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Many
people view Orthodox Christianity as a stoic, ridged, ritualistic,
and exclusive type of faith. On the contrary, the apostolic
fathers intended Christianity to be inclusive without compromising
the standard of holiness. The common perception of the orthodox
tradition today is that of a foreign cultural religion,
irrelevant to the American (western) way. This is why there
must be a Christian Orthodox Church in America movement
that breaks this perception of fossilized traditionalism
and brings to life the living apostolic tradition. God is
not the God of the dead, but of the living!
True orthodox Christians do not alienate themselves from
expressions of worship that have developed among their brothers
and sisters of different denominations. The founding fathers
of our faith were very open to all cultures and welcomed
all with open arms to experience Christ as Lord and Savior.
Worship is more about intention than it is expression. It
is very important that we do not impose our worship expression
on others, but always hold fast to the intention of love,
compassion, and mercy as demonstrated by our Lord. In fact,
Jesus, as well as Paul the apostle, often warned their followers
to avoid judging others in the way they worship. It is as
though we have majored on the minors and minored on the
majors when it comes to discerning who is a child of God.
Jesus commanded us to preach the gospel of the Kingdom of
God. He did not command us to argue over worship styles
and broad points of doctrine. We are not called to debate
over spiritual gifting and attack others who do things differently
but to sincerely love and encourage others. In no way am
I suggesting that we compromise truth in order to embrace
rebellion and deception. There are divine standards of the
Christian faith that can never be set aside. However, when
Christian leaders attack different expressions of the same
holy faith it must grieve the Holy Spirit. True orthodox
(correct worshiping) Christians know that if we have faith
to move mountains but have not love we are just clanging
symbols.
It is never the intent of the COCA to impose its worship
style on to anyone. It is not our mission to correct others
who are on their path to Christ. It is our vision and mission
to share the principals of the Kingdom of God with all men
an allow them the freedom to embrace truth.
It
is true that the COCOA is a liturgical church. This means
that our worship service follows the basic structure of
all ancient liturgies. While this expression of worship
may seem stifling to some Christians, it is a practice that
can be traced back to the time of Jesus Christ himself!
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