Please Exit Peacefully

[Note: It has been characteristic in Churches of Christ that our worship music in assembly is always, only, in acappella style.

The reasoning behind this is, in a nutshell, as follows: The early church worshiped without instrumental music -- a known historical fact. The music worship of the church was exclusively acappella for the first thousand years of Christian history. Gradually, however, in an effort either to enhance the singing, substitute for the singing, or just make church music more popular, the Church universal has introduced instrumental music in the past millennium. It is a relatively recent innovation. Not everyone has accepted it. The Greek Orthodox church does not, nor do a few others, including the Church of Christ. Our goal has been to imitate the early Church in our worship, ministry, and fellowship. So . . . instrumental music has been out.

The goal of this posting however is not to argue the validity of this practice, but rather, to comment on leadership.]

Today at lunch I was told of a church where the Elders, on a Sunday morning, arose as one to make this announcement (I'm paraphrasing): "We have decided, in order to enhance our communion experience, that we will have instrumental music playing softly in the background during the Lord's Supper. We know that this will disappoint some of you, and upset others. All that we ask is, if you leave because of it, you leave peacefully."

I cannot imagine a business, in a highly competitive situation, saying to its customer base: We are going to radically change our product. We know you will not like it. We know some of you will stop being our customers. We wish you well, just don't say bad things about us."

When it comes to the Church, however, this may be one of those times when the business model doesn't fit us too well. The Church is first and foremost "family." We are the family of God. Nothing is more important than holding this family together. Those who divide it stand condemned even if their cause seems noble. A leadership willing to write off family members in order to pursue their own agenda is leading nowhere God's people need to go. What they are doing is perpetuating the cancers of self-interest and division. The next time some potentially divisive issue arises, will they say "adios" to more of their number? What they are really saying is: 'some people in this family are not important and we don't care if you come to the reunions or not.' Who would want to be a part of a family like that? How will such a church family ever really be successful in making disciples (what Jesus says is our task) when the very trait of being a disciple is that we love one another?

This takes us back to leaders focusing on the right goal. Elders, the highest level of earthly leadership in the Church, are charged with the welfare -- spiritual and physical -- of the people who comprise their church. That's it. Period. They cannot do that by kicking the sheep out of the fold, or making it difficult for them to stay. Where we go, as the Church, or as a congregation, we go together, or we don't go at all.

Like it or not, to save us all, we move at the pace of our slowest members. Until Jesus comes, the only one interested in culling the flock is Satan.

Having written all this, might there ever be a time to draw a line in the sand so to speak? That's next week.