dangerously wrong,

But couldn't tell us why,
Or respond to my listing of two Scriptures that outline its ‘in remembrance’ nature and use of bread and wine as emblems of the body and blood of Christ and waiting for each other in a church gathering setting.

It’s always about what new word they’ve got.
Who cares about the rest of the Scriptures.

Insiders, this is not a healthy mindset.

[Buddy]

The agape meal is nothing more than "Do this in remembrance of vic". Forgive me for mis-quoting scripture, but everyone knows it's all about vic.