Our Hopeful Posture during Church Conflict

Jesus warned us before He left to return to His Father, “In this world, you will have trouble.”  In this world, we will have trouble.  Let us not be surprised or caught off guard when a room full of sinners, redeemed or not, have trouble in relationship to one another.  God, in His wisdom, left us command after command on how to relate to “one another.” Why?  Because He knew we would have trouble.  So what posture does He desire for us when this trouble comes in relationship to the church body?  God, I know trouble will come, so Lord Jesus - Teach us how to posture ourselves so that You would be pleased and get Your way; not so that we as individuals would be pleased and get our way - Lord, may Your will be done in our posture today!

I have spent a considerable amount of invested time in 5 different churches in my 30 years.  I can think of a few personal experiences regarding church conflict and I have several friends who have shared heartbreaking stories with me on the division that often sadly accompanies change.  Division doesn’t have to follow change, but it often does.  And so when it does - how do we want our Lord and King to find us?  If He returned “in the thick of it,” how would we want Him to find us?  If anyone reading this is currently going through a church conflict, ask “Would my Savior, who bled for me, be pleased at my posture?”   Please read that slowly and thoughtfully - “Would my Savior who bled.”  Another thought to read slowly, “Would my Savior who wept for me,” be pleased with my posture towards my fellow disciples, towards my pastors whom He Himself chose to shepherd me.”  

I work in an ER and every day I experience the brokenness of this world.  I know and have tasted the truthfulness of Christ’s words . . .that in this world we will have trouble.  And it crushes and remolds my heart routinely.  However; there is something particularly crushing about chosen trouble within the body of Christ.  Change will come to every Spirit-filled church.  Division surely does not have to come alongside this change; it is a choice of the individual members as to whether division will follow the change.   God, in His wisdom, has given us many directions to prevent it and many “real world, everyday” examples to guide us. 

Those of us who are parents are one of the two main shepherds that God chose for our individual children.  We expect our children to follow our lead because of the position God has appointed us in their lives, but more so because we love them day after day.  When God convicts us about something that we, as their mother or father, or we, as a family, have been doing that is not Godly or is not the most Biblical way of doing things - we explain to our children, “You know what? Mama and Daddy were wrong.  And we need to make some changes.”  And they trust with a childlike faith, and say, “Okay.  Let’s do it.” The “system” that God ordained works because their shepherds, Mom and Dad, were humbled, they were shown the correct way to lead the sheep given to them, and the sheep followed.  It works because the sheep know they are loved and because the sheep know they can trust the shepherd.  Our children do not assume that because we have “all of a sudden” made this change (although it could have been something that God was working on in us for months), that their mother’s or father’s overall character has changed and that we must have been lying to them for all these years.  They assume, “Yes. . .  Daddy and Mommy spend time with the Lord, Yes, God is alive and active and able to change the course of their hearts or the course of a family at any time and at any speed, and because I know that these changes come from a loving Father, I would so happily follow my trusted shepherd.”  Now, do children actually have those thoughts?  No, but the point is, they follow, because they know who we are and who we try to represent.  

God ordained the same “system” in the body of Christ. God chose our pastors and at the same time He chose us to be the sheep of those particular pastors.   So what posture should we have when “all of a sudden” the pastors announce that change is coming, that change has been coming for awhile and they are now ready to share it with their sheep.  God expects us to follow, not blindly follow, but to follow because the shepherds have proven themselves loving and led of God.  A true follower of Christ would not be in a church if he did not already know that the shepherds were led by Christ Himself.  And so, when we, as the sheep, find ourselves sitting at church and the announcement is made that change is coming, our immediate posture ought to be that of a child. . . “Yes, Heavenly Father, I will follow the shepherds that You have so lovingly placed over me.  The shepherds you have given me have shown Your love for me through the years and so of course, I will follow willingly.  Let’s do it Lord.  Let’s get more Biblical.  Let’s get closer to Him that drew us to repentance, not by judgment, but by His kindness. . . Let’s do it, together, as a family of Christ.”  

Sadly, often times, the minute the pastors make an announcement that change is coming and we think about the areas of our own lives that will be affected, we forget everything we know of the pastors to be true.  We know they are loving.  We know they repeatedly pour over the scriptures and commentaries so as to deliver a convicting, Spirit-filled message to us.  We know they pray with us in person and when they are alone.  We know they’ve wept for us.  We know they have always led us, “their stubborn, sinful, redeemed sheep”, the best any “sinful redeemed-shepherds” could; and yet, we forget it all for the sake of our pride and for the sake of our convictions and for the sake of our wills.  

We are not to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.  Nor are our feelings and “knowing” of our pastors to be tossed to and fro with every decision they make.  Who are they?  Who are they?  They are the ones that God has chosen to lead us.  And yes, they are sinful and yes, God has things to teach them; but no more than He has to teach us.  And is it not Biblical, that one of the main ways God teaches us, the sheep, is by steering the shepherds first.  

And so what happens in so many of our churches when change is coming?  Some of the sheep conclude that our shepherds must be hiding things from us; that the shepherds who have lovingly fed us for years, no longer want to feed us the truth.  Some conclude though the shepherds always told the truth in the past, they must be lying now; though they always put us first in the past, they must only be thinking of themselves now; though they have always prayed over decisions in the past, this decision must have been made without the Lord’s guidance.  And those of us who “conclude” get together and start “baaing.”  And the other sheep that know the pastors are the same as they have always been are generally relatively silent, hoping it will all blow over.  But whether we are silent or not, division is made. 

