I remember the first time there was a big fight at church. The hushed whispers between the kids in the youth group when our teacher grimly told us to stay in our classrooms and not go anywhere until she said so. The feeling of excitement and guilt when my friend and I said we were just going to the bathroom but sneaked out and stealthily made our way upstairs to the main sanctuary to see what was going on.
The first time I saw the once respected elders and deacons display uncontrollable rage and the look of stunned silence on my friends face when he saw that his once normally mild mannered dad was part of the faction that was yelling accusations at the pastor. The altercation between two little old ladies that became so aggressive that multiple people had to get involved to break them up. The first time that I thought to myself are these people really Christian? What the heck was happening to our once peaceful church?
Contrary to the holier than thou perception some might have, the church is full of sinners and imperfect people who are in need of God’s mercy and grace as much as anywhere else in the world. With that being said maybe it was inevitable that misunderstandings and disagreements ensued. Based on my personal experience and the stories I’ve heard from others, these are just some of the situations that resulted in fighting in the our circle of churches:
The elders for whatever reason decide they don’t like the current pastor so they covertly try to rally support to kick the pastor out
The older members of the church were getting superstitious because of the newly installed PowerPoint projection screen that was blocking the view of the huge cross on the wall.
The congregation couldn’t come to an agreement on the logistics of trying to set up a new worship service with contemporary music
The little misunderstandings, when we can forgive one another in love and try to come to an agreement, we can move on. But other times when the hurt feelings and resentment lingers on and people react by gossiping, taking sides, and harboring bitterness in their hearts, then the division widened and ultimately resulted in a faction splitting from the church to form their own.
I’m sad to say I’ve seen too much of this happening in my circle of churches and the part that’s the hardest is having to say goodbye to your friends. Friends whose families were involved in the other side of the argument and friends whose lives were uprooted just because their father was the pastor. I had mistakenly thought that once the troublemaking side of the church left, things would get back to normal and they did for a while. But the arguments that are now springing up are reminiscent of that one Sunday years ago and it makes me wonder if maybe they never left in the first place, or if we were the troublemakers all along.
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures
