Love the Ones Who Drive You Crazy (eBook)

Eight Truths for Pursuing Unity in Your Church

Jamie Dunlop (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
176 Seiten
Crossway (Verlag)
978-1-4335-8995-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Loving Those at Church Who Are Hard to Love Churches are full of differences. Those differences might be rooted in culture or personality or even musical style. In recent years, differences over political and social issues have frayed the unity of many churches. Yet if a church is centered on Christ alone, then unity at church will sometimes require building genuine friendships that bridge across all those differences. How can Christians navigate those relationships? Can they really love people at church who sometimes drive them crazy?   This practical guide explores 8 truths from Romans 12-15 that show us how to find God-exalting unity at church with those we struggle to love. Love the Ones Who Drive You Crazy is a roadmap to finding joy in Christ through the many differences we have with fellow believers, a joy that powerfully declares the glory of God. Because easy love rarely shows off gospel power. - Rooted in Scripture: Examines Paul's teaching to the churches in Rome who, like us, were struggling to find unity in Christ amidst their own differences of background, priorities, and convictions - Reflective: With questions to enhance discussion or reflection, this book helps readers diagnose their own struggles with others at church. Perfect for personal meditation or small-group study  - Widely Applicable: Addresses a great variety of conflicts within a church, not merely how to navigate specific issues  - Practical: Teaches readers how to love those who drive them crazy, not just why

Jamie Dunlop serves as an associate pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church. He is the coauthor (with Mark Dever) of The Compelling Community and author of Budgeting for a Healthy Church. Jamie and his wife Joan have three school-aged children and live on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Textauszug

Introduction

So This Is What “Christ Alone” Means?

Conflict in Your Church as Evidence of Faith

If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

Luke 6:32

The Difficulty of a “Christ Alone” Church

Who isn’t discouraged by conflict at church? After all, the local church should be as close as we get to heaven on earth, right? Yet there are so many opportunities for disagreement at church. Conflict comes from differences of opinion, like whether church leaders were right to reduce support for the crisis pregnancy center you love. It comes from differences of conviction, like that church member whose social media feed promotes positions you find morally troubling. Sometimes it’s differences of culture or class that make you feel like an outsider in your own church. And sometimes it’s no deeper than people who rub you the wrong way.

In fact, I’m convinced that churches are especially ripe for conflict, precisely because they should be centered on Christ alone. Think about that for a moment: a church should be defined by Christ alone. Not by Christ and shared convictions about children’s schooling options, or by Christ and an antipoverty strategy, or by Christ and shared revulsion at so-and-so’s social media post, or by Christ and a particular musical vibe. . . . You get the picture. It’s easy to say the church should be centered on Christ alone. Well, dear reader, living with all these differences and disagreements is what it looks like. And too often we’re entirely unprepared for this “Christ alone” kind of a church.

The Glory of a “Christ Alone” Church

Yet the differences and disagreements that threaten to tear your church apart are filled with potential to proclaim the glory of our good and gracious God. That’s the burden of this book. After all, the churches of the New Testament were filled with differences and disagreements, just like yours and mine. They emerged from their own culture wars (Jew and Gentile). They came from opposite ends of society (slave and free, rich and poor). They arrived at opposing moral convictions (drinking wine, eating meat). In the New Testament, these disagreements weren’t all resolved, and these differences weren’t all repudiated. Yet through them and in part because of them, God answered Jesus’s prayer for unity in John 17 in a powerful way: “That they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23). For these first Christians, love amidst differences and disagreements revealed the power of being united in Christ alone. And the same is true for you and your church.

This book was written to help you love the people in your church whom you struggle to love because of your differences with them. Sometimes differences at church will be about big issues where the gospel’s at stake—like whether a Christian can legitimately pursue a gay lifestyle or whether Christ is the only way to God. In those cases, you should fight for biblical truth even at the cost of unity. Other times, differences won’t immediately threaten the gospel, but they’ll be significant enough that you and these other Christians need to part ways and go to different churches, trusting God’s purposes for that separation just like Paul and Barnabas did at the end of Acts 15. Historic differences over baptism come to mind. Sometimes differences with other members or church leaders will have so damaged your trust in them that you need to leave your church.

This book isn’t about any of these church-separating situations, though they are difficult. Instead, this book is for the many situations when you decide that you can stay in your church despite all the differences. This book is about building beautiful, Christ-exalting unity when you choose to stay and when you choose to love even the ones who drive you crazy. Keep in mind, of course, that the people in your church who drive you crazy might have similar questions about how to love you!

