The Body of Christ is Broken
A few months ago, my family and I were invited to church. A co-worker was inviting people from work and I didn't want her to get discouraged. I agreed to go and we did.
The church was from a different denomination than ours and that didn't bother me. I'm of the persuasion that Jesus is all that matters and the rest is just fodder to start arguments. Long story short, I went, I saw, I liked.
I walked away from the service feeling like there could be something more. I saw the opportunity for two churches from different denominations working together. What a radical concept! I was encouraged by the words of Jesus in John 17. He prayed that the Church would be one as He and God were one so that the world would know He loved us.
I called the pastor of that church not long after and he agreed to meet with me and talk. He was curious why I wanted to meet. I explained that the Body of Christ is broken by division. (He agreed.) I went on to say this should not be, that we, as Christians, should be able to reach out to the world together and not let theological differences keep us apart. (He agreed with that as well.)
We then discussed our differences and, interestingly, there was only one: we disagreed on the Biblical definition of tongues. His view: tongues are speaking in different languages. My view: tongues are a language we do not know nor understand because it is the language of the Holy Spirit. On this, we agreed to disagree but confirmed (again) it was not enough to keep us from working together.
We parted ways saying we had much to pray over and we would talk again. On the table was the possibility of our two churches minstering together over the summer two separate times: one time, they would come to our town and help us; and another time, we would go there and help them. We also discussed a joint worship service. I was excited.
I sent a follow-up email thanking him for his time and stated I was excited about the possibilities. He responded with a short "we'll talk soon." As of this writing, that pastor has not written me back. (it's been a month now) I checked facebook and the topic of his sermon this past Sunday was "Tongues: The Biblical Definition of this Misunderstood Gift." I believe I gave him a sermon idea.
What disappoints me most is that this pastor touted his church being different than the other churches of his denomination. When we arrived at the bottom line, however, he was not different at all.
The Bible speaks of those who "have a form of Godliness but deny its power." I met one of those people and he is a pastor, a shepherd leading his entire flock away from a beautiful thing and into a cage.
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