Sacrificing the Shepherd on the Altar
Those (insert explicative here) Baptists! They can’t seem to play nice with each other. Every few years a big stink happens in the church and they split. Why is that?
Why do we sacrifice the shepherd on the altar whenever the congregation sins? Now this is not to say that the pastor is free of wrongdoing. In our situation, I believe that all sides were at fault. The blame was shared and there was no “winner” or “loser.” We all lost on this one.
The good news with our church, though, is that nobody outside our walls knows that we exist, so we won’t be dragging Jesus’ name through the mud as far as the community goes. The problem with that is we haven’t been effective in our ministry for some time.
We haven’t been effective in our love for each other.
We haven’t been effective in our prayer lives.
We haven’t been effective in caring for the community.
We haven’t been effective in confronting sin in our own lives.
We’ve got to be careful not to slap somebody in the face with the plank in our own eye when we’re trying to get the speck out of theirs.
FBC Hebron has been trying to “keep going” for too long. Status quo isn’t good enough. FBCH needs to change from the inside out. The hearts of the people (all the people, myself included) and the vision of where the church is headed needs to change.
We had our 125th anniversary a couple years ago and all I heard was talk of the past, which was what we were celebrating. It’s great to talk about rich church history of FBCH, but nobody talked about the next 125 years. It broke my heart.
After yesterday’s business meeting, my heart is not only broken, but it may have stopped. The meeting was horrendous. With the blatant disregard for leadership, the mass chaos that ensued with people yelling at one another — all the while claiming that God is not the author or confusion, but of peace — God was not the author of that business meeting.
I think all sides need to repent. I think we all need to come together for some prayer and fasting.
I don’t think we should sacrifice the shepherd on the alter. Jesus, the spotless lamb was already sacrificed for us. Let’s not loose sight of that and let’s not lose sight of the real enemy — Sin.