Conflicts in the early church show us how to deal with them

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“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).

There is no problem-solving section of the Bible.

Sorry if that disappoints you.

What we do find across the New Testament are large servings of healthy food of the spiritual kind, instructions on how to serve God and live well and relate to one another in the close confines of the forever family. Imbedded throughout are insights on resolving collisions between the Lord’s children.

Hold on.

Do you mean to say that from the beginning Jesus expected clashes and collisions within His family? That His disciples would be torn apart by jealousies and competitions and divisions?

It would appear He did.

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The “church conflict” question that will get you laughed out of church

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“Why do you not rather suffer wrong?” (I Corinthians 6:7)

A dog can whip a polecat, the saying goes, but it’s not worth it.

Some fights you need to walk away from.

Some years ago a few members of a certain Baptist church took the pastor and trustees to court over what they perceived as breaches of scripture, ethics, and good sense.  As the new leader of the SBC churches in that area, I was invited to sit in with them one evening and hear the reasons they were taking such serious action. At the conclusion of their presentation, the leader said, “So, what do you think?”

I said, “I think you should walk away from this. No one is going to win this thing except the lawyers. Everything about this is wrong and bad.”

He answered, “We can’t. It’s gone too far for that now.”

He was wrong. It hadn’t.

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What if we wrote a letter to the pastor?

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(Officially, October was Pastor Appreciation Month.  But I don’t imagine it’ll hurt if we encourage our ministers at other times.  Reckon?)

Don’t anyone tell the preacher we’re all going to encourage him.

Let him think it was spontaneous on your part.

What I want you to do is something you’ve almost quit doing. No, I’m not talking about praying for him, although there is that.

Write him a letter.

Handwrite it. Make it two pages, no more. Make it positive and uplifting.

And when you do, I can tell you several things about that letter once it arrives at the pastor’s desk….

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The perfect way for a pastor to lead a different church

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“Shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).

Imagine this.

You’re the captain of a mighty airship–a 747, let’s say.  It’s a huge job with great responsibility, but one you are doing well and feel confident about.  Then, someone alerts you to another plane that is approaching and has a message for you.

You are to transfer to the other plane and become their pilot.

So, you push back the canopy–I know, I know, the huge planes don’t have canopies, but we’re imagining this–and crawl into the contraption the other plane has sent over. You are jettisoned from your old plane to the new one.

As you settle into the captain’s seat in your new plane, you find  yourself surrounded by an unfamiliar crew and you notice the controls in front of you are not the same as in the old plane.  This is going to take some getting used to.  Meanwhile, you and your crew and passengers are zooming along at 35,000 feet.

Your new flight attendants send word, “Captain, welcome aboard. Everyone is asking what is our destination?  Can you tell us your goals for this flight?”

And you think to yourself, “You’re asking me? I just got here!”

This is an apt parable for what happens to pastors.

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When a church gets the disappearing blues

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This train got the disappearing railroad blues.  –Arlo Guthrie, “City of New Orleans”

The cleaners I used for over two decades made a decision to go out of business.

They just didn’t know it.

It all started with a closed sign on the door one morning.  I walked away carrying the clothes I had planned to drop off.

The next day, a sign announced they had relocated.  Since the new site was closer to my house with more convenient parking, that did not make me unhappy.

Next, they began cutting back on the hours.  The young man newly hired to run that branch informed me they were now opening at 11 am and closing at 7.  No longer would people be able to drop off clothes on their way to work.

I asked him, “Shouldn’t you have a sign outside with the hours of operation?  Since this is a big change.”  Why I should care is another question, but I did.

He casually assured me that the small notice on the glass door would suffice.

He was wrong.  To read that a customer would have to leave the car and walk to the door.  This is an ideal recipe for frustrating one’s customers…and thus for losing them.

Thereafter, I never saw a car in front of the store indicating a customer inside.

Pretty soon, I was gone too.

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The clue that gives you away every time

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“Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, and of the son of man who is made like grass?” (Isaiah 51:12)

Reading through the gospels, watching the interaction between the religious bigshots as they bully the Lord Jesus Christ–imagine that!–and suddenly, we are brought up short by noticing the prominent role fear played in the lives of these people. Consider…

–“Herod feared the multitude” (Matthew 14:5).  Ah, a good reminder that tyrants always fear their subjects. Always.

–“The Pharisees feared the multitude” (Matthew 21:46). And so do religious bigshots fear their people.

–King Herod feared John the Baptist (Mark 6:20).  Wickedness fears righteousness because it cannot understand it, cannot control it, can’t intimidate it, and cannot silence it.  God’s faithful people must never lose sight of this for one minute.

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Those game-ending questions search committees ask

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What started this was something my young friend Josh said.

Josh, who grew up in my last pastorate and is now a medical student, is a veteran contestant on game shows and quiz programs. At the age of 11, he was a contestant on Jeopardy.  As a student at the University of Southern California, he hosted his own television program on the campus station.  Later he was a contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? In between, he did The Wheel and several other shows.

The question that tripped him up on Millionaire went something like this: “At 7’7″, (name) is the tallest player in the NBA.  But he is slightly shorter than what portion of the Statue of Liberty?”  The choices were her right arm, her eye, the tablet she is holding, and her finger.  Using his final lifeline, Josh asked a buddy to help him, and they missed it.  Anyway….

Josh said veteran contestants (like himself) have a name for that kind of question, but perhaps he shouldn’t tell his pastor.  I said, “Come on. Give.”

“We call that a Go To Hell question.”

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The pastor said, “No, we don’t believe the Bible.”

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Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46)  “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (John 13:17).

Show us what you do and we can decide for ourselves whether you believe the Bible.

My friend Kristin was commenting on meaningless questions some of our Facebook friends suggested should be put before pastor search committees (our previous article). Most, she said, are useless because they presuppose the answer.

Asking a search committee “Does your church believe the Bible?” is meaningless, because they’re all going to answer in the affirmative, and you’re no better off than had you not asked it.

“Wait a minute,” Kristin said, interrupting herself. “I just remembered a time when my pastor answered that differently.”

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Jesus and only Jesus: Why is that so difficult?

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Him we preach.  –Colossians 1:28

–No one has been to Heaven except the One who came from there.  John 3:13.  How clear is that?  He is the One who knows.

–No one can come to God the Father except through Jesus.  John 14:6.  How clear is that?  He is our Mediator.

–No one can know God unless Jesus reveals Him to them.  Matthew 11:27.  How clear is that?  He is the Revealer.

–There is no other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Only Jesus.  Acts 4:12.  How clear is that?  He is our Savior.

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The last temptations of the aged

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“They will still bear fruit in old age; they will be full of sap and very green….” (Psalm 92:14)

Here’s what happened.

As I was surfing through the program containing all the articles in this website from nearly twenty years of blogging, I came across an unfinished draft called “the last temptations of the aged.”  I breezed right past it, in search of something else I was looking for.

A moment later, I was back.  That was an intriguing title, I thought.  Must have started that article a year or more back. Wonder what it says.

After reading it, I deleted the entire thing.

It was indeed written a few years back, and then left in the program and forgotten.  But the strange part is that nothing it said applies to my life now.

Not a thing.

Here is a list that will stand the test of time, methinks, and may apply to a great segment of geriatrics as we move into life’s red zone.  Let’s think of these as the last temptations of the aged….

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