A letter to a pastor friend...(strong as potashe)

A friend of mine who is a pastor was involved in a church that was becoming divisive. The church held several congregational meetings and openly discussed many of the problems with the entire body. It became very negative and unfortunately many of those who were unhappy and dissatisfied were unaware of the impact of their negative testimony.

There was a godly couple who sat through each of the meetings and then sent and email to this pastor as of the last meeting. I am posting in hopes that those who are presently involved in the church will see how destructive thoughts, words and actions can be by those who are church going members. But remember going to church makes you no more of a Christian than sleeping in the garage makes you a car.

I am doing a blog series or it seems to be developing "when churches divide." It is my hope and prayer that former members of our church can also recognize some of the mistakes, and use those as positive stepping stones as they are now in other ministries.

Here is the note:

Thank you for your encouragement. It is easy to see the faults of others and overlook our own faults. I am as guilty of that as anyone. I only heard a small part of the entire meeting. I hope that my perspective would have been different if I had been at 9:00 to hear the full dialogue. I literally had to bite my tongue to keep from speaking up but since what I had in mind to say would have been very unkind, though true I'm glad I kept quiet.

I can only see this situation from my perspective though I am trying desperately to understand the words and attitudes that I observed yesterday. What I see in God's Word is a clear directive for elders and their responsibility. From my understanding of scripture, the members of the church are to follow the leadership of the elders, not expecting to be consulted or even made aware of every single decision that is made. I don't think that scripture would have the flock follow elders who are involved in unrepentant sin, however, from what I heard yesterday and what I know of the elders, that is not the case with The XYZ Church. Also, I believe that elders are to graciously rule over the flock. This means that decisions will be made that are in the best interest of the church while keeping with the teaching of scripture. Again, I believe that this was the intent on the part of the elders. There is no way that any group of elders, regardless of how wise, could avoid ever making a poor decision. This is an unreasonable expectation. The complaints that I heard yesterday were, in my opinion, petty and revealed an unbiblical expectation of church leadership. If this is what you and Janet have dealt with in the last several years, you are facing a very large reward in heaven.

I had several thoughts while sitting in the meeting. First, what would a lost person see of the gospel of Jesus Christ from the comments that were made yesterday? If Christians are to be known by their love for each other, what are we missing? Why is the gospel not enough to bring love, unity and grace to our body of believers? Please know that I am not questioning the power of the gospel but I didn't see a body of believers graciously working through differences with the purpose of resolution and edification. What I witnessed yesterday could have been accomplished by unbelievers. As believers, we must be different from the world. If not, we make the gospel useless in our lives.

The other thought I had yesterday was, "Do we as a church not have anything better to do than argue with each other? There are lost people to be saved, the hungry to feed, the hurting to comfort and we are arguing with each other." I realize that conflicts must be discussed and resolved but the small things in life require us to give grace and overlook each others faults.

The suffering my husband and I have faced in the last three years has colored my perspective about everything. My view of any conflict that does not bring about resolution seems to be wasting the very life we've been given. Because of Jesus Christ, we are capable of living a life of love and unity with other believers. If we fail to do this, we give up the defining characteristic of being a Christian and lose our testimony to the lost world.

I have said enough, probably more than I should have said. I knew that I would write to you and Janet this week but had planned to wait a few days to cool off. However, when I read your email, it all poured out. I hope you know that my intention in sharing this is not to burden you and Janet further, but to try to make some sense of this situation. Please feel free to correct my thinking or understanding of all of this. If I have misunderstood anything, please let me know.

I am so thankful for the leadership in this church and pray that God continues to guide and comfort you in the way He has for our church.

Walking By Faith,

Joe and Janet Smedley