Putting Down Other Churches/Pastors/Leaders/Methods just because they’re different from what you and your church do.
I’m tired of hearing fundamentalist pastors put down seeker churches. I’m tired of hearing emerging pastors put down traditional churches. Whether you like it or not, we’re supposed to be on the same team. So you don’t like that the preacher across town teaches more than he screams, if people are coming to Christ as a result of that church, get over it. Otherwise, you aren’t preaching the Bible, you’re preaching division in the body of Christ. Focus on the community and the people you are called to reach and quit worrying about what someone else is doing, even if you don’t approve. That’s why I love Fellowship Church’s C3 conference. They bring in speakers from different denominations and styles; from traditional to contemporary, emerging to post-modern, because even if those speakers have disagreements over the methods used, they all agree on one thing: Jesus.
I mean, sure, there are some very specific non-negotiables of the Christian faith: sin is the problem, Jesus is the answer, the Bible is true and Hell is hot. But if you agree on all that, does it matter if you wear a suit to church? Does it matter if the songs you sing are 200 years old or 2 days old?
As long as Jesus is glorified nothing else matters.
To sum it up, I have an unusual analogy. I read an interview in a magazine back in 1999 or 2000 where Bill Goldberg was asked what he saw as the reason for WCW’s drop in ratings, revenue, popularity, etc. and what he said was rather interesting; “Instead of focusing on our product and doing the best we can do to make our TV shows and PPV’s the best they can be, we keep comparing ourselves to the WWF and their product.” For those that don’t watch wrestling, the WWF (now WWE) ended up buying WCW in 2001. While there were thousands of factors that contributed to WCW’s demise, everything led back to one word: priorities. And that is a problem I see in a lot of churches – their priorities are all screwed up.
So what’s your main priority; Jesus, or something else?
