Divine Intention by Larry Shallenberger

Author:Larry Shallenberger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: David C Cook
Published: 2012-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

The Church Chaotic

First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

Genesis 1:1–2 MSG

The apostles and leaders called a special meeting to consider the matter. The arguments went on and on, back and forth, getting more and more heated.

Acts 15:6 MSG

March 26

I arrived first this time and settled into the booth. Much had happened since our last meeting. As soon as I got home from our last dinner, I called both Ron and Alice and apologized for taking out my frustrations over the tutoring program on them. Repairing friendships was about the extent of my phone diplomacy skills. I had to cancel the awareness banquet due to the infighting among the pastors. Nothing like the church.

The door swung open, and Alice stormed in. She’s still mad at me, I thought, as she stuffed herself onto the bench.

“No Ron?”

“Not yet. You okay?”

“How do you do it, Jonah? How do you put up with all the politicking and nastiness? How do you slog through all that all week long and then preach the party line of peace and love on Sunday?”

I sipped my water. “It took years to hone that skill.” That didn’t earn a smile. “We’re not talking about my church, are we?”

“A year ago our pastor invited Steve and me to join the church renewal team. We meet with five other couples to catch a vision for what the church should be like. We studied Acts 2; we prayed together; we read books on church growth. We all took vacation time to travel to a conference to hear speakers unload their flowcharts and Power Point presentations on how we could reenergize our dying church.”

“This all sounds like good stuff, Alice. What happened?”

“At the end of our training, we made up a proposal for changes that would turn the church around. We shared it at a congregational meeting, and you would have thought we were adding a fourth person to the Trinity.”

“Were you?”

Alice furrowed her brows. I need to stop trying to extract a smile.

“Part of our proposal involved changing the worship services to make them more welcoming to visitors—”

“And they accused you of ‘dumbing down’ the faith.”

“You’ve gone through this?”

“And nearly lost my job.”

“They fought you over worship style and choosing to cut down on the amount of church jargon you use in the pulpit?”

“That was the fight. My church went through two years of conflict trying to sort out its mission and decide who the church was for.”

I looked up, noticed Ron, and slid over so he could sit.

“Sorry I’m late. The youth team meeting went late. We got into this debate—”

“Then you’re just in time. I’m about to reveal my theory on church fights,” Alice interjected. “Worship styles, small groups, youth team meetings—that’s not the root of the issue; it’s all about who’s got the power. It’s a lot like when

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