How to Have a Godly Argument

The church at Corinth was a mess.  The people came from Jewish and Gentile backgrounds, including many which combined religious fervor and moral apathy.  For that reason,  there was a constant  string of arguments.  The church was so quarrelsome, that they wrote their old pastor Paul to help sort it all out.  The result of this was 1 and 2 Corinthians.  These book are a catalog of quarrels, some petty and some important.  Paul writes in 1 Cor 1:10 

"I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought."

Some people liked Paul better than Apollos, or Peter better than  Paul.  Then there was some wise guy (there always is) who says "Yeah,  well I'm on Jesus' side." 

Paul shows no interest in who's right or wrong.  He's  only interested in the spirit behind it.  1 Cor 2:12-15

"We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.  The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment."

Paul recognizes what is really going on here.  This isn't about who is right or wrong but who is important or unimportant it's about power and status,  not truth.  

Disagreements and differences of opinions are healthy things.  Giving and receiving criticism benefits the giver and the receiver, if it is taken in the right spirit.  In an argument,  either both win or both lose. We either come to a greater mutual understanding or we do not.  But the quarrels in most churches are about one group getting mastery over  another. In Corinth, the self important co-opted the reputations of Peter, Paul, and Apollos, not to mention Jesus,  to support their own moral and intellectual superiority.

Paul reminds them that if we are Spiritual, we don't need to be proven right or wrong. Our self-worth comes from Jesus, not our status in the church.  1 Cor 2:14

"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

If we don't have the Spirit,  we are forever looking for validation from being right or being accepted. We look for proof we are better than others by winning arguments or getting authority. 

Arrogance and humility cannot coexist. We are either proud or submissive to the Spirit.  We can't be both at the same time.

Then Paul goes on to other problems.  In chapter 6,  Paul talks about the lawsuits between believers. They ought to be able to settle it among themselves, he says.  But it isn't the lawsuit itself that is his proof of their unspirituality.  It is their need for it.   1 Cor 6:7-8

"The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?  Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers. "

Lawsuits are a form of warfare.  If we have to sue and defend ourselves against lawsuits from brothers, then we have already been defeated, since we have lost fellowship with our brothers.  We have already lost our spiritual authority.

There were many arguments in Corinth--about hair,  meat,  worship styles,  spiritual gifts,  communion.  Paul never suggests that they should not have those arguments.  In fact, Paul doesn't mind entering the debate himself.  But what is more important to him is how we have them.  If our debate is founded on a loving relationship, then we  can grow closer through the debate. But when arguments drive us apart,  we are nonspiritual.  We do not have the Spirit of God.    

Disagreements are not our problem.  Or problem is valuing trivialities over people.  The goal of the Christian life is not to have answers for every question, but to love God with all our hearts, and to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves.  It's better to lose an argument than to lose a friend.  

Sheep Feeding

I came across a quote from C S Lewis' book Letters to Malcolm in Richard Foster's book on prayer  "Jesus told Peter,  'feed my sheep,' not 'try experiments on my lab rats.'"

How true!  Pastors often forget what a pastor is. Basically, we are keepers of the sheep. 

We are called to feed them, care for them,  help them.  We are not called upon to drive them like a team of horses,  or experiment on them like guinea pigs, or to use them as fertilizer by a leader to grow a church.  We are called to care for the sheep God has given us.

Pastors frequently come down with the disease of "holy ambition."  I say "holy" because that is how Christians leader typically excuse their own ambition.  If we want a bigger church,  we can justify it as winning the lost.  If we want a big career with lots of followers, we can justify it as utilizing our gifts.  If we want to remake the church as images of our own egocentric vision, we are just fulfilling our call.  It's easy for us assume that the people we serve exist for the purpose of serving our purposes and not theirs.

But Jesus didn't call us to feed sheep.  To me, that means two things.

First we are called to acknowledge that the people we serve in our churches are  our flock, and not our servants.

Suppose you had a dog, but you decided you wanted cat.  You could staple whiskers on him, stick him in a tree, and teach him to say "meow"  it would not be a cat. It is by nature a dog. 

No amount of training will make lambs into lions.  Only God can do that.

