Cannibalistic Christmas Bear

I got home from church today to find my bear skull decked out with a Santa hat, red ball nose and a teddy bear in its mouth.  They called it the Cannibalistic Christmas Bear, because it's eating one of its own.  Works for me.  While Daphne and the girls were away in Alabama I put all the Christmas lights up on the house (Daphne asked me how I got them up on the edge of the roof . . . very carefully I said), cut down a Christmas tree (a blue spruce - don't tell anyone), hauled it up the hill on top of Daphne's Blazer, drug it up the stairs into the living room, and set it up in the tree stand.  This is more impressive when you know the tree is 11 feet tall and very prickly.  I was covered with pine wounds that evening and yes, I'm looking for sympathy.  It was all worth the girls' look of surprise and delight when they got home last night.  Our friends the Larsons came over for lunch and all six girls got busy and decorated the tree.  It looks great.


Mike preached a sermon from Psalm 23 this morning.  The high school was packed again - I would guess well over 400 adults.  Anyway, the sermon was great and very compelling - great job Mike.  Before the sermon he briefly commented on the upcoming installation of our elders next Sunday, and his main point had to do with our vision as a church to encourage women to use their God-given gifts and abilities, including serving in the role of elder.  Yes, I know this is a controversial topic, and we've lost church members who disagree with us theologically on this point.  That's fine, as our church isn't for everyone and it takes all flavors to make up the rich diversity that is the body of Christ.  I do find it interesting, however, that the strongest disagreements almost always come from religious people rather than new believers (or unbelievers) who are simply trying to find God.   I'm not saying that we shouldn't exercise spiritual discernment or ever question what appears to be unbiblical teaching.  We should - in the right spirit and out of a heart of love and concern.  Unfortunately, this almost never happens, and the pastor and church staff are often the last ones to discover the true reasons why someone has left the church.  We learn to shrug our shoulders, wish them the best and move on.  What else can we do?


     One of the things we love about The Journey is the vision to reach those who are far from God and see them become fully devoted followers of Christ, and we'll try almost any crazy idea to accomplish this purpose.  In the process we see many new people join the church who are excited about rediscovering God, and a few who leave because of an offense taken, or because they disagree with some leadership decision.  Maybe our experience is unique, but Daphne and I were part of one congregation in Senegal for 10 years, then another church in France for another 10 years.  Both churches had their share of "issues", and we certainly disagreed with the church leadership at different times.  But we also knew that God had placed us in those churches for a reason, and we deeply valued the fellowship and relationships we enjoyed there.  As the Scriptures say, "Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins."  All too often our decision to leave a church - however justified the decision may be - results in an almost complete break of fellowship, and leads to awkward conversations when we inevitably meet up again in the supermarket; "Uhhm, Hi!  How are you?" (awkward moment of silence) "Fine, how are you?"  "Good, good."  " Soooo, I guess I better get on with my shopping..." 


  In the end, how many issues are really worth breaking fellowship over?  The centrality of the cross perhaps, or salvation by grace, but I have never personally known of a church split that happened over a truly foundational Biblical principle being violated.  Instead, we leave because we feel offended over not being asked to lead a particular ministry, or because we can't get along with another church member.  Jesus said that the world would know we are His disciples by the love we have for one another. . . and we wonder why the watching world wants nothing to do with organized religion.