Your's, Mine, and Ours

Principle six from Brethren Hang Loose is:

Recognize our place in the total Body of Christ.

This seems so simple. (All of these points seem almost obvious.) Yet, many churches are so often so very far from this concept. There are several areas where we tend to miss it big time. Here are a couple of those areas.

First of all there is the comparison game. "How big is your church?" "How many services do you have?" "How many missionaries do you support?" "Yeah? Well, our playground is bigger than your playground."

I like Eugene Peterson's translation of Galatians 5:25-26 in The Message. Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

Get a life - life in the Spirit. You have no idea if the church of 2,000 is doing (I mean really doing) more for God than the church of 40. Only God knows who is really being obedient. There may be a soul saved in that church of 40 who would not be saved any other place. That's a big deal for eternity, but beyond that the soul that could only be saved in the church of 40 may go on to reach millions. Each of us is an original and hopefully so is each church. The idea isn't to be "successful" by the world's definition but by God's. God's definition of success is only one thing - one who is obedient to God's will.

Secondly, we tend ghettoize others because of doctrine. Put another way, we tend to say, "They don't (do) believe in..." Tongues? Eternal Security? Predestination? Total Immersion? The list goes on and on, and while doctrine has it's place there is only one matter of doctrine on which we must agree - the DBR! The Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ and what it means to sinners in a fallen world. The more tightly connected doctrine is to these issues the more essential it becomes. The more disconnected doctrine is to these issues the more esoteric it becomes.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:22-24, Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

What does this mean? Did Paul use miracles in his ministry? Of course he did. Did he use intellectual argument? Uh, that would be a big "yes." He is not saying that miracles don't have a place, or that wisdom doesn't have a place. He is saying that they are both simply methods and all methods must bow to the message. Doctrine concerning methods or preferences should never separate us as long as we are joined at the message concerning the DBR.

So, what does this mean? It means that I want to see the big Baptist church down the road and the tiny Independant Charismatic church down the road and the seemingly lukewarm Luthern church down the road all do well. This should not just be my words but my genuine heart. We can easily see how disruptive an influence a player with a "me first" attitude can be to a sports team, yet that is exactly how most churches operate. We've got to get past that. We've got to see the big picture, be willing to play our part, and be willing to help others play theirs.