I’m writing in the years following a time of great turmoil in countless churches—including mine—over issues like race and politics and pandemic precautions. I hear from many Christians that they’re looking forward to getting back to times when church can be less complicated. But I’m writing this book because, for a variety of factors (which I’ll get to), I doubt we’re going back to those days when church felt like a lazy stroll on a summer evening (at least, comparatively speaking). And if we care about the glory of Jesus, that could be a very good thing.

Waves of Conflict

To provide an example of what I mean, let me tell you about the past couple of years at my church in Washington, DC, located a few blocks from the United States Capitol. Tension seemed to come in waves, with each new wave crashing down before the previous one had yet receded. Perhaps you can relate.

Wave 1: In response to a pandemic-related government order, my church stopped meeting in the spring of 2020. Then we began meeting again, outdoors, in a neighboring jurisdiction, since large religious gatherings were outlawed in our city. Neither of these decisions escaped controversy within my church.

Wave 2: In June, our city erupted in protest after the killings of several unarmed Black men and women by police. And my church erupted too. Some members marched in protests. Others were appalled at some of what those protests stood for. On both sides, many felt our church leaders spoke too timidly.

Wave 3: In September, my church voted to bring a lawsuit against our city because of its prohibition against our church meeting outdoors (wave 1 again). Some church members couldn’t believe we would work through the courts rather than simply disobey the law. Others felt a lawsuit was way out of line. Meanwhile, wave 2 continued.

Wave 4: In November, our nation held a presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Given our location, we’re accustomed to this once-every-four-years test of our unity in Christ. People still talk about the day when the Senate majority leader threatened on the morning talk shows to strip a recalcitrant senator of his committee posts—yet both men showed up at our church together—with the sound system run that morning by the assistant to the vice president (from the opposing political party). We have a long history of putting aside political differences under Christ. But this one was different. Convictions were heightened along multiple dimensions. And tension didn’t ease with Election Day as many (including some in my church) disputed the official result while others (including some in my church) were aghast at what they saw as societal sabotage. Even praying publicly for the president-elect became a political statement.

The waves continued. In April of 2021, as a result of our lawsuit, we negotiated a return to our church building. Many in the congregation were dismayed that this hadn’t happened months earlier, and their pain was on full display. Others were appalled at how callous some in their own church seemed to a pandemic that by then had killed so many, including some they loved.

As one of their pastors, I watched over this restive flock through these seasons of pain. Yet as I had conversation after conversation with unhappy members of my church, I began to see these conflicts less as evidence of failure and more as evidence of faith.

Failure or Faith?

How could all this disagreement be anything other than failure? Isn’t church supposed to provide safe harbor from storms of controversy in the world outside? To be sure, my church failed—in many ways—in how we disagreed. Yet at the same time I can describe this turmoil as evidence of faith because nearly all these people continued loving one another despite these differences. What’s more, many friendships between would-be enemies became that much richer.

Very often, the existence of disagreement in a church is not a sign that things have gone tragically wrong, but that things have gone gloriously right. I realize this may sound naïve, but give me a few paragraphs to explain myself. As I noted earlier, a church should be centered on Christ alone. Not on Christ and shared opinions about navigating a pandemic and the best way to confront racism and common political convictions. Some disagreements that rock our world have no place in the church, because Scripture comes down clearly on one side. Yet for the many differences on which Christians can legitimately disagree, controversy in society will often bleed into the church— if, that is, we’re united around Christ alone. If everyone agreed on all these matters, church would be a lot easier. But easy love rarely shows off gospel power.

This matters because Scripture teaches that unity in Christ despite our differences is a primary way God intends to show off his goodness and glory. Take Romans 15 as an example. After a lengthy section on how Jew and Gentile can live together in the local church despite all their differences, Paul gives this word of blessing:

May the God...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 7.11.2023
• Verlagsort: Wheaton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Pastoraltheologie
• Schlagworte: Bible • biblical principles • Christ • christian living • Church • Culture • differences • Discipleship • disciplines • Division • Faith Based • God • godliness • Godly Living • Gospel • Jesus • Kingdom • live out • new believer • Religion • Small group books • spiritual growth • walk Lord
• ISBN-10: 1-4335-8995-8 / 1433589958
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4335-8995-9 / 9781433589959