I assume from your posting that you are in the faith or were raised in the church.
I am a minister at a Church of the First Born in Indiana. I started this stuff with making changes to what was previously just an article on the mormons.
I do not believe that the Pentacostal group that they mentioned really exists. That in fact the author of the encyclopedia of churches confused our group with a pentacostal group. I have never considered myself Pentacostal (meaning being related to the current Pentacostal movement which begain in the late 18th century, as we have existed much longer than that movement).
I would like to see the name of one congregation of the so called Pentacostal group that is not in the directory of churches.
As far as the doctor issue, unfortunately some congregations have made it a doctrinal issue and see James as a prohibition against doctors rather than a permission to have the elders pray for healing. I bleive in faith healing without a prohibition agsint medcial treatemnt. I believe that most of the congregations believe that today. There were times when my grandparents and great-grand parents did believe in the prohibition and there are still some congregations that tend to ostracize members for seeking medical treatment.
I have no problem with delting the section about the prohibition from the section on the church of hte first born referring to our church, but wrote it as a way of identifying our church as that is a part of our history and present and that is what most of the news articles (about dead children) associate with our church. I am not ashamed of that history. How many people at the XYZ church down the street are willing to die for what they believe. --Shanetoland (talk) 16:40, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello, yes I am a member. I live in Idaho and attend the meridian church. I was taught that it was a choice whether or not a member seeks medical attention. If a person were to seek medical attention, they would not be marked from the church. Which is why I assume it not doctrine, I realize there are many different practices in our group, but I have never known any to excommunicate for recieving medical attention. I know members in certain groups may be frowned at for doing so, but would they be marked? I am unfamiliar with the practices in the midwest. I guess it would be more appropriate to say that not all churchs teach the same doctrine.
I am interested to know your view. My main objective is to have the facts posted about our church. Not the opinions, the reason is, our church is so informal about most issues its easy to have opinions posted rather than the actual doctrine. Do you know what I mean? The other problem is I can see that people with opinions about our church are posting things that arent even related, like C.H.I.L.D.??? What does that have to do with the facts of our church???