We live in a very litigious society today. Everybody is looking for something wrong with the church and they want very little discipline or they will sue. In fact, we hardly even use our COG Minute Book anymore because it means little to most people today, even some of our leaders. One of the things that I had to commit to when I became a credentialed minister was that I would contend for the faith and uphold the teachings and beliefs of the COG. All that we stand for and believe is listed in our Book of Minutes. Yet, I found out as a pastor that many of our members do not even know the simplest things that we believe in or very little about our heritage.
I will confess that we are guilty as an organization of being either extremely right or extremely left. Some in leadership desire you to tow the line, dot every I and cross every T, and walk step by step according to the by-laws of the church. Some, on the other hand, just play it by ear and do their own thing, unless someone makes a stink about it. We have gone through leaders in our own state who have gone from one extreme to another since I have been pastoring and unless you play the game, you get left out in the cold. Does it make it right? No, but for many in our church leadership they wonder which way it should go. Do I play the game, get the promotion, and become blind to some of the things that happen around me or do I stand my ground, live by the Word of God, and uphold the COG minutes? Quite a contrast that should not be in the church, but it typically is in today's world.
We are not the only denomination that goes thru this. I have spoken with other ministers in other organizations who face the same things that we do. Their Codes of Discipline and Conduct have been misrepresented to mean one thing for clergy and another for members. They are required at times to forsake their integrity to appease a situation rather than deal with it by their Codes of Conduct and Discipline. I believe this is the great falling away Jesus spoke of in the last days. Because the love of many has waxed cold what the church says and stands for doesn't really matter anymore. Ministers and laity alike are suffering because of this because it has brought confusion into the church like never before.
Everybody wants to get ahead and everybody wants to be right. But even the smartest men outside and inside the church realized there had to be some guidelines to keep our egos in check and some disciplines to help make us into disciples. Instead of knowing how we should operate and function we are seeking after acceptance rather then discipleship. A disciple knows what he or she believes in and the sacrifice that it took to get to where they are with God. They understood there were some guidelines that would prepare them to dig deeper into God's Word and abide by it. They knew that being somebody's buddy or pal wasn't the way, but that there was one who prepared the way that they must follow.
You cannot legislate holiness, but you can sure know the way to survive if your develop the right disciplines in your life. To do that you need the Word of God and some guidelines to go by. I have said this hundreds of times in the past few years, "If we have our church minutes, let's use them. If that is our guideline, let's enforce them. If it's not, and it's left up to personal interpretation, then let's abandon them. They either work for all or work for none." When you are more afraid of getting sued than you are in upholding what you believe, something is wrong. Our fear of litigation has weakened our structure to the point that the devil is taking advantage of us. Others have abused their authorities and powers so much that these guidelines seem like bitter weights placed upon their people. Still others have ignored what these Guidelines say and have come up with things that don't even exist to handle their business. Something has to change within us if we want to restore the church to health again. It's not going to be a generation that accepts the canned answer, "We've always done it this way." They want to know why we believe what we believe and see us enforce it. We cannot let fear rule the day, but we must conquer fear with truth and honor what we believe.
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