Normally I wouldn’t blog about this, but since it has met the airways in countless forms already, I sense God would have me express some thoughts.
This church - my church- recently hired a new pastor. The change-over has been less than smooth. I was disappointed that I learned of a movement to request the Presbytery to dissolve the relationship with the new pastor from NPR! Quit disappointed. Now I have heard of the vote decision from a session member giving a statement to Moody Radio. Instead of expressing true Christian sentiment, I feel he fueled the fire of confusion and discontent of the non-Christian society by using words such as “fighting.” That’s a shame.
Christians are human. And when passionate, devoted Christians seeing huge changes in the methods and path of their beloved church, well, what would anyone expect but an outcry? While I do not know the whole story of how they finally made their voices heard, there was a Congregational vote Sunday the 20th of September 2009.
I attended the meeting of members only. I only wanted to hear both sides, given in Christian love. I was deeply saddened by the realization that the sense of the Holy Spirit that I had ALWAYS in a strong way sensed when merely entering the sanctuary, was gone. And when the session speakers began to counter the petition, well even before that…as soon as the person made introductions, the angst, the pure grieving to the Holy Spirit was so strong that even my service dog jumped up and alerted me to leave!
But I did go to hear both “sides.” I didn’t hear that. The side that brought the petition spoke and was quite honorable in the presentations, though their humanity did show at times. They spoke to the issue, and made some very good points, in my opinion: the pastor refused to even attend Sunday night services, the pastor has dissolved a large part of the youth ministry, the pastor wrote in a book “Unfashionable” how the way to win others to Christ was to live a good life and not go out to strangers door to door, and a few other items that could be from misunderstandings, but were well within reason for a response.
The members representing the Pastor failed to give that response. Instead what I heard was a sermon being preached against the members who had the petition. The session member used Scripture to “prove” the others were being bad Christians. And while the moderator did allow the session member to use personal names (which the rules do not allow, and the petitioners were not allowed) and also personal opinions, he failed to keep the session member on point and addressing the specifics of the petition.
Everyone lost.
For any pastor to lose 1/3 of his congregation means something. Biblically, a pastor of a church is the “shepherd.” Just as Christ was the Good Shepherd, the pastors are ordained of God to be shepherds of the flock of believers under their care. It appears the flock at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church has not been shepherded lately. What shepherd would consider losing 1/3 of his flock? Indeed, did not Christ go out for the one lost sheep, even though he had 99 safely home? No where in Scripture does it talk about how wrong the sheep were to become lost, or to not follow. No where do we find in the Bible how the Shepherd disciplined his flock, nor ridiculed them for being unable to follow him. The duty of the Shepherd is to lead the flock. Lead the flock. For the sheep it is all they can do to follow…there are so many other ways to go.
Pastor “Tullian” (Tchividjian,) as he wishes to be called I think, and with no reference to the Roman Empire, does have a lot on his plate. Change is rarely easy for the majority of people, Christian or not. I have had two exchanges of words with him, and indeed his immaturity, arrogance, ability to take things personally, or whatever it is, caused him to react to my words rather than respond as I would expect any mentally healthy adult. To expect a loving, considerate response from my own pastor is normal for me.
The session member mentioned something about how the church needed the chance to become a covenant people again… when or what stopped us from being that? Certainly not a mere 6 people who may have gone to desperate methods to have their voice legitimately heard? I doubt it.
I’m not a newbie to church politics. I’ve been a Christian for over 40 years. I was in active ministry, including paid service, for over 30 of those years. There isn’t much that can happen in or to a church body that would surprise me. My degrees are in religious education and Christian Counseling. I say this not to puff myself up, but to give some weight to what I’m about to advise. (Indeed I have no dog in this fight, even though I am a member. I went to the meeting out of Christian duty, but since I will be moving to South Miami, the church is not going to be in my future.)
Mr. Tchividjian has many wise family members, even though they have little if any I suppose of pastoral experience. (He is, for that matter, the grandson of Dr Billy Graham.) He seems to have removed some very wise people from his staffing at the church, and that is regrettable I’m sure, if not now then in the future when he looks back. But his task looms before him. It would have been smaller if he had been able to comply with some simple expectations of the later named petitioners. Would it have been so difficult to explain the path of salvation in a few sermons? Would it be so terrible to drag out to Sunday night service once in a while as the flock does? Would it be unbearable to not only attend one of the EE sessions, but teach one part each course? That’s what I think he has to do to begin to even think of keeping the passionate members who spoke against him. I mean, that is what he wants, right? A good shepherd goes after his flock, and he loves each one.
And one last thing he could do: give the media the right response to any church dissension. It happens,we’re human not perfect, it was settled by organization rules, peacefully. God loves us all.
Heartened by this new encouragement, Muslim leaders have called 50,000 observant Muslims to come to the Capitol this Friday, September 25, for a day of Jummah (Friday congregational prayer). The sponsors promise that from 4AM to 7PM, “the Athan [the call given five times each day for Muslims to participate in mandatory prayer] will be chanted on Capitol Hill, echoing off of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and other great edifices that surround Capitol Hill.” The goal of this event is that “the peace, beauty and solidarity of Islam will shine through America’s capitol.” In fact, their