5 Critical Questions to Save the Church

At our Sunday service we spent some time thinking about the crucially important but seldom addressed issue of division in churches. OK, so maybe it is addressed, but far too often it is reactively rather than pro-actively. In Acts 6 we see the beginnings of some complaining and conflict between two groups within the church. When the church is flourishing one of the key tactics that Satan will use to try and ruin it and wreck it are the friendships that made it a community distinct and compelling to the world around them in the first place. Here is what we see, and sadly know - the seeds of division are found in secret dissension; church meltdowns begin with critical murmuring.

Community is a fragile thing and any one of us can cause it damage. Even if it may be that we have a fair point we must beware a flawed approach. Everyone has opinions about church - the music, the preaching, the small groups, the leadership. Here's the newsflash: not all of your opinions on these things will be right. We all have massive capacity to raise something that is personal preference to the status of priceless priority. We posed five questions for people to consider by way of discerning their hearts on this

1. Am I recruiting to my group rather than relating for God's glory? Is it evident in how I relate to my brothers and sisters that my priority is their and my godliness measured by conversation and attitudes that serve to glorify God. It can be disconcertingly easy to take what it is that dissatisfies us and seek to speak to as many people as possible until we find sufficient number to be able to influence things in the direction we wish things to be taken. Be very careful about recruitment drives - it is seldom that what you are recruiting for will be shown eternally to be of much by way of eternal value. In fact there's is a good measure to utilise. How much will the thing that I am pursuing with so much of my heart and time really matter in eternity.

2. Is this contention disguised as concern? You know that old Christianese line to cover the trails of what is essentially gossip - 'we were just sharing some prayer points.' Don't use something that is designed to be evidence of grace in your life as an excuse for gossip. We might try and get ourselves off the hook with it by claiming that it wasn't us who introduced it. The question is though am indulging it? We all have the capacity to intercept and intervene when the conversation takes a turn for the critical - just do it. If enough people nip it in the bud then contention never gets the chance to bloom fully, and everyone is better off.

3. Am I deterring brothers or sisters from something that God may use in their life, even if I see no place for it in my life? So you harbour reservations about the musical directions chosen by the church, you are not convinced of the value of meeting in small groups or you prefer some (occasional?) abbreviated thought for the week in terms of the message on a Sunday. The assumption that we make that our preferences are the things that everyone would prefer is a big enough stretch without also reckoning that they will also be the thing that everyone would benefit most from. Has it occurred to you that the things you speak ill of may be the very things that God might use dramatically and transformatively in the life of the very person you are despising them with. You may not like it, but they may very well need it.

4. If I speak more of what I am against than for why am I even here? If your conversational balance sheet demonstrates that this is true of you then the reality is that one of two things needs to happen. You need to change or you need to move. It's ok to say that. Nobody benefits, in truth everyone loses, when there are people who have such misgivings about the church they are attending that it becomes the dominant theme in their conversations, attitudes and thought life. Aside from anything else there is a massive integrity question when you come to a church on a Sunday, which has chosen where it's convictions and preferences lie, and try to change them to suit you better. The church has a clear scriptural role as a means through which we are increasingly conformed to the image of Jesus. It is arrogance of the highest order that we should seek to be trying to conform this means of transformation into the image of me. Ultimately, if this is true of you then you will possibly already be a divisive presence in the church. Titus 3:10 says 'As 4 a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him.' We need to be very careful about how we use what influence we have in the church- the reality is that not every church suits everyone, there is not so much a one size fits all, such tend to be the breadth of preferences. - 1 Corinthians 1: 10 speaks clearly and positively on this, and we would do well to heed and let it remind us about the attitude that should inform our approach to the church. 'I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.' [ESV]

5. If my complaint is reasonable, am I conducting myself responsibly? All that said, I don't want you to think that a level of dissatisfaction is always divisive - that's not the point. The issue you have may be just as pertinent and pressing as you think it is. In Acts 6 there was a real and reasonable issue. The thing is that although your 'thing' may seem reasonable grumbling remains unbiblical: Phil 2: 14 says 'Do all things without grumbling or questioning.' (You can listen to a message preached on this here) The issue is not the apparentness of the need it is the attitude behind the noise you are making about it. Many, many valid concerns are often lost because of the vitriol that is poured out in contending for them.

Tomorrow we are going to consider three things that could change our approach and make our church, and ourt hearts, a healthier place to be.