Sheep do not have a purpose in life beyond being sheep. They will give their wool, but they are not treated like cattle or hunting dogs.  Most of all to be left alone in green pastures and still waters.

But what about the Great Commission (some will say)?  Jesus called us to go into the world and make disciples--that is, sheep of Jesus.  The Great Commission is not a call to build our own kingdoms, but to introduce people to the true, good Shepherd.  Church leaders will seldom lay down their lives for the sheep, but often leave the flock at the first hint that things may not go their way.  But the Good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, whether or not they do what He says.  He doesn't leave because some bigger flock is calling. 

Second, our job is to feed them that means to preach, teach, minister, and visit for their benefit, not for the benefit of others.

If we want to know what sheep need, look in the Bible.    In  Psalm 23, one of God's sheep lets us know what the Good Shepherd ought to do.

• I shall not want--The shepherd has my needs and wants in mind.  I have security,  knowing that the shepherd is doing his best to provide my needs and wants.

• He leads me in green pastures and still waters--the food he gives is pleasant and easily accessible. I don't have to work hard to get it.  He lays it out clearly and easily.
• He leads me in righteousness--He keeps me from straying the wrong way.  He doesn't let me go to far up the mountain, so I  lose my fooding, nor does he let me stray into the valley, where I can be devoured, but he keeps me on the straight an d narrow.  Step by step, he shows me the right path through life.
• He keeps me from fear--when I am in scary places in life,  He walks with me.  He doesn't take the danger from me, but he defends me and comforts me when I am in danger.
• He assists in my healing.  Anointing oil is medicine. Is presence is medicine to me,  and comforts me in trouble. 

• He uses his rod and staff.  He's not always gentle, but if I need it, he can give me a lashing.  More often, though he draws me back from danger, not drives me away.

• He stands with me in danger.  He recognizes that I live in a dangerous world, but he teaches me not to be afraid.  Instead, gives me valuable advice to sustain me in the rough patches of life.
• He takes me to my final destination. Nothing about the journey matters if I wind up in the wrong place.  Thanks to the Shepherd, I am going to make it home safely.  That’s what shepherds are for.

Feed God's sheep. Don't drive them, don't beat them, don't use them. Let God take care of them, they way He takes care of you. 

The Strength of Synod

Next week may be my last Synod.  The price of attendance has gone up form thirty to fifty-eight dollars.  I have just spent almost two hundred dollars on a hotel room.   When  food and gas are included in the price it should be over three hundred.  Besides the price,  in the future I may not be able to reschedule my classes to accommodate the time away.

 All in all, not much that happens on the floor seems worth the trouble. The impact of most of the speeches, greetings, presentations, urging, encouraging, rebuking,  informing, and thanking will last about as long as the wind it takes to pass them.  Only what effects the actual running of local churches or church institutions makes any difference.  The rest is pageantry.

Thinking back over my last thirty-two Synods, the one thing that I would truly miss are the people I have met. They are truly important, and usually have made the trip worthwhile.

What difference would it make if Synod were to dissolve tomorrow?  Would a single church close if it did?  Last fall I watched four  churches close, yet few of their members remain unchurched today, and those who have not yet found new churches are still going,  visiting around.  They have not stopped going to church, they are just been attending different churches. Any American Christian should be able to find a church.  Any church within our denomination ought to be able to find some Reformed body who would welcome them.  As an institution, we are simply not as important as we think. 

But if the ARP church dissolved, the true sadness of it would not be in the loss of institutions,  but the  disruption of friendships. If this is my last Synod, it would be the people I  would miss, not the institution.

Synod has been for me a time of sorrows and joy.  My thirty-two Synods have been a succession of friendships gained, lost, regained, and gone--colleagues of my  youth have moved on, retired, or simply passed away. There have been times when I have gone up the mountain to celebrate with my friends . Other times, I have gone up sadly, ashamed to meet my brothers, needing their kind words.  Sometimes, I have gone up the hill angry,  but I have always knew that there were people there who knew me, and I them.  This made me feel happy to come,  regardless of the circumstances. 

I have enjoyed the stories of people I have just met, the opportunities to  pray for others and to be prayed for, the chance to network  and share ideas.  Synod has been a place where I could meet heart to heart and soul to soul, and know together the love of God reflected in others.

