Moving In or Moving Out

I haven't blogged much lately, for two reasons. First, I don't have a lot of extra mental strength that I can afford to use by sitting down at my computer and writing. But the second one is the bigger reason: there have been two things that have been heavy on my heart recently, but they are not things I have felt comfortable throwing out for anyone who wants to read. But at my core I am a writer. It's how I deal with life, and so today to I decided to express again.

Until about two weeks ago , the thing that consumed much of my mental energy was related to our church. Our church is in a dangerous place right now. We are weeks away from moving into a new building, one we have been special collectioning for and committee meeting for and paying for and praying for since 1999. Well, I suppose the praying began long before that. Years of planning and workers are finally laying carpet and installing cabinets. New buildings seem to be a fresh start for many churches, but the final nail in the coffin of others.

As we move in, we are facing a problem that may decide which direction this new building takes us in. Old vs. new, past vs. future, opinion vs. doctrine, all of which seems to be putting brother vs. brother. And most of it has nothing to do with the message of Christ. Most of it's about the way the message can or should be told. What songs are acceptable? Is clapping instrumental music? I'm not naive, I know a lot of our churches are facing this same battle. But what scares me is that this is the church we are at. And Jimmy and I are seen by many as leading one side of the battle. We're not. We are not looking to battle, we're simply looking to be a part of a church that is effectively moving people into closer relationship with Christ and with others.

In his blog post, "The Secret Life of My Discipleship," Brian Mashburn makes these incredibly powerful statements:

We are not interested in change. We are interested in Christ, and whatever we must change in order love Him more truly, we are glad and anxious to do so.

We suffer from a growing intolerance for people who use the Bible merely to defend and maintain strict adherence to certain sets of worship practices, beliefs, or political positions.

We are watching closely, however, for any residual teaching that resembles anything legalistic whatsoever and are preparing to help our kids unlearn it, explaining our love for the church that taught it, showing openly where that teaching comes from, but correcting them as to what discipleship really looks like. If a Church of Christ wants to run us off quickly, which it may want to do because our convictions can be hard to deal with, or hard to argue against, then all it must do is start teaching our kids to be legalistic rule followers instead of passionate Christ followers. We'll leave. We are already worried enough about what we are doing to them by trying to teach them discipleship at home while their church is trying to teach them why we don't have instruments in worship.

I want very much for our church here to be an awesome body that works together to bring others to Christ. I believe the hearts of the people want that, too. I just wonder how we can do that, when much of our energy is spent asking permission to be passionate for the Gospel.