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Notes -
I am pretty lapsed in my faith, and haven't examined doctrine closely since becoming a competent and intelligent adult, so I can't especially speak to the specific underpinnings. But I would advise caution on stepping up into a leadership position for a church with shaky epistemic foundation.
That is, why is the church dogmatic about something you don't agree with. Either they're making a fundamental mistake, or you are. On an epistemic level, a rational person should almost never be confidently wrong. If the evidence is ambiguous (as much of Revelation is given the metaphorical nature of prophecy), then I would be skeptical of anyone being dogmatic about it.
It also potentially raises issues of priority. The core elements of faith are things like the Divinity of Jesus, salvation through Him, and various tenants on how to live a good Christian life and avoid sin. On a pragmatic level the rapture doesn't matter very much, because it's not actionable. You can't predict it, you can't prepare for it, and since it hasn't happened for two thousand years, the probability of it happening in our lifetimes is best approximated as small. I don't remember the exact tenants of my church, but looking up evangelical policy more broadly, the core beliefs are:
-A personal, bodily, and glorious return of Jesus Christ. -That the exact timing of His coming is known only to God. -That this return demands constant expectancy and serves to motivate godly living and ministry.
which sounds accurate to me. The specific timing is vague, and therefore different people are allowed to believe different things about it. If your church is not teaching that the timing is vague and open to interpretation, or worse teaching that their one interpretation is definitely correct rather than just a leading theory (ie, we believe this is probably what's true but other people believe differently and we're not entirely confident) then that calls into question their entire epistemic policy. What else might they be dogmatically overconfident about? How and why are such decisions made, and what happens if human politics get involved?
I don't think this automatically disqualifies them from being something you should involve yourself in on a leadership level. But it's something you should be considering.
Yeah it's an interesting position they take. It's not a dogma in the sense that we say it's definitely true, and we can have communion and agreement with churches that don't teach it, but it's considered a 'distinctive' trait of Calvary chapels and thus obligatory for affiliation with the overarching organizations.
From what understand it's emphasized largely for pastoral reasons, because teaching Christ's imminent return is valuable both for getting people to make a decision for Christ today as well as to provide hope to believers. That's the theory anyway. But in practice I see a lot of people trying to predict the timing of the rapture (and getting it wrong lol) which I think is unhealthy. I like pretty much everything else about the church and its distinctives though!
Is Christ's return less imminent if the millennium of Revelation 20 is symbolic of the present age of the Church between Christ's ascension and return? Arguably amillennialism is 7 years more imminent.
I've a larger issue with dispensationalism than the apocalyptic eschatology. The distinction between Israel and the church as two separate peoples of God rather than the Church grafted into Israel as one people of God in the new covenant.
My church is not dogmatic on this as specific beliefs in this area are not necessary for salvation, yet may present a stumbling block. Most of the other men in my men's Bible study would have an amillennial, partial preterist position.
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