What happens under the trees and in the dining hall is what Synod is really about, much more than what happens on the floor.  It is the most truly ARP thing about us.

Faith is about relationships--relationship to God and relationships to others.  The business  on the floor is about defending the status quo or reforming institutions, about worrying over money and power and other worthless things,  squeezing and fussing over particulars, so we can go on being institutions.  The structure quickly overcomes the purpose, like a family  that is more concerned about the house they live in than the home inside.  Like that family, we go on fighting over the color of the drapes and the condition of the carpet, neglecting the spiritual and emotional conditions of those we love so we can "get things done." 

Church is a great place to go if you want to run away from God--that is, if you  reduce the Body of Christ to an institution, members of of the Body reduced to church members, shepherd reduced to an office and Christ reduced to a symbol.  The official church moves on,  without the power to touch or heal anyone. In spite of our institutional order, though, the Body of Christ abides and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. 

The strength of Synod has very little to do with what we do, but in what we choose to be--brothers and sisters  gathered in a caring community.  This is what makes us different from all other bodies I know.  We actually see each other face to face once a year.   When we forget the importance of these relationships and think of a denominational meeting as a theology class, debating society, or (God forbid) a political body,  we usually end up doing more harm than good.  When we let our strength, shine, though, Synod becomes a positive experience.

Practicing the Presence of People

One writer who has greatly blessed me in his writings is Peter Scazzero.  Some time back I discovered his book The Emotionally Healthy Church, and thought it was the best thing I read on the importance of emotions in church life.  His follow up, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality,  though is much, much better. Scazzero relates our emotions to the spiritual disciplines.  In it he approaches the spiritual life in a practical and moving way.

One phrase Scazzero uses in discussing the disciplines of love stands out in my mind -- practicing the presence of people.  

I am well familiar with Brother Lawrence's devotional classic, The Practice of the Presence of God.  If you aren't, get it and read it immediately!  Brother Lawrence makes the point that we should strive at all times in all places to have an awareness of God with us,  whether we are washing dishes, raking leaves, or in prayer. 

Scazzero makes the same point about people.  We should also strive to have a constant ,immediate awareness of the people who surround us.  Modern urban society, with the necessary crowding of strangers together,  tends to make us defensive of strangers. We close off our minds so we look though them, not at them.  As a result,  people become less than human.

We need to always be aware that the people who inhabit our space are people like ourselves, having the same sins, hopes, dreams,  joys, comforts, and loves that we do.  They are made in God's image, just as we are.  They are also broken, fallible, frightened,  hurt,  happy,  and loved by God just as we are.

The opposite of practicing the presence of people  is the political mindset.  The political world view is seeing the world in terms of power--either power to help us or to hurt us.  We  either see others as votes, influences, or obstacles in our way, which must be manipulated,  maintained, or removed.

We see that view in the church all the time.  In our recent problems, we have reduced the other side to a political, not a human entity, allowing us the illusion that we can be a complete Body of Christ without them.  We can push them out of our circle without remorse, because we do not recognize their humanity.

But we are called to love our enemies, not destroy them.  We are called to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, not influence or dominate them.  We have to quit looking at one another as objects to help or oppose our side, and simply see them as people, for whom Jesus died.

Sit in a crowded room. Close your eyes. Listen to the conversations around you, without judging or prying, just listen. You will hear the hopes, dreams,  unhappiness, and happiness of everyone there.  Talk to people and let them carry the conversation. You will hear what Henri Nouwen once said, that there is infinite depth in a single human soul.  But when we see them only as means to an end,  we dehumanize them.

I have always felt this way about the church--it isn't new.  People who look to the past with nostalgia often forget that other people do not share their warm feelings about their personal past.  They will fight to keep things as they are, even if it means driving newcomers away. The newcomers don't count, in their opinion.  Contemporary churches, who insist that people who cherish the past are unimportant, do the same things. Others feelings don't matter.  Both sides think of their own comfort as more important than the comfort and well being of others.

Doctrinal and church disputes should not be trivialized. But neither should they be an excuse for  callousness.  People count and their opinions count--even those with whom we disagree. 