And then the sheep that “conclude” appoint ourselves as teachers of those whom God appointed as teachers over us.  And we invite the pastors to explain, saying to them, “help us understand,” but the posture we have already chosen has decided we will learn nothing from them . . . we will just judge the motives of the men we once willingly followed.  And through our often harsh words, tears start to flow down our pastors’ faces, and we, to our shame, think we are offering service to God (see John 16:2).  We think “Ah, hah!  We have shown them.  We have shown them their sinful ways.   Our righteous words brought them to tears of repentance.”  

Let us remember, Jesus is called The Good Shepherd.  And He too was brought to tears over His flock.  Perhaps, it would do us good as the sheep to study why the Good Shepherd cried when we see our shepherds cry.  Let us wonder together why . . . Why did Jesus cry in Luke 19:41 - Jesus had just had an amazing welcome into Jerusalem.  He was riding on a donkey that had never been ridden.  “And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.  As he was drawing near . . . the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven and Glory in the highest!”  A few verses later, it is written, “And when he (Jesus) drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!  But now they are hidden from your eyes.”  WHY WAS JESUS CRYING?  Jesus was crying because he knew, he knew the hearts of the people.  He knew that the very people who were praising Him today would be calling for his death five days later.  He knew that they did not understand.  He was crying because of the state of their hearts.  He was crying because they did not understand the things that make for peace!  

Let us never think that we fully understand the motivation of our pastors’ tears.  When we elevate ourselves to the position of teacher and when we, because of a decision that we do not fully understand, call them the opposite of who we have always known them to be - do not be so presumptuous to think their tears are because of their own sin.  Our pastors do not cry because we as a flock have pointed out their own personal sin.  The tears flow in front of us and they weep in solitude because some in their flock do not understand the things that make for peace.  Their tears are to our shame, not theirs.  They see the state of the hearts of their appointed flock and they weep for us.  And dear beloved, fellow sheep - how treasured we should feel that our pastors love us enough to weep for us.  Jesus loved the people even though He could see their hearts and our pastors love us even when they see the ugly condition of our hearts.  They pray for us when we call them liars.  They pray for us when we deny their love for us.  They love us.  

What would happen, if in the moment in which we desire to appoint ourselves as the “sheep that won’t blindly follow,” we instead humble ourselves.  What if instead, we said, “We know these men, they love Jesus, they seek Jesus, let us be silent first and listen and learn and wait to see if where they lead us is indeed good and right before the Lord. . . for if it is not of the Lord, it will come to nothing.”  Lord Jesus, Let our postures show that we are sheep.  Lord, we are not desirous to be blind sheep, we desire to be discerning sheep; but SO discerning Lord that we would first choose to discern our own motives and our own preconceptions before ever moving to questioning a man that you have chosen to lead us and a man that we know loves us. 

Jesus cried because He knew that change was coming and that His flock would not understand.  He knew that they would be disappointed and would question Who He really was when the change came five days later.  He knew that His flock would scatter, divided.  And He wept over it.  He wept for His flock.  Pastors have such a huge weight of responsibility. . . they are appointed by God to lead His flock.  How heartbreaking it is for them when their sheep do not willingly follow when they have prayed for months over an issue and know that God has convicted them and they are prepared now to share this conviction.  So when we choose to become the teachers and correctors of our shepherds instead of listening to them and putting ourselves in the proper posture of followers, learners, disciples - our shepherds weep.  They weep as they see their sheep choosing to ignore all the years of love they poured out to us; they weep as they see us choosing pride over humbleness; choosing division over following in unity.  They have sheep who will not listen, nor learn, nor take the time to search the scriptures to see that indeed the changes that are approaching do not ultimately come from their appointed earthly shepherd, but from the Good Shepherd Himself, the author and perfecter of our faith, who NEVER leaves us as we are, but is constantly molding us, making us more and more into His own image.  Change will happen to true followers of Christ.  If there is no change, then Christ is not alive in the church.  

When Jesus was dead, hanging on the cross that Friday night, his followers, his sheep were scattered and confused, possibly angry.  They had forgotten that Jesus had warned them change was coming.  They had forgotten to wait, to be silent, to trust in who they KNEW that Man upon the cross to be.  They forgot all of it because they took their eyes off of Jesus and onto their own circumstances and disappointments.  Jesus had not lived up to their expectations.  

If we are convicted that we have elevated ourselves to thinking we can judge anyone’s motives, may God strike our hearts with fear.  Fear of the mighty God - the only one who can know the true intentions of anyone.  And so for those of us - ALL OF US - who cannot know the true intentions or motives of anyone - our attitude and our tendency should always be, “OH GOD - if I am to err, let me err on the side of love.  Let me err on the side of humbleness, let me err on the side of thinking too good of thoughts towards them.  If I judge someone’s motive incorrectly - let me judge them to be more kind than they are, more loving than they actually are, more sacrificing than they actually are.  Let me, Jesus, not err on the side of believing someone to be less loving, less kind, less humble than they are.  Let me base how I view someone today, not on rumors, but may my view of them be based on Whom they represent.  Our pastors represent Christ and though none of the pastors have reached perfection - the Author of their lives never left perfection.  May we fix our eyes on You Jesus, the author and perfecter of our own  faith and the author and perfecter of our pastors’ faith.  Please, may we love our shepherds well.  We are all image bearers, flock and shepherds alike - are we bearing Your image well??  Have mercy on us, forgive us, and teach us how to love.  Truly love - Biblically love our pastors.  For if we continue in our ways, guide us to the only true history book, to see what will happen.  You will remove our pastors from us, not because of their sin, but because of our own.  Amen.” 

Please fellow sheep, join me in a posture of repentance.