My Heart Weeps

I received an email the other day from a sister-in-Christ. She was heart broken over the problems we are having in our denomination. Seeing issues being forced and blatant sin being allowed in our larger church body WITH NO RESPONSE from the higher ups. She is thinking it is time for her to leave the denomination. To worship in her church, but just not have her membership there anymore.

Will this make a difference? Probably not, except in a couple of years with assessment dollars, but that won't really affect anything I think. And it would leave her without recourse in action. How do you fight for something if you are not part of it?

I struggle, I won't deny that. Being married to a pastor brings my attention to the struggles of the larger denomination. And it's scary. It is.

Our denomination NEEDS to turn from the path it is on. It needs to be shaken up, sifted, put through the mill, and whatever else is necessary to get rid of the chaft and the weeds. Will it be easy or nice or pleasant or ??? NOT! It will be nasty and hard.

But how does one do this?

As I said to my sister-in-Christ... what does a LAY person do?

Who does the lay person talk with, communicate with, pressure, pray for????
Do they pressure their pastor?
Do they pressure their local consistory?
Do they write letters to the synod or the classis or the classis executive or the head offices?

Just who do they complain to and say..hey... this is wrong... it is unscriptural, these folks NEED to be disciplined and

I think that's one of the biggest problems for lay people like me, we have no idea who to contact.

For me personally, I have a problem with thinking my consistory needs to handle it. I can talk to my pastor (he's my hubby after all), and his response is... we have to let church polity do it's thing. and our polity is flawed, and it all takes a lot of time. QUITE frankly, when I see the pain that all this "time-taking" causes...I don't want to be patient. (yeah I know..that's the woman in me) :)

Right now one of the biggest questions facing our denomination is ... How do we hold the standard of God's word?

Our denomination is in "communion" with a variety of other denominations. They are 'evangelical' in nature if not always in practice.

Not all, but some of these churches have significant issues... the UCC allows universalism, the PCUSA has allowed an atheist to join, the CRC has similiar struggles with openly homosexual members, and so forth.

We should not be in communion with them, and yet...we are.

But then I look at my own denomination...and if I were those denominations...I wouldn't want to part of us either! Seriously.

When I look at these denominations... I just wonder that God shakes his head at us in pain at our willfulness. Should we withdraw from communion with all different denominations until our own house is in order? Sometimes I think that is what we need to do. We can't say... we won't be with you because of thus and such error in you, but stay in communion with another denomination...because they all have these things that are grievous to God.

I really wonder if cleaning house is what we really need to do OR if we should say...God...help us start a new house? But then I think...we need to clean this house. It is a good house even though right now it is very drafty and cold and the rafters are starting to cave in a bit, but things need to be really changed and cleaned up and made afresh. The good needs to be shored up and the bad...tossed.

It would look better from the world's view...as in we are not "once again" starting a new brand of church. Which the world just finds really confusing. :)

But will that happen? I honestly have no clue. AND I seriously think that those who truly want to (to clean this house) have no idea where to start either... God would have to do the guiding. People would be fired, Synods and Classes disciplined, many would flee, and the fight would be nasty. People are so afraid of that. My heart aches just thinking of the nastiness (pain, sorrow, arguments, yelling, tears, and more so) that would occur.

It's a hard thing and I don't know where it will start...but it should.

I will have to do some more thinking on what I can do. I will need to pray fervently and consistently. I will need to know my scripture so I can say... hey..that's not okay, God's word says this. And I can support my hubbie as he takes on some of these battles that I don't even always see. That's what I will do.