We can't stop disagreeing, nor can we stop defending what we think to be right.  But even then, we can still learn to practice the presence of people. 

What;s Right With the Church, What's Wrong With It, and How to Fix it

The other night, I attended a banquet where the featured speaker was a well known local radio personality,  who is on a one-man crusade against the organized church.  Although a committed Christian,  he has been so burned by the organized church that he rails against it on a regular, weekly basis. 

After the banquet we fell into a long conversation.  To my surprise I found myself agreeing with most  of what he had to say.  Although my experiences have been slightly more positive than his,  much of what he says is true.  Christ's church has ceased to be an organism and has become an organization,  with all the political and material demands of being an organization.  The church as it exists on earth has to deal with money,  power,  and appearances, which means it is continually falling into corruption, greed, and power politics.  It has become for many a bureaucracy of the soul,  a Department of Motor Vehicles with better music.

If you are reading this and saying "Yes, that is true for the church down the street, but not mine." Think it over.  Who says that a small church cannot be just as impersonal and  vain as a big one, or that a church which flees the trappings of traditional spirituality cannot get caught up in the same machinations that sapped the life out of the medieval church? Do we really think Presbyterians or Baptists are so pure of heart that they cannot forget why they rebelled against the Catholics in the first place, and become like them in Spirit if not in appearance?  American churches often remind me of soccer clubs in other countries,  voluntary organizations which seem to exist to compete against other organizations for bragging rights to the city.  For the truly lost and truly hurting, the church is often just one more building on the street, between the bar and the Walmart.

But for all its faults, the church has got a lot of things right, and we need to acknowledge it.  

First of all it has God on its side.  The church is still the only organization dedicated to getting out God's Word and leading people into a relationship to Him.  Can you think of another organization capable of leading people to a better life?   I can't.  Winston Churchill once said that democracy was a very bad form of government, but that all the others are so much worse.  The same can be said of the church.  Education,  entertainment,  publishing, mass media and all the other institutions that form modern society are infinitely worse, and every bit as hypocritical.   How does  government (for example) have the gall to say "we're here to help you," when everyone knows they are here to buy votes, so our elected officials can have great influence and get fat pensions.  Or how does the news  media--any news media-- have the nerve to say they are here just to report the news objectively? 

No, all of human society is corrupt, to one degree or another.  Where there is the potential for corruption, corrupt people will go. But that is a long way from saying that churches are only here to be corrupt.   A horse has a purpose and it has flies, but it does not exist for the flies.  Churches are sinful and corrupt as well, but they do not exist for that purpose alone.  When we scrape away the dirt of the world,   underneath there are still congregations of ordinary people who love God and one another, read the Bible,  and do the best they can to live clean in a dirty world.  Like a dirty child, underneath that disheveled mess  is something  beautiful and worthy of praise,  which the world cannot fully drive way, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against.

But my friend is right.  The church is deeply flawed, mainly because if has forgotten it's initial purpose.  What went wrong with the church is that it forgets that we are not of this world, and  relies on worldly programs rather than heavenly realities.  We lose our focus on heaven and  look after earthly things. Then we become obsessed with keeping our institutions running.  We pay big money for things we do not need, in order to put  on an attractive and prosperous image.  Then we must maintain that image at all cost, and we lose our passion for God.  We are a real Body of Christ though--we just act phony.

Look at the architecture of a typical church.  They are designed to create the illusion of  transcendence--high ceilings,  high pulpits,  and stained glass windows that are intended to make us look holy and grand.  If a person  dressed with such grandiloquence, we would call them pompous.  Modern churches who deliberately avoid such "churchy" designs do the same thing with  lighting tricks,  video screens and smoke machines.  All this is intended to fool the eye, and make it seem as if God were there, whether He is or not.  When you think about it, it isn't much different from a witch doctor putting on a wicker mask and dancing around a village.  We pretend to a greater intimacy with God than we actually have.

Ultimately, there is no cure for the institutional church. Those who try, wind up recreating it in some other form somewhere else.  There is, however a cure for those who are inside it.

