from nate's perspective...

most of the time i write these blogs from my point of view, but today i read nate mellum's point of view on a note he'd written on facebook about last night's community group. it was so challenging and encouraging to read the wisdom and insight that God gave him, i thought i'd share it.


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"Church Decision-making"

Today at work I had a lot of time to sit, read and think.

Last night at Community we had a lot of back and forth on a certain issue, a new issue, a new possible step for the group and Christ's body. At first, to me anyways, it seemed that we were in agreement. I felt empowered by the Spirit, I could see that others felt the same.

It took me a few minutes to realize that not everyone was feeling the same way.

My first reaction to other ideas was...well, nothing. I had no reaction. Because, besides being slightly curious as to what the differing opinions were, I didn't care. I wasn't being unloving, just not as loving as a family should be. I was not embracing how the Spirit could be working on other people. I new what was right, which is a good place to be, but I didn't seek compassion for others because I was so assured. It was brought up at one point, that the body should only make a decision when everyone is in agreement. I didn't give it much thought at the time (mainly because I couldn't think of Scripture that supported either way), and I can't remember what was said afterwards, but my feeling is that it was generally put down.

The church should be in complete agreement (in decision making), God revealed that to me today. (Romans 15:5-6, 1 Cor. 1:10, 2 Cor. 13:11)

In Acts 1:14 and 4:32 it describes the body as being of "one mind" and "of one heart and soul". Someone mentioned this phrase to me last night and I had to step back and look at it. How could we possibly hope to obtain this one-mindedness in our body if we don't seek to be of one accord in decision making? If we take the Scriptural description of the church as a human body: Christ is the head and we are the members (Eph. 1:22-23). I'm going to say that we all seek the head, Christ's will, in our gathering. I believe we do. He guides and leads the body. If we believe that we are all seeking His will, then there must be a reason that Christ compels people in slightly different directions in regards to one decision. To teach us to not do as democracy and the world does: railroad the people that are in the minority, but instead, to love. If the body moved ahead to do something without everyone being in agreement (not necessarily equal in enthusiasm), we would be denying what the Head was telling all of us, as a whole. Consequently, we wouldn't be able to function to our full potential as a body. In the human body sense, the legs may be walking in two different directions. (Being complete agreement even eliminates gossip and bitterness.)

John describes God as love. 1 John 4:8: "...God is love." In order to love there must be others to love. God is love, because God is a communal being. The Trinity is the perfect image of what the church should be like, in a relational sense. God, Jesus, and the Spirit, all have different functions and are in a sense, different. But they are of one mind. One being, three aspects. They are in complete agreement all the time, they do not disagree. (John 17:20-21). The more unified the church becomes, the more like the Trinity we become.

"But how is it possible for humans to reach complete agreement...we're human?" Because we are lead by the Divine being, the ultimate high priest, our head, Christ. If we don't all agree, and then move forward, we deny His authority and ability to lead.

-Nate

p.s. As a side note...I found it very neat about how we handled the difference in opinions. Despite not accepting as a group that we should be in complete agreement, I felt, we embraced those that were being lead otherwise. Because of our love for each other, we were not at ease until we had sought out those that were hurting! And by the end of the night, as far as I know, we were in agreement! We were led by Christ yet again; our love for each other "saved" us, so to speak from hurt feelings.