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Church Division
James 4 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
I'm trying to review this verse in light of some issues that have been ongoing in my church and some conversations I have had with some members and so I'd like some input on some questions.
A bit of background is that our pastor is trying to build our church, attract younger members. Before he came, we were a dead church of about 40 to 60 members, lifeless, doing no good in the community, but helping one another, visiting each other in the hospitals, etc. So this goes to something I mentioned elsewhere about where's the love in the church.
Yet now we are a church of about 250 to 300 members, doing coat drives to give coats the poor, operating a food pantry and feeding local families, doing community projects meant to bring awareness of our church and food pantry to the community and reach the lost.
So, is there a happy medium? Now some in the church are feeling no love because we're focusing so much on the community and yet the community didn't know we existed and got NOTHING from us previously.
It is becoming a battle of over 60 vs. under 60 basically. So here are some complaints.
- No one visits at the hospitals. Yet the leadership designed Lifegroups so that we break out of the large church setting and get into smaller groups where we can make closer ties with a smaller portion of the membership, pray for one another and go and visit one another in our times of need. Yet many don't join Lifegroups. Out of a 250-300 membership, perhaps 60 - 100 attend regular Lifegroup sessions.
- Disrespect. There is a clash of wills going on. You have the younger people who like their loud music. They carry coffee into the sanctuary and hide it under the pew to get awake in the morning. The older crowd who says the loud music hurts their ears and they think coffee in the sanctuary is disrespectful to God. Yet the younger folks are typically the ones cleaning up the sanctuary and spending massive hours there working on the sound system, setting up and tearing down chairs for events, building and designing sets for Bible School and so on.
Currently we have 3 Lifegroups going on simultaneously on Sunday night. Two are Bible studies, where most are over 60. One of them are the older generation type and they feel the loud video playing in the gym for the Zumba class is disrespectful to the ones in the non-soundproofed classrooms holding a Bible study. If they go to the sanctuary to hold it, they won't have tables to put their books on and they can't have their snacks. If they stay where they are, 31 people in the gym for Zumba and volleball need to figure out how to exercise and play a game without noise. I attribute part to a poorly designed church building, yet what can be done? Perhaps hold Zumba and volleyball on another night and yet their are other functions the gym is used for those nights.
Now there is also a second Lifegroup, also over 60, with only 3 to 5 members, and I've heard no complaints from them. Those are the younger at heart elderly people who always have a smile and seem to get along with the younger crowd.
So IS there some happy medium? Is this a church that has stopped walking in love or a difference in generational cultures? Is it disrespect from the young, complaining from the elderly or a mixture of the two? There should be unity in the church and if there is not, what can be done other than find another church. But if you like that church and the people there, and yet you seem assaulted from both sides about it, what do you do?
I've had several elderly people bring up to me the absence of chairs in the atrium. They feel that's disrespectful, that old people can't walk that far without sitting down to rest. Ummm, they walk from their car to the doctor's office? So I'm told, but someone would help them in...I've not seen that happen at a doctor's office, and yet our greeters at the church help them into the church. I've been pecked and asked to ask people beside me to take their coffee cups out of the sanctuary. Pecked during worship and asked to tell someone to stop talking. Been told that we're being disrespectful and disruptive of the classes with the Zumba and volleyball. I am enjoying those yet I am not the leader of those and do not control the volume, though I did pass it along to the one who does that we might need to keep the volume down. I feel sometimes I want to erect a wall around me at church so that no one can peck me and disrupt my worship or offer a complaint...and then wonder where my negativity stems from. Isn't that negativity as well?
Anyone see the solutions? What goes on in your churches? How do you combine youth and elderly in unity? And if you have no control over it, how do you respond to those bringing it at you constantly? How do you not feel bad trying to enjoy Zumba and volleyball with a group of church family having just gone through a 5 minute devotional and prayer, and worry whether or not you're disturbing another hour long class?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Seek on
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Uhhhh LOL I find it so appropriate. I've never listened to Francis Chan. Heard him once I think. But today I've been listening to his sermons, and the one I'm on now, he just said:
When I look at church in America, there's so many of you, let's face it, you'll only particpate if everything's just right, you gotta have the right speaker, the right music, the right people. You gotta have the right programs, the right time of day, can't be too long, better be something good going on for the kids over there. You better have something at the church where I can just find people who are exactly like me, with personalities I enjoy and I'll fellowship with just them. Everything's gotta be just right for you.
When God Doesn't Listen - Francis Chan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRGi8IxWyTM) -
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Permalink Reply by Tammy on
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I think if the churches I attended turned back to the more traditional, I would probably leave. I love some old hymns but praise & worship is my favorite. But, if the Lord wanted me to stay, I would tolerate it I guess & just listen to K-Love more.
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I can't STAND K-Love.
Now that that got your attention. ROFL
I never have been able to stand radio because they play songs I don't know and I cannot sing along and they have commercial and yak breaks. I've always preferred 8 tracks, cassettes, CDs, MP3s. You people under 40 ignore the 8 track part. Those under 30 pay no mind to cassettes, the under 20 group can act like they didn't see the term CDs.
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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on
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Tammy,
So would a lot of other people. Yet the point stands that it is expected that the older folk change for the younger, but if the coin is flipped would the younger change for the older??? I believe, without any data to go on but opinion, the numerical exodus of young people would surpass the numerical exodus/transfer of the older people if the coin were flipped.
Thus, my question (not to you specifically) is is it right to expect the older group to do most or all of the changing?
Again, for me, I could worship in mosy any style, anywhere.
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We're probably divided in thirds...over 55, under 25 and the middle. And it seems like the over 55 and under 25 groups have a minor segment each. The middle group tends to go with the flow either way. Of the over 55 I can perhaps count maybe 15-20 out of around maybe 60 regulars who don't have issues with the worship music or activities. And about the same for the youth that don't have issues with the elderly. These are the ones willing to get them the comfortable chairs and help them set up for special classes, the ones who do most of the helping out in the church. It seems a people perhaps and not an age issue then. Since there are a number from each group who seem to get along in either direction and try to accommodate one another.
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Well, I was raised Southern Baptist with the choirs, organs & pianos. I liked it then for the most part. I loved singing in the choir. I still miss singing in the choir. I have been on the praise teams but it's still not the choir. No, they shouldn't be the ones changing the most. After I responded, I felt really bad that I said I would leave because unless the Lord wanted me to, I'd like to think I would stay. The music shouldn't make that decision for me. I should not have just jumped to that conclusion right away. I too can worship with all of it as well except the rock, metal or rap. I just can't do those. For one, I can't understand them. But, who knows, the Lord can work thru anything. If He can get the rocks to cry out, I suppose I could too at some metal. With Him, all things are possible. As far as the older crowds, I know many churches who give both. One service is the traditional one while the other one is the contemporary one. I think that's a great thing to do personally. OK. I've been all over the map with this reply so I think I'll shut up now.
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The two services is a great option if you are big enough, but even then you have those who complain that the church is divided ... go figure :-)
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