First, we  can stop being phonies.  Let us admit that we do not have all the answers, that we are still looking for God's will, struggling to live out our faith as best we can.  There is no point in condemning our leaders, just as there is no point in following them blindly.   Let's all just be honest and open to the Spirit.  We don't know all there is to know about God, but we can seek Him.

 Second, we can quit substituting programs, which do not work, for relationships.  Jesus taught his disciples to love the lost, not develop marketing strategies. 

Third, we can love one another.  Jesus told Peter to tend His sheep, not fleece them.  Let's care more about one another as people rather than what they can do for the church.  Then maybe we'll actually start looking and acting like Jesus' church.

Four Visions of the Church

The vision of the Christian Church is to establish an ancient dream in a modern world.  Jesus said   "Upon this rock, I will build my church."
Two thousand years later, we cannot even agree on the shape of  the edifice that was supposed to go on that rock.  Will it have stained glass windows and arches?  Will it be a plain wooden box? Will it even have walls?  There has never been a definitive answer to that question.  We can only speak of a variety of answers--thousands of permutations and designs. 
I believe there are four basic church shapes,  based upon the intentions of the people who dwell in them. The true church lies somewhere in between these four shapes.
These shapes are a continuum between two intersecting axes--the cultural and missional axis.  The cultural axis is how they see themselves. The missional axis is how they see their mission to the world.  They represent four separate visions of the church's place in society.

Surfing the Wave of the Spirit

Joy and I were having a conversation the other day about churches and how they grow. This is a bad time for growing a church. For at least the past ten years, church attendance has been falling at a rate of about one percent per year. It is a time of great opposition and disinterest in religion, especially in Christianity. That, coupled with the recession has hurt all churches, especially ours.


What makes a church grow spiritually? I know those things which keep it healthy--love, the preaching of the Word, sound teaching, etc. These make a church more likely to grow. But there are plenty of loving churches where the Gospel is preached and growth is slow or nonexistent.

There are nonspiritual reasons for growth, too. Churches on main roads generally grow faster than churches on back roads. When a church reflects the needs and desires of a particular portion of the contemporary culture, it will grow, too. (There is really no one monolithic "culture" in our world, just wide collections of many cultures, leaving room for almost every kind of church to find a niche.) But this can happen whether or not God is in it, I'm afraid. Growth or lack of it is no sign of godliness.

There are other factors which are also cited for the growth of churches--relevance, purity, concern for the lost, faithfulness, and many others. All of these may have an impact on the growth of the church but none of them in themselves means that the church will grow.

Look at the Christian landscape today. How many churches are growing--I mean really growing? How many are reaching the lost in any large numbers? What we see are many congregations, offering many different techniques and styles, mostly without significant success.

Now think about the churches that are still growing today. They can be high or low church, contemporary or traditional--they can be very, very different both in practice and theology. But there is one thing they all have in common--a sense that the Holy Spirit is there.

The degree to which a church is likely to grow depends upon the expectation of the people that the Holy Spirit will move in their midst. There have to be signs and wonders, not necessarily in the Charismatic sense, but certainly in the spiritual sense. People have to see that something supernatural is going on.

People are drawn to Christ by the moving of the Holy Spirit, not by preaching or praying alone. We must ask of God, and we must see an answer. In growing churches, there is a full expectation that God will make Himself known. They come to church expectantly, not knowing what He will do next, but convinced that He will do something.

People often use sports illustrations to explain the church. Let me suggest a new one --surfing. Churches grow when they catch the wave of the Holy Spirit.

The church is not built on our own effort. It is not a race, where the strong and the fit succeed. It is not a game requiring strength and ingenuity. Church growth is an enterprise powered by the overwhelming power of God. Its force is irresistable, unstoppable, and inevitable. Our task, if we are serious about growing churches, is to look for that power and ride it. It involves less planning and less study of the world, and more planning and more study of God's intentions and actions today. We need to catch the waves. We cannot create them.

The first wave started at Pentecost. On that one day, three thousand people were added to the church. The disciples rode that wave for some time Another wave came when the church was under persecution, through the underground movement of evangelism. All through the history of the church - the Prostestant revolution, the missionary movements, the great awakenings, the holiness, pentecostal, and Charismatic movement, the Wesleyan revivals, the Moody revivals, the crusades of Billy Sunday and Billy Graham, the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, and so forth, we see the Spirit moving in waves and eddies. None of these movements last forever, any more than waves on the sea last forever. Every movement of the Spirit in the church inevitably is brought down by pride, jealousy, and heresy. The waves may crash; the tide remains. God continues to move in the church, using different people and different names. Even so, the church goes on.

