Who's responsibility is it Anyway??

I guess i'm half asking and half telling. But isn't there some un-written rule about where to draw the line on what is taught in church as 'fact'? Well, this is totally going against the grain to take up issue with my church. But the way that I look at it is, If I just do what they say without question then I would be "Following blindly" And even the apostles didn't do that. Some of them actually left each other due to their disagreements on issues. Well that's getting off the point. I believe we as believers have a big responsibility to make right choices and to be in prayer and decide for ourselves what is right or wrong for us. I know that my church sometime teaches against certain things and they go to the extreme of the exact thing and completely leaving any room for arguement saying this is "WRONG" or "No true believer would even think of doing this" or "Have this" or "Take part in this" etc. etc. I don't mean to be bad mouthing my church I am merely making a point and cannot do so without and example. Now what happens if we have 15 people sitting in church who take part in a certain thing with a completely clear conscience and then we hear over the pulpit that "No true Christian would even think of taking part in that". What does that say about those 15? But on top of that, those 15 are in a pickle. Do they just stop taking part because it was denounced in church? That would be following blindly in my opinion. But what does a person do in that situation? You can't argue the point with the pastor. At that point you would be trying to justify what you do or change his opionion OR worse yet, get his approval.. All which are not noble things to do! You don't need to justify your actions before men, you don't need to argue with your pastor, and you don't need to get your pastor's approval on anything. You are both mature independent minds alike in God's sight. We need God's approval, not mans. Although having man's approval feels good most of the time. If we need to justify our actions to ourselves or others, if we need to convince ourselves its 'ok' then something is fishy there, maybe we better take a closer look at what we believe. Following our pastor's every rule and preached message to a T will not get us to Heaven, neither will pleasing our pastor by going by every rule or denouncement of certain things or activities. We need to evaluate our lives, take spiritual inventory-take a good look at our priorities and then ask God to give us wisdom and teach us the right way. A pastor is like a shepherd watching a flock of sheep. The sheep know what the shepherd wants but does not always do what he says. But the shepherd understands that sheep will do that, they will wander, they will get lost but the shepherd does not give up or say "I might as well never try to save you again, its no use, you wandered off even tho I said stay".. neither can a pastor say that "I may as well not preach another lessson because it's done no good, you fell into sin again". It is not the pastor's fault if a person falls into sin, they are only the shepherd. They have to realize their responsibility and it's limits. I'm not saying it's easy to see a long time member fall into seriuos sin and live the way of the world after that with no time for the Lord. I think that it is the church's responsibility to teach principles and truth from the Bible, but when it comes down to specifics on some ''controversial'' issues, if there are so many different opinions on the matter and each one is revealed somethind different.. Why would God reveal the truth to only one man?? Why not just teach the principles of truth relevant to the issues and leave it up to God and the believer (US) to make the decisions for ourselves! We are mature individuals.. Or is it that the church does not want us to make the wrong one? I really don't know. I think they have gotten too extreme in getting to the nitty gritty details of telling us what we can and cannot do! Where does our power of choice come in. Oh I know we can still choose. But when specific things are taught as factually wrong in church and we are doing them with a clear conscience, what then? Do we stop for the sake of following our pastor's teaching? Do we stop for the sake of not looking 'wrong' in eyes of fellow church-goers? Or was it wrong for it to be taught like that? There is a great amount of resposibility that the believer has to take and pray and search for the answers to the questions. If we are taught to an extreme what is right N wrong and all as fact.. what is left to pray for as far as answers?? We don't need to pray for the answer of 'is it right or wrong' because we were just told in church distinctly that it was "WRONG"!!! There needs to be that great responsibility on every believer to pray and make right decisions on controversial issues instead of the church hand feeding us all the answers we need. The church is no doubt a vital part of every believers life but there has to be a line between the church's responsibility and our personal responsibility.

"A pastor preaching our every move and decision can never get us into Heaven just as attending church cannot. It is our own choices that show who we truly are, not our pastor's"