For the last two weeks we’ve been talking about God’s vision. First, we talked about how God gives his vision to people letting them know what his purpose is in creating and sending them. Then last week, we talked about how, as people embrace God’s vision, he builds on it to bring about his purposes. This week we’ll be looking at the inevitable strife that comes with sinful humans implementing a perfect God’s vision.
I want to share with you two mini chapters of strife in the Christian and Missionary Alliance. As that group of eight people who walked in the vision God gave them to reach out to immigrants was built into an Alliance of believers from different denominations sending out missionaries around the world, the movement continued to grow and spread throughout the continental United States. With local church ministries and even a Bible college on the west coast to facilitate the sending of missionaries from coast to coast by the early 1920s.
But as the Alliance expanded nationally and worldwide, another movement began and a revival broke out on the streets of Californian. This movement would later be known as the Azusa Street Revival. From 1906 to 1915, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit became evident, and like he had done to the Alliance in the early 1880s, God was moving again. Alliance leaders came to experience this outpouring of God, as did denominational leaders from many different backgrounds. The strife that followed was never one of denial of the Holy Spirit’s work, but rather on the belief that the gift of tongues was necessary as evidence to one’s salvation. As the discussion and debate on this issue ensued, the Alliance took the stand that the gift of tongues, though a gift that was for today, was not evidence of the salvation of the believer. It was here that the first split of that missionary sending alliance occurred, with those that disagreed leaving. Denominations like the Assemblies of God and Foursquare sprung out of this moment and though it was a heartbreaking split, God has done good.
Today the Alliance is facing another such moment that could lead to the splitting of the group on a level that the denomination hasn’t experienced. Women have always been a key to the Alliance movement. They have partnered in starting local church ministries and colleges. They have led ministries in the U.S. and across borders. Single women have been sent as missionaries and never once has their role been diminished as image bears and servants of God in his work.
Yet in the the Alliance, there was a strong difference in how women were treated when in came to titles. For a man to become an ordained minister in the Alliance, you spent about three years writing, reading, and memorizing; you then would have that knowledge tested, and when you passed the oral exam, you would be given the title Reverend. In the 1990s, women began the same track of writing, reading, and memorizing; they too would then have their knowledge tested, and when they passed their oral exam they would receive the title Consecrated License Worker. In the last decade, this led to a discussion about equality and how culturally this has been a hindrance to women serving in places as Chaplins. This past June, the Alliance denomination voted that all elders of local church ministries would continue to be male, but not all those that hold the title pastor are. In other words, the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination in the U.S. now allows local ministries to determine the title of both men and women; therefore women may have the title Pastor, with the only restriction that of the Lead/Senior Pastor title, as it was deemed equivalent to the elder role.
This has already led several local church ministries to leave the Alliance and the repercussions and strife from this situation are still yet to be fully seen. I’ll be addressing this particular issue more at our annual meeting this week, and have written a very brief paper on my stance on the whole issue, that can be picked up in the foyer of the building.
But strife within God’s vision is nothing new. When we walk through what follows God’s vision, strife is always a part of that story.
In God’s vision for Noah’s family in Genesis 9:1 of, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…”, it was immediately followed by Genesis 9:12-23, where the covering of Noah’s nakedness, which possibly has to do with sexual issues and not merely drunkenness, and his grandson son Canaan being cursed.
Then the vision that God gave of blessing the nation through Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, was then immediately followed by Genesis 12:5, where Abraham brings Lot along, which he wasn’t supposed to, and then follows that up by referring to his wife as his sister while in Egypt, which led to another man trying to take her as his wife.
This cycle of vision followed by strife occurs again and again. With Jospeh being given a dream of the future of his family, followed by him being sold as a slave in Genesis 37. Or in Exodus chapters 20-31, where Moses is given God’s vision for the people of Israel to enter into a covenant relationship with him on Mt. Sinai, just for Moses to return and see them worshiping a golden calf. The list goes on and on and on, I had so many examples as I looked deeper into this that we could spend the next hour talking about them all. And it doesn’t stop with the Old Testament.
In the Gospel of Mark we get three examples that just role one after the other. In Mark 8:27-31, Peter confesses Jesus as Messiah, confirming God’s vision for Jesus’ ministry. Jesus then follows that confession by building on it by pointing to his death and resurrection. This is then immediately followed by Peter rebuking Jesus’ vision in verse 32, which Jesus has to correct.
A chapter later, in Mark 9:30-32, Jesus again shares God’s vision of his death and resurrection, this is then immediately followed by, the disciples quarrel over who’s the greatest in verses 33-37, which Jesus has to correct. Then immediately after this correction in Mark 9:38-41, the disciples complain about a person outside their group performing miracles, which Jesus has to again correct.
