November 16, 2007
Rocking the Boat
Our church attendance continues to drop in spite of the leadership’s spin that we are growing. Many of those leaving are prominent leaders in their own right – youth leaders, committee members, ministry leaders, etc. Because they are qualified servant leaders they quickly settle into positions of leading and teaching at other churches. It’s our loss and their gain. I find it interesting that these folks are slipping out of the boat without rocking it. To their credit they would rather leave quietly than add dissention to the dysfunction. Their explanation about leaving and needing a change sounds as benign as taking a Sabbatical – only we both know that once they’ve connected with another body they won’t be back. Personally, I’d like to see a few of them do a cannon ball off the boat…maybe then someone would yell ‘man overboard.’
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Cannonball Run
Gail;
-----Did I do a cannonball? Because I think I know what you are talking about. If any of you from Gail’s church are reading this, please bear with me and consider what I am about to say, especially if you are contemplating a change of church, or if you are a leader of her church who is certain of your own ideas. Within the first three or four years that my bride had been attending your church with me, she was desiring to look around for somewhere else to go. But this was my Dad’s church. It was my church. I had been trained in the thought of the Restoration Plea, and I bought it one- hundred percent. How could I leave what most closely matched the New Testament description of church? The fellowship there could have been better, the people, more genuine, and the services, less religious and more meaningful, as they could have been anywhere. But everyone there held each other with one hand, and the Lord with the other. That, I thought, was good. And my wife was kind to me; she never pressed hard to leave.
-----But when certain men decided the church had to be what it was not, and its people had to become what they were not, and their new ways showed to be merely partisan ways of the more influential, something there began to die. Into this body of believers having a variety of gifts from the Spirit and using them according to their own measures of faith, was brought the judgment that they were being insufficient for the Lord. And under the guise of making the church into a soul-winning machine, these new leaders forced the people to understand spiritual matters their way. The familiar understandings of the people were simply banished. These actions by the new leaders broke Peter’s call to lead by example, not by dominance (I Peter 5:2). Their actions failed Paul’s instruction to please their neighbor for his edification (Romans 15:2). Their decisions considered only their own interests in discord with Paul’s exhortation to look also to the interests of others (Philippians 2:4). And anyone who disagreed with them were rebuked, often harshly and shamelessly, in total disregard for Paul’s command to accept one another (Romans 15:7), allow one another their differences (Romans chapter 14), and to show no favoritism (James 2:1, Malachi 2:9.) It was obvious Jesus was getting no drink from here! It was obvious that the consideration, the respect, the honor, and the sympathy toward others was killed by the banishment, and that the love for a neighbor was no longer a part of the greatest command (unless the neighbor was willing to agree with the new leaders, of course.) And that is what died, the sincerity of love.
-----I so bought into the call of the Restoration Plea that I held my Bible in hand and demanded answers only from it. It was not that I would not hear another’s ideas. Then, as now, I would far rather listen to someone with whom I disagree than with whom I agree. And I examine everything I hear; making the final analysis side by side with the Bible, comparing ideas only to what the Bible says, not to what it does not say, nor to what others say it says. And when the Bible says, “…speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him…” (Eph 4:15) it does not mean deceiving, embellishing, or even mealey-mouthing a situation. We simply speak the truth. If it is painful we speak it carefully. If it is explosive, we speak it cautiously. But always we speak it. Nor does love gag the truth. Love rejoices in the truth; it is bound to the truth. And the truth is spoken in love when it is spoken to do good, or to prevent evil.
-----What else can one do, then, when he finds himself in a group of people torn asunder, some drawn to the left, others pushed to the right, by the very leaders who are called to build them up into His kingdom - the righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit? Can one sit and lie by silently acting like everything is fine? Not according to Ephesians 4:15. Can he get up and walk out the door like, “Gee! You’re all nice guys! But I think I will see what’s going on down the street?” Not if he minds presenting falsehood. Speaking the truth in love compels one to address the issue straight forward. Char and I did that for nearly six years. We wrote to the leaders, pleading with them to draw people back together by looking to all of their interests. We comforted those who had discussed the issue with the leaders and were sharply rebuked and insulted as a result. But always, during those years, I held Char’s desire in my heart.
-----Finally, Char could take no more of the obvious rouge. I knew we had to leave for her sake. We agreed that we could not leave until we had done everything in our ability to effect the return of genuine unity and love to your church. We had approached your leaders over and over and over and over and over concerning their insincere claims to love and concerning the pain and grief among our beloved brethren it had caused. We decided that we must present the truth, to the best of our ability, to your church, concerning the leaders’ partisanship and its effects. We left the church with a letter some thought to be a cannonball, others thought to be a cruise missile, but we knew to be the truth sorely needing said. And if every one of those who left early had shot that same cannonball, the deceit of the leaders would have crumbled under the barrage of truth, and the exodus from the church would have ceased.
-----But instead, your church crumbles at the continuous barrage of sophistry, spin, and sometimes outright lies made to advance the interests of your leaders rather than their looking to the interests of all. Paul tells us we grow up into Him, speaking the truth. Is it, maybe, that deceit and silence has the opposite effect of growing up? Is it possible that people who desire to grow are finding growth too difficult within a fellowship overseen by men who willingly participate in partisanship and cover-up? I think by now the blast of the cannonball has dissipated, the waves have settled, and many leaving may even know little of what happened in the past. Those could not know of the unconfused insincerity swept under the dark rug on the floor, of the elephant still in the room, or of the peg on the wall holding up the dead body. But nevertheless, their mention of the way the rug lies crooked, their mention of the space consumed by the elephant, and their mention of the odd odor from the wall hanging would compliment the truth told by those who know more. Righteousness, joy, and peace would certainly return if everyone spoke forth the truth, and maybe so would some folks who have gone elsewhere.
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