It struck me as high comedy for this brother to be pointing fingers, saying our lead pastor did not know God, while sitting on chairs God provided under a roof God willed into existence by virtue of this man's ministry. I couldn't imagine, then or now, why this accusal so bitterly and almost mortally wounded my brother pastor. I Corinthians, which provides an invaluable model for church building, begins with a warning about divisions within the church, about the Body of Christ splintering into factions who follow This Guy or That Guy or The Other Guy. Church growth, as we discuss this week, begins with each one of us.

The My favorite episode of Star Trek

is the one where Kirk rescues Commodore Decker, whose own ship had been wrecked by a giant smorgasbord cornucopia horn. Decker, clearly a little off, assumes command of the Enterprise and almost destroys the ship going after the giant smorgasbord thing. It's a bit comical that, as soon as William Windom, who simply chewed scenery as Decker, assumed command, the light went out over Kirk's chair. I presume this was done to cast Decker in a kind of sinister shadow, but I kept giggling throughout the episode about how Kirk failed to pay his electric bill. The overhead light miraculously came back on once Spock relieved Decker of command. For all its hokiness, it was a thrilling show, one of the series' best: a cautionary tale about megalomaniacs seizing power.

There once was this brother, whom I loved, whom I trusted, whom I still love and trust, who was a key player in the inner circle at our church, who single-handedly derailed the entire ministry when he told my lead pastor that his teaching had "no God" in it, that it was "all about you, nothing about God." Of course, this brother wasn't just talking to my lead pastor, he was talking to me as well. I was running late for a date, so I told him I'd catch him later and we could chop it up and get into what he meant by that, but my co-pastor was deeply troubled by his remark. For me, it was, at best, a flesh wound. I know who I am, I know Who God is, and I accept that my teaching, my preaching, will not speak to everyone and is therefore not for everyone. I think it's a mistake for people, no matter how anointed they believe they are, to point fingers and say, "You're not of God," based on trivial differences in syntax (which is what this all turned cut to be), but I realize Church Folk (and this was a white guy, so I'm not just dogging black folk, here) do precisely that: appoint themselves high holy judge and tear down things God has built.

My lead pastor, however, never got over it. I could call him, right now, and at some point this brother's name will come up and my dear friend will make some light remark in passing about this brother's accusal, which I've long ago put in my rearview mirror. The wound is so deep that it just kind of unraveled my friend and co-laborer, why I can't imagine. His is one of the most brilliant minds I know and, while not perfect, he received our brother's criticism and accusal while sitting in a place God literally willed into existence by virtue of my lead pastor's obedience to the vision God gave him. It struck me as high comedy for this brother to be pointing fingers, saying our lead pastor did not know God, while sitting on chairs God provided under a roof God willed into existence by virtue of this man's ministry. I couldn't imagine, then or now, why this accusal so bitterly and almost mortally wounded my brother pastor, as I'd frankly shaken it off long before my lady friend and I arrived at dinner.

The irony of it all, however, is our accusing brother—who later strong-armed his way into leadership of the ministry and eventually killed it off—was using Paul's letter to the Corinthians as his basis for accusing us. This book, which provides an invaluable model for church building, begins with a warning about divisions within the church, about the Body of Christ splintering into factions who follow This Guy or That Guy or The Other Guy.

This brother, pointing his finger at my lead pastor, accusing him of not speaking for God, splintered the church among a growing group loyal to him, the founding group loyal to the lead pastor, and the stragglers and new arrivals who identified with me. Pointing fingers is a dangerous exercise. There are biblical means for dealing with actual trouble within the church, but the bible is loaded with warnings against pointing out someone else's shortcomings while ignoring your own.

Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, which this brother cherished, begins with a warning against doing precisely what this brother did: making the argument about himself. His subsequent failure to cooperate within our Christian community in order to move the ministry forward was even less biblical. With our lead pastor's departure, this brother became the de-facto lease holder over our gathering place, and he refused to cooperate with the community, taking a kind of my-way-or-the-highway approach wherein he and he alone would be the sole arbiter of what was of God and what was not, since none of the rest of us could be trusted, as none of the rest of us knew God. He skipped meetings and ignored repeated attempts from us to communicate and work through the issues. Ultimately, he was left "in charge" and his contempt for the existing community ultimately led it to evaporate as he built his own community centered on himself and his singular doctrinal view. The new community became a disorganized mangling of right-wing fringe doctrine emphasizing charismatic spiritual gifts and wandering into odd arenas of meditative jazz and ecumenical free-for-alls—ironically, precisely the kind of damaged, anything-goes Christianity that plagued the church at Corinth.

Despite my brother's claims to the contrary, God does indeed speak to me and through me, and He said that "ministry" was now a cult of personality centered around a guy who had lost his way, lost his friends, and lost his direction in Christ. All the while clinging to First Corinthians which, ironically, warns against everything this brother ultimately chose to do.

The Book of I Corinthians: This Week In God's Word

The Corinthians were the ultimate Church Folk. They took everything to extremes, whether it was conducting ceremonial High Church with layers of add-on ceremony, or engaging in sexual immorality. These folks would shout and fall out on Sunday and be laying down with anything and everything by the time they got home. It was an inconsistent witness, these folks perhaps confused about what freedom in Christ represents and how best to make responsible use of that freedom. Misunderstanding God's word is a serious consequence of our failure to read and to study, to know what the bible actually says and what it actually means, rather than going about our Church Folk way with some vague notion of what we think the book says. Church growth, as we discuss this week, begins with each one of us. Worship doesn't start when we get to church, worship begins in our minds and in our hearts, in the way we conduct our lives. In our consistent witness—not hollering and frothing at the mouth Sunday and then using that same mouth to cuss people out on Monday.

If we are not living biblically consistent lives, all our hollering is completely in vain. Chapter 14, in particular, discusses this business of speaking in tongues, something many of us view as being the ultimate proof of God's indwelling within us. This notion is scripturally inaccurate, as Jesus Himself said the ultimate proof of God's fellowship with us is the love we have one for another [John 13:35]. In Chapter 13, Paul points out that, without love, all your babbling and snot and so forth is an utter waste of time. You can bubble-bubble-toil-and-trouble all day at the church house (Chapter 14), but if you go home and cuss out your neighbor or sleep with his wife, you are no part of God's.

Unity seems to be the most difficult thing for Christians to achieve. Many churches affiliated with this very ministry regularly send me unbiblical, heated chastisements about not wanting to be associated with thus-and-so other church. Several churches host their websites on this very server but refuse to link to one another, saying, "We are not in fellowship with them," or, "We do not affirm their teaching." This is unbiblical and childish. Community isn't about approving or even agreeing. It's about acknowledging Christ as savior and Lord, and allowing the Holy Spirit to unite us even as we celebrate—yes celebrate—our cultural differences and choices of religious expression. The walls we routinely build between ourselves and other ministries are not, I assure you, inspired of God. They are about our own arrogance and lack of patience with one another. About our ignorance and lack of biblical understanding of Paul's teaching about an elasticity of common purpose:

The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But the man who loves God is known by God. —1 Corinthians 8

Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.  —1 Corinthians 9

Christopher J. Priest
6 February 2011
editor@praisenet.org
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