Discipline for the Disciplinarians

3 05 2012

“Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,
in whose hand is the club of my wrath!”  Isaiah 10:5

I know I have joked (kind of) in previous posts about how theology watchdogs in the blogosphere (and in the church) are annoying in the same way as that teacher in high school who constantly corrected your grammar while you were trying to talk.  But I also do recognize that God has given us brothers and sisters whose giftedness and very calling is to help us keep our doctrine pure…they are the doctrine disciplinarians, if you will.  You know the ones I mean.  They blog about your favorite pastor, who made a horrendous, unbelievable, heretical, probably-not-saved-if-you-say-this theological error in his sermon last week.  They call him out by name, and the venom with which they attack him is, well, pretty ungodly.  Or they review the most recent book by one of your favorite authors and basically question his very humanity, not to mention his spirituality, because of the position he seems to have taken on this theological issue or on that social issue…again, with uncommon rancor.

[And, as an aside, you know what is one of my pet peeves?  That blogger almost never makes any attempt at all to actually contact that pastor/teacher/author in order to practice this "discipline" or "accountability" Biblically, which pretty quickly gets me wondering whether they are really loving this brother or rather are just a little envious of his acclaim.  But I digress.]

I know that God disciplines us.  And I know that he often uses others to do it.  I am really OK with that.  In fact, it seems like a good plan to me.  I think scripture gives us plenty of examples of God using people to discipline his children.  Sometimes, he even used a pagan, non-believing people (like the Assyrians) to do it.

But scripture seems equally clear to me that to be used by God in this fashion comes with a heavy responsibility.  God’s discipline is to be carried out God’s way and with God’s honor and God’s love in our hearts and our minds.  When God’s “tool of discipline” forgets this or forsakes it, the consequences are dire.  When God punishes the punisher, it is ugly and horrifying, filled with His wrath.  Again, the Assyrians come to mind.

So, fellow bloggers and church leaders…before your fingers hit the keyboard to release your discipline on that weak-minded pastor or that hopelessly lost author or that wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing so deserving of your harsh rebuke, will you make sure your knees hit the ground and your heart turns toward God?  We need your passion.  God’s kingdom needs your giftedness.  The church needs your laser focus on helping us keep our doctrine straight.  And we love you too much to allow you to throw it all away because of a wrong attitude or a bad motive.  Fulfill your calling…by checking your heart!

And stop correcting my grammar.  Seriously.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Christian Accountability, Church Unity, Ephesians 4, leadership, Spiritual Gifts

Addicted to Anonymity

10 04 2012

Tuesday Re-mix -

I wonder if we in the American culture have become addicted to anonymity?

Dictionary.com defines addiction like this:

the state of being enslaved to a practice or habit or something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

When I think about the community prescribed in God’s Word, particularly in the New Testament church,  I see plenty of problems for our contemporary culture.  We have become a people insistent upon our anonymity.  We value self-sufficiency and independence almost above all things.  We write books about “self-improvement” and “self-made men”.  We idolize individual achievement and we dream about financial independence, and we describe all of this as “the American dream”.  We live in gated communities to keep out the undesirable community.  And we see anyone asking for help as weak and sad.  We have created an entire body of law around the “right to privacy” and we guard our privacy as if it is our most prized possession.  There is no question but that we have, in many ways, worked exactly contrary to the type of interdependence described in the Bible.

But none of that necessarily gets us to “addiction”.  The question is, are we “enslaved” to this need for independence?  Is it psychologically habit-forming?  If we lost it, would we be traumatized?  These are troublesome questions for me.  These are the questions I ask myself as I travel around the country from one church to the next talking about Biblical relationships and New Testament community.  I have to say it…that kind of community is not easy to find, even in the church…maybe especially in the church.

I  believe our culture’s obsession with privacy and independence and anonymity have approached the “addiction” level.  I believe this because we kick and scream anytime we lose those things.  Like an addiction, we actually know that we should be living in community and that we need other people in our lives, but through our actions we choose otherwise.  We choose anonymity, even when we know we should not.  It feels like an addiction to me.  So what about the church?

In the church, we have become so consumer-oriented that we are afraid to create an environment which might actually offend someone’s desire to remain anonymous.  We have done all our marketing homework and we know well what people want and what they do not want.  We aim to give them what they want, because we want to be a “user-friendly” church.  We create huge crowds so that a visitor can come in and, essentially, remain anonymous without being “bothered” by anyone.  What’s worse, we give our own members plenty of leeway to exercise their own desire for independence and privacy and anonymity.  We actually make it possible for people to be “members” without any investment in community or personal accountability at all.  In a sense, we have become “enablers” of our society’s addiction.

There is much to explore on this issue.  But for today, I just want to ask the questions…have we become addicted to anonymity?  And how can the church offer recovery from this addiction?
© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Anonymity Anonymous, Christian Accountability, Church Unity, Genuine Community, H2H

“Scoreboard, Baby!”

5 04 2012

 

I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I devastate Ephraim again.
For I am God, and not a man—
the Holy One among you.

I will not come against their cities.
They will follow the LORD;
he will roar like a lion.
When he roars,
his children will come trembling from the west.
They will come from Egypt,
trembling like sparrows,
from Assyria, fluttering like doves.
I will settle them in their homes,”
declares the LORD.  Hosea 11:9-11

“…and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” Matthew 16:18b

It is a scenario which plays itself out in the sports world over and over again.  A frustrated player whose team is hopelessly behind with no chance of winning happens to make a good play or win one small skirmish against his opponent and begins to celebrate wildly.  His opponent simply points to the scoreboard and says, “Scoreboard, baby” (or some other word is sometimes used instead of “baby”).  The point is simple: knowing the outcome of the game ahead of time does change things a bit.

That is why words such as Hosea’s (above) had to be encouraging to Israel.  Though a horrible season was coming, it gave them a sense of what would be on the other side.  It is what God does for His people…He gives them hope of what is to come, even in the midst of judgment.  He still does.  The church today has similar promises to which we can cling.  We may go through horrible seasons ourselves (as a church), but we know how the story ends…we know Christ’s church prevails in the end.  ”The gates of Hell will not prevail against it.”  That is an important encouragement.

Often, when I am working with a conflicted congregation, I will encounter leaders in the church who are literally wild-eyed and crazy passionate about “defending” the church, or protecting it, or defending God’s truth or God’s Word, or otherwise saving the church from sure disaster.  I see or hear them say or do outrageous things, all in the name of Christ and His church.  I see them showing uncontrollable rage toward this particular threat or that particular threat.  I see in them a reckless fear of what might happen to the church if this group gains control or if that leader has his way.  They see themselves as the savior of the church…and it just makes me lean back and say, “Really?”

I think we would all do well to remember that Christ does not need us to defend His church.  And He does not need us to “save” His Word from the otherwise sure destruction of misinterpretation.  Not our jobs.  What He does call us to do is to be His church and to speak His Word…not out of some panicked sense of fear or hatred, but with love and with a peace that surpasses all understanding.  He calls us to conduct ourselves with confidence that His church will in fact prevail in the end and that His Word really will endure forever.

Every once in a while, especially when we feel ourselves getting all twisted up in a knot over things we see going on in the church today, we just need to glance at the end of the story and remind ourselves, “Scoreboard, baby”… His church wins in the end.  Relax.

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

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Categories : Church Unity, leadership

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