Strife following vision is what happens when God’s people, who still struggle with sin, do not check that struggle in the grace of God. When we do not take responsibility for our own sin and do not extend grace to others, God’s vision meets the speed bumps of humanity’s sinful desires.
In our local ministry, we’ve had a few of these. I’ll share the two I best know. When Pastor Jeff, the minister before me, came to this vision of God in the early 2000s, it was organized much in the vain of a Baptist model, where the governing board was a group of about twelve people. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with this style of governing, but it is not how the Alliance organizes it’s local ministries. When Jeff came in, he was told by our District Superintendent at the time, that he had to get the ministry to conform to the Alliance style. This lead to a heated meeting, that last hours upon hours, with the District Superintendent overseeing and telling the people that they would be there all night until they voted to change the bylaws to reflect their decision to be an Alliance Church which they had made twenty years prior. Though the district had shown leniency for about two decades, some in the group felt like they were being pushed out of their positions; the repercussions of which led to years of strife for Jeff as he ministered here.
The next moment of strife came about five years after I got here. In the fall of 2012, and into 2013, we were going through a transition of bookkeepers. The new one, though he worked hard, was dealing with some health issues and allowed some of the books to slack. Some bills were not getting paid, and checks were not being deposited. So a committee was called together and an audit was commenced, and something that only a few people knew about was brought to everyone’s attention.
See in the finances of this ministry we have a tidal wave of giving in the months between October and April, I wonder what would cause that, but then from May to September, we squeak by. What people didn’t know is when this ministry stepped out in faith and hired a youth pastor back in 2004, Jeff tended to miss at least one paycheck per summer, and sometimes more. Now the ministry would always make it up, but this lasted for eight years without anyone really being privy to it. Only the elders, the pastors and their wives, and the bookkeeper knew. But through the audit, everyone found out. The response was anger. Not at Jeff for not getting a paycheck, but that at the whole ministry for not curbing spending which led to such a situation in the first place.
So the financial committee put forth their recommendation as to how to fix it. They took a business approach and looked to the biggest expense, which was the youth ministry. On youth alone, with food, vans, camp trips, and the youth pastor’s salary, the ministry was spending over half it’s yearly monies. So the thought was, get rid of the expense. We don’t need vans to pick up kids and teens, their parents can drop them off. We don’t need to feed them, their parents can do that. They can raise their own money for camps, which we had been doing for several years anyway, and we don’t need a youth pastor we can have a volunteer do the job. By cutting these expenses, the ministry would no longer be in a position of not paying their pastor. But, the thought continued, because Jeff allowed this situation in the first place, he should also be replaced.
This was a hard time for the ministry and the finance committee said that if we didn’t make these changes, the church would be closed by the end of summer 2013.
Human caused strife always follows God’s vision. It’s unavoidable. But that’s not the end. Through that strife God brings good. This is why Paul states in Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Do you see that, God works all things for good, for those called to his purpose. We could say it like this, God works out the strife that we cause, for good, when we follow his vision.
God worked out good for Noah and they multiplied. God worked out good for Abraham, and he was a blessing to the nations. God worked out good for Jospeh and Moses, that through them the nation of Israel survived and brought the Messiah. God worked out good through the disciples as they walked in Jesus’ death and resurrection, and because of that we are here today.
God worked out good from the split of the Alliance over gift of tongues, with groups like the Assemblies of God and Foursquare reaching people with the Gospel. And we’ll see what he works out for good for the Alliance’s current strife in regards to women in ministry.
God worked out good for this ministry, because we are impacting more unreached people today, being more financially stable while doing it, then any other time in this ministry’s history.
We do not have to be afraid of strife, because our Savior told us this in John 16:33, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Strife is a part of the journey when sinful, yet redeemed, humans walk in the vision of a holy God. We can have peace in tribulation, because it doesn’t matter what we go through, or what comes at us, Jesus has overcome it, and when he returns all the issues we’ve dealt with will melt away in his glory and grace.
So what is God calling us to today? To be grace filled people. Colossians 3, starting in verse 12 states, “12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
The first thing we should look for in combating strife within God’s Church, is to extend grace to one another, giving room to allow each other to mess up, and to forgive each other when it happens. God is dealing with all of us as we are, so let’s give each other a little room for God to work. So when strife comes, and it will, we role gracefully with it, knowing God will bring about good in his time.
My challenge for you this week, is this, seek God asking him this question, “Lord, where have I aided strife? Please forgive me. Where can I extend grace? Please empower me. Where can I be of service? Please guide me.”
Let us be a people who are guided by grace, forgiving quicker that we’re offended, all for the glory of God, who works out his purposes for our good. Amen.
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