The Way We Never Were

This is sort of a boring and serious church discussion in case you want to skip today . . .

I had coffee with a friend this morning who stayed at the large church that is the "parent" of our church plant.  We were talking about how sad we are that relations between the parent church and the church plant aren't better.  We speculated about why this is -- different personalities, feelings so hurt they can't even be made right, focus on the here and now, the reality of Ephesians 6:12 which says that the battles we wage on earth aren't even with other people but with the force that seeks our destruction.  (My friend and I call that force Satan.  I will understand if that makes you twitchy.  You may just substitute "evil" whenever I use that word if that helps.)

We speculated that Satan's number one goal in this situation is to "divide our house."  Jesus says in Matthew 12:25 that we won't have any strength if we become divided.  It's one of his best tactics.  Think of how often it works, particularly in families.  If even one person becomes separated in conflict, the whole family goes down in one way or another.  I don't think the conflict even has to be spoken.  If one person becomes separated in conflict and keeps silent about it, the whole family still goes down.

I've been wrong before.

My friend and I didn't come up with any good solutions.  We did decided that the only person we were really in charge of, the only person we could really change, the only person we could really control . . . was our own selves.  If we could even do that much, it would be a good job done.