June 08, 2006
Church Coup
We’ve all heard the anecdote about a church splitting over the color of new carpeting. It’s interesting to me that when this particular illustration is used, it’s the church members who can’t get along…we’re never told what part the leadership plays in the split. Although church splits do occur over petty things, I’m detecting many splits today are caused by a coup and have more to do with ‘leadership’ than with ‘membership’. My cousin’s Baptist church in Denver is in the process of healing from an attempted coup. The minister they hired slowly implemented grandiose plans for his version of a new and improved church. Resistance from the ‘old guard’ eventually sent the situation to court and the imposed judgment required a division of recently acquired assets. However, a legal loophole kept the minister and his band of merry men from walking away with the church name and property. The Apostle Paul warns us to be on guard, not only against those who come in from the outside, but also those who will rise up from among our own number, Acts 20:29-31.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
----A coup. Interesting analogy. Coups are usually political actions carried out on the shoulders of a militia or rogue military force. It usually requires a number of men for success. And before that number comes to fruition, there is a growing up of discontent and rebellion in their hearts against the target government.
----But a good and godly church is generally governed by Christ through His connection to each heart of His followers. Leaders are in the mix to assure that there is spiritual growth, obedience to Scripture, and decency and order. But the head is still Jesus Christ through His given Word as followed by His children.
----The coup in a church begins when a general feeling of complacency towards the rigorous study of and obedience to Scripture begins to grow in the hearts of influential men. Their continued zeal for God fools those unstudied ones around them, while their positions of influence serve as the "military force" to quiet the grumblings of the studied who are not prominantly known, and therefore, not influential among the flock. When relative slence has been secured, the growing coup seizes its prey. The unsuspecting (the unstudied) and helpless (the non-influential) church is jolted off the foundation of Scripture.
----Does it take a coup to return the church to its scriptural foundation? Or just the movement of the Holy Spirit? I do not know. But I do know that scriptural action on the part of the helpless is written into James 4:17. And it is the movement of the Holy Spirit.
Post a Comment