The Great Divide — Directors Cut

As we have embarked on our weekly study of Corinthi­ans I am using this blog space to expand on the series, answer fol­low up ques­tions, and include infor­ma­tion that just some­times does not fit into the con­text of Sun­day morning.

In today’s episoded of Director’s Cut (because I can­not think of a bet­ter name for it) we find our­self tak­ing a sec­ond look at a tough pas­sage that gets in the face of us Church goers and hits at sen­si­tive areas.  And when­ever you dig at that sen­si­tiv­ity you expose pain, and pain is just no fun.

This morn­ing is no dif­fer­ent.  We are doing a com­plete study of 1 Corinthi­ans and in so doing we are gonna tackle some tough sub­jects for us all.  Paul charges straight out of the gate in his let­ter at one of the biggest prob­lems that plagues the Church at Corinth and has plagued Churches for cen­turies.  Divi­sions over lead­ers, style, meth­ods, and the­ol­ogy.  In this case our pas­sage looked at divi­sion over lead­ers.   These divi­sions will pop up again later in the book as we see how the Church was not lov­ing one another but rather caus­ing hurt.

That being said I may have come out of the gate a bit strong myself, this morn­ing.  Being that this morn­ings mes­sage was a tough one, I went right after it.  Unfor­tu­nately I was made aware that I caused a ques­tion or two con­cern­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of a larger prob­lem at MCChurch and may have come off a bit harsh.  I did not intend to imply any prob­lem through my strength in tone.

Let me first be really really clear.  There are NO major divi­sions at MCChurch or issues, at least that I am aware of.  We are sim­ply human like every­one else and can eas­ily have our lit­tle things, and do occa­sion­ally have our lit­tle things.

Did I have any spe­cific thing in mind no.  Did I use a spe­cific exam­ple or two from the past, yes, because I felt it served a pur­pose and exposed that some­times even our Church can get caught up in this stuff and that we all can do dam­age even with the best intentions.

Let’s face it we all want to believe we go to the best Church on earth that has no issues and totally han­dles every­thing with Grace and Love.  It is just not real­ity on this side of eter­nity even though we strive for it to the great­est degree that God allows.  I had also  hoped by using exam­ples from our com­mu­nity to appro­pri­ately set the expec­ta­tion of open and authen­tic con­ver­sa­tion drenched in love that we can under­stand because they are ours.

In fact allow me to applaud my MCChurch fam­ily for their unity in the face of chal­lenges over their his­tory that eas­ily could have ripped us apart.  Instead they have been an exam­ple of grace and love with their eyes firmly fixed on Christ as we jour­ney together in know­ing Him more.  I am proud to say I have expe­ri­enced the best the Church has to offer at MCChurch and wish the same expe­ri­ence for every­one any­where the Lord may find you.

Now I did keep it per­sonal to us as a Church and to Chris­tian­ity in gen­eral for the sake of reflec­tion in hope­fully our jour­ney to be open, hon­est, and self aware of the things that can drag us apart.  But here is where I think an impor­tant part of the con­text may have been miss­ing in my method and per­haps my madness.

I have had a front row seat to two pow­er­ful min­istries make unfor­tu­nate errors in han­dling sit­u­a­tions that could have eas­ily been addressed in a much health­ier and holis­tic fash­ion (in my opin­ion, oth­ers may dis­agree).  The fall out was a sig­nif­i­cant body count of peo­ple who left those churches, some who fell away from Chris­tian­ity all together, and even more who bare the scars of being wounded by those unfor­tu­nate events.  The root, going way back to the begin­ning was the lack of acknowl­edg­ing and deal­ing openly and lov­ingly with dif­fer­ences that when left untouched in the dark fes­tered and turned into divi­sion, and resulted in split.

In addi­tion I have sat through ser­mons that spent more time trash­ing every other Church in the local area than it did focus­ing on the con­text of scrip­ture or the per­sonal appli­ca­tion to the folks sit­ting right there (this thank­fully was not at MCChurch).  I have heard of pas­tors from Churches in the same com­mu­nity be unwill­ing to talk with one another never mind find a com­mon cause to work toward in serv­ing their com­mu­nity.  I have heard of one Church call­ing another Church ter­ri­ble names, and for what.  That is not good enough!  Fol­low­ers of Jesus can do bet­ter and should do bet­ter.  And my hope, prayer, and deep deep desire is to see Churches be bea­cons of love, known for their uncom­mon unity and sol­i­dar­ity in purpose.

So this morn­ings topic was per­sonal to me because I have felt the effect of what seemed like inno­cent dif­fer­ences remain unac­knowl­edged, unowned, and undis­cussed turn into chasms that could not be crossed.  I have walked with friends, good friends, who were crushed under the wheels of it, and have felt the sep­a­ra­tion of bro­ken rela­tion­ships because of these things.  And I want and pray for bet­ter at MCChurch and your Church too.  It’s just not worth it.

So I went a lit­tle strong today because it’s per­sonal, because I love my MCChurch fam­ily too much, and I love my broth­ers and sis­ters out there and their Churches too much to see it hap­pen any­more.  Lord will­ing MCChurch will see God’s work con­tinue to be made even more alive in our weak­ness and any source of poten­tial divi­sion will be the cat­a­lyst for inno­va­tion, and the bedrock for cre­ativ­ity as God takes the things in us that could make us weak to show His strength.  My prayer is that if God con­victs the things unspo­ken will move from dark­ness to light, from unspo­ken to spo­ken, from hid­den to exposed, because that is the place that God works, con­victs, rec­on­ciles and heals.

I pray every­one would expe­ri­ence a healthy Church that is marked by love and under­stand­ing even when we take on the not so fun top­ics.  May we prayer­fully be guided by God to unity by humility.

My prayer is the appeal of Paul in 1 Cor. 1:10 that we would be uni­fied in mind and thought.  The pic­ture here is that of a fish­ing net being mended together.  Bring two pieces together for one pur­pose (catch­ing fish).   What a cool picture.

I guar­an­tee I will not always get it right, but I will do my best to make it right as I am a work in progress.