May 04, 2006
New Rule
Have you noticed how the world not only creeps into the church, but sometimes we invite it in? Because of child sexual abuse in some churches, our leaders chose to adopt Colorado’s state guidelines for child care situations. Windows were put in all the classroom doors, all teachers and aids over 18 must have a professional background check, there must be a minimum of two teachers in each classroom and a husband and wife team is counted as only one person. I’m not saying these guidelines are wrong, but I can’t believe 70 year-old Mrs. Smith who has taught Sunday school for 30 years needs a background check. Nor should she be required to have another teacher in her class unless she needs one. Who wants to be a volunteer when we require them to jump through hoops and over man-made obstacles in order to serve in the church? In the past, personally knowing our volunteers and common sense served us well. Do we really need government rules applied in the church for babysitters, nursery attendants, and Sunday school teachers?
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1 comment:
Gail;
Let's bring two concepts together: 1)The world is drifting towards a very old concept that the Lord dealt with many, many centuries ago - one world government, i.e. central control, i.e. the Babylon experience. 2) The church is actually two institutions, the visible church that is the organization, and the invisible Church that are all of His children relating to Him.
The world and the the children of the Lord are separated by His washing and support of each child individually. The visible church (the church organization) is caught between these two, the washed children and the world. Its visible nature will more reflect either the world or the Lord, depending on which of the two the leaders of the church are more focused upon.
The contemporary leaders focus their attention upon the culture and norms of the world more so than the culture and norms of the Bible. They think it is the way to reach more people for the Lord. And they are terrified that the world will find them outdated and not fun if they do otherwise. They are sure the children of the world will accept their visible church if they do things in it by the ways of the world.
Those who know and understand Bible prophecy to be literal are becoming more sure by the day that the return of the Lord is very close, and that the seven years of the Tribulation will suddenly follow. Very many social norms and ideologies are trending toward the conditions of those seven years.
One major undercurrent to them all is that neither the individual nor the local community is to be trusted. All must be overseen by central control (the Babylon experience) which defines the common mission. This means all individuals must become standardized for the good of the mission. Then central control can more easily detect and deal with the variation of individuality that so threatens its survival. So also is there need for much screening to detect variation, and peering eyes of neighbors to report variation to protect that standardization. And when everything is standardized and submissable by form, in turn the individual and the child are both protected by the loving care of central control. Although we are not yet there in the US, other countries are. And we at home trend closer by the day while in a peaceful stupor.
This is the world that the contemporary leaders believe is so important to emulate in part in the church. The world also is looking for the church to emulate its ideology, because the world needs "its church" nearby in order to assuage the last vestages of the world's squelched guilt.
So with the visible church led by contemporary leaders and the world being a match, it is no surprise to me to find the new rules and regulations of our visible church reflecting central control's attitudes of distrust more than the trusting attitudes of the Holy Spirit (our internal control). It is merely the result of our well intentioned leaders having their eyes focused on the wrong place at the wrong time.
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