So today I was in my Equipping Strategies class at Huntington College Graduate School PA stepped on a landmine and sent some chicks off the deep end. Besides this little bit of fun, it was an awesome class. (See Why they Call it cemetery to read more about other experiences I’ve had here.) To say that this was the breath of fresh air I was looking for would be an understatement. I found the class to be stimulating and fun. I am actually looking forward to the next class!
Now for that landmine
Late in the day we were taking apart The Search to Belong and evaluating whether or not it held weight in our current church contexts. Basically, the premise of the book is that we all have four spaces to our lives (public, social, private, and intimate) and that the key to healthy personhood and belong in “church” is to have a balance of all of these. While not a specific formula the big idea is that if you have one intimate relationship you should have 4 personal relationships, 8 social relationships, and 12 public relationships. It gets a bit more complicated than that, but that is the basic premise.
So… About that landmine. The prof posed a question that went like this, “how do we strategize our ministries to connect those who attend our churches publicly but never want to get involved?”
The class seemed to think that in a postmodern world, it should be OK if someone wants to come to a church, but never really be a part of it. This is where I opened my mouth! I piped in, “but while that me acceptable in our culture, it isn’t biblical. 1 Corinthians 12 says that we are all part of the body. It’s not “if you feel like participating you are part of the body.” It says, “But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired” (I Cor 12:18) If you are a part of God’s plan and are there by His design… isn’t your choice to not participate handicaping the church? Then, since I was on a role I said… If you look at other passages, it is clear that if we “belong” to a church you MUST be a part of the body. Not being an operating member of the body is therefore sinful.” A lady chimed in, “well if someone is involved in being a part of the body outside of the church, isn’t that OK?” To which I replied, “Not really since that person isn’t submitting to the leadership… Even if they are doing a real ministry outside of the church, how can the pastor hold that person accountable? How can he know that his sheep are really contributing to the body? Isn’t a person who “belongs” to a church under the authority of the church and it’s leadership?”
This set 2 young ladies off. (I later learned that they are wanna-be feminist… this is somewhat commen on Christian campuses.) One lady said, “well I just have to shut my mouth before I say something stupid to you.” (Good, well thoguht out comeback!) To which I replied, “you can argue against this… But it is here plainly in the Bible, can you argue against it from Scripture?” Another male student popped in “what about Ephesians 4… Are we all individually called?” I said, “what about Ephesians 5, while we are all called indivually to a task, we are all called the bride of Christ? Doesn’t Paul use the body/members analogy in 4-5 different epistles? Are you uncomfortable with being under the pastors authority because of culture? Because if so, culture never supersedes the authority of Scripture!”
The classmates got heated and continued on… but they never brought about anything from the Bible to contradict what I said. If the word of God is the final Authority in issues of faith and practice, how come they could only offer citations from private experience and secular humanism?
Stunned silence. Later, on the golf course, the guys from the class gave me a hard time… For some reason I was “brave.” Figure that out.
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