Is anyone aware of a Church of Christ minister or author who considers instrumental music a sin who has publicly condemned the ad published in the Oklahoman declaring the minister at Quail Springs disfellowshipped because his congregation added an instrumental service?
I’m just wondering if the instrumental-music-is-a-sin element within the Churches has developed such a bunker mentality that they’d rather be silent in the face of obvious sin than show the “liberals” a divided front. And I’m wondering whether truth has become political for us.
I think it’s an important test of our principles and am hoping for some good news.
The Memorial Church of Christ (Edmund Ok) elders distanced themselves from the ad:
http://www.mrcc.org/cgi-bin/NewsList.cgi?section=&cat=MRCC%20News&rec=724
That’s not the same thing as calling it out as sin but it does send a message.
Competition. Mean Spirited or Good ?
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." – G.K. Chesteron, Chapter 5, What's Wrong With The World, 1910
It makes me sad when we get off our mission to training people to be disciples of Jesus. Baptizing them into Jesus. Teaching them to obey Jesus. Enjoying Jesus’ presence in the process. Prophetic energy which has been misused has gotten us off mission lately it seems to me.
Power to do the work of Jesus comes from the heart of Jesus, not physical buildings or the signs and brand names that mark them. Some people are mean spirited. This is not living a life of love. This is not carrying the sign Jesus said His disciples would carry.
“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13.35)
We must not allow the bad attitudes of others to come into our hearts. We are here on earth to pass along good news.
God has created humans with freedom of choice. Because of this some will be drawn to power plays. Herod had lust and immorality and a honest prophet of God was beheaded. This was not God beheading John. It was evil.
Prayer should be a lot about being thankful for our daily bread and so much more. Should we not be grateful for times of withdrawal from busyness, crowds and political power plays?
Our gifts given to us by God to be a glory to Him and to build people up. The purpose of organization is not so much one up and one down as it is to make sure everyone gets the things they need to thrive. Too often the goal becomes to show that we are great and they are not. We are in with God. They are fake and phony false prophets. This is mean spirited. It is not living a life of love.
“Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Eph. 5.1,2)
Because we are human and live in this world of training we will suffer rejection and pain at times. Some of this is good guidance from those who love us and who are trying to help us. Some of this is mean spirited. Regardless of the source we need to keep our life buried in the cause of passing along good news. Jesus teaches us clearly that under no circumstances should we forfeit our soul being filled with peace, joy and love. Under no circumstances will be ashamed of Jesus. He commands and trains us to never be mean spirited.
When we take the proper prayer time to connect with Jesus, He will connect us to other strong souls who have finished strong. These finished the race of life well because they believed in God. They trusted God’s way over their own way. Jesus guys once saw some people who weren’t in their group doing some good things. They guys wanted to focus on stopping them. Jesus said no. Once some people didn’t welcome Jesus into their town. They guys wanted to have them struck with lightning. Jesus rebuked His guys.
In Churches like Christ, most of us have no problem with good, clean fair competition. We have many sports teams. We want to help our students be the best they can be. Above all we want to do no harm. We want to glorify God, not make His work look ugly. We want to help our children to come to God and return them to a close relationship with their godly parents. I wonder if many of our children have left our fellowship not because of our worship, but because of our mean spirited competition.
Because God has made us free to love or not, there will be some ugly power plays that happen. Let us not become a part of the problem. When others argue who is the greatest we will remember that those who welcome the children are welcoming Jesus. Children can compete to see who runs the fastest to the car from the store and one wins and one loses; they are playing another game in a few minutes. Good competition.
I pray we can beg our Father in heaven to not lead us into competing wrongly. Competition can be good. Especially competition with one’s best possible performance. Especially when done fairly. Especially when we realize that the point is to help ourselves and others be better
people.
But, when our competition causes the beauty of God to turn into mean spiritedness. When our competition hurts another child of God. When our competition hurts children. When your competition hurts anyone made in the image of God. We are messing up big time. We are being mean spirited and you are not living a life of love. God help us to stop it.
It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
Helen Keller
Luke 9.
Larry Wishard
I would think that finding someone would prove to be a difficult task. I would rather hope not, but I fear that will be the case. From my experience within the CofC once a "faithful" brother or congregation has taken a stand opposing something it is deemed as proven and the proper path to follow. In short, most are followers not leaders. Baah
Raymond
I feel that the church in Quail Springs should take church of christ off of their name. Once the minister and the elders allowed instruments into their church they were no longer apart of everything that the church stands for. I also feel that every COC should not continue to fellowship with this now “Baptist” church.
Alas, alas for you lawyers and Pharisees, hypocrites!
David Chadwell at Westark CoC in Fort Smith, Arkansas wrote “Beware the Leaven of the Pharisees” in the early “80’s” It captured the Spirit of our movement rather well: begun with the highest of intentions, now sunk into the debasement of human reason and manmade law to the extent that doctrines are more important than the scriptures themselves. It is time to begin again and the “change agents” are leading the way.