As far as we are concerned today we have two choices, we can catch the wave, or miss it. We can ride the Spirit, or be knocked down by it.

If we are to grow in this generation, we must not look to restore the waves that have gone on. Nor should we try to create a wave, molded to what we think it should be. We should look, neither to the present, past, or future, but to God. We should seek Him out, to try and discern where He is working His signs and wonders today. I don't mean finding the next trend or fad, but we should genuinely seek what the move of God is. We are like surfers in the water, looking for the next big swell. When we find it, then we ride it, allowing the power of the wave to carry us forward.

What will the next wave be and when will it come? I have no idea. It is not for us to know really. But we can seek God with all our hearts, and stand eagerly before Him. If we seek to be moved by God, God will move us, and the next wave of the Spirit will come here as well.

What is a "Radical Moderate?"

The term “radical moderate” may sound like a contradiction of terms, but it is very intentional. For too long, our denominational discourse has been driven by arrogance, extremism, and ugly, judgmental attitudes on both sides. Some people will not be happy unless they have a crusade to fight.

Loving and respecting one another is not just a good idea—it is a divine command. Without love, the visible church is an unmitigated failure.

Before we begin, let’s define some terms. By “moderate” I do not mean what might be called moderate in the broader community, but as it is within the doctrines and principles of conervative Reformed Protestant Christianity. I take for granted that most of my readers agree with those principles. These principles include:

• Orthodox Christian doctrines as set down in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. Including the deity of Christ, the Trinity, salvation by grace alone, and the necessity of belief for salvation, and so forth.

• The inerrancy of the Bible in its original autographs. It is our only guide to faith and practice, and constitutes the basis for anything we say or do.

• Calvinist, Presbyterian, Reformed beliefs as set down in the Westminster Confession and the Catechisms. These are not by any means infallible, but they do constitute the best (but not perfect) expression of Biblical theology and understanding.

• Personal conversion and evangelism as the primary means of promoting God’s kingdom in the world. Salvation comes through having faith in Jesus as one’s personal Lord and Savior, not by good works, ecclesiastical ritual, or anything else.

Even for those who affirm these statements, there is still plenty of room for disagreement. We are a diverse group of believers who worship in different ways, speak different languages, and differ on a great many issues. The purity of the church demands that we hold to the essentials, but love requires that we not draw the circle of fellowship any smaller than it actually is.

We are not all the same. We are traditional and contemporary; Republican and Democrat; white and black; male and female; old and young; Scottish, Hispanic, Korean, African, Pakistani and Chinese. We are not defined by ethnic or sociological similarities, nor do we all share the same history. But we all have a right to be heard with respect.

For that reason I would suggest we add one more to the list of eternal truths above—tolerance.

Tolerance is not agreement, nor is it endorsement. It is just good manners—a commitment to treat each other as we would want to be treated. That means not exaggerating the differences between us, not engaging in combative hyperbole, and allowing others the freedom of their own conscience. Too often tolerance has been confused with wimpiness. It is anything but. Peacemakers have been historically the first to get shot. The image that best describes the moderate to me is that of Samson—as we push against both sides, we often have the roof fall on our heads. I wish that were not so, but sometimes that is the only way to bring down temples of prejudice and pride.

This blog is my way of helping to promote this peace. I am hoping that others will contribute to this blog as well. At the bottom of this post I have put a list of subjects I would be particularly interested in having others write. However, no post will be accepted that does not coincide with these values:

1. No cause is more valuable than the people involved.

2. We will discuss anything, as long as we discuss it with mutual love, respect and civility.

3. We will not question the morals or motivations of others,

4. We will not engage in name-calling, marginalizing, or labeling.

5. We will not engage in personal attacks, or denigrate those who disagree.

6. We will seek to encourage the peace and prosperity as well as the purity of the church

7. We will not put down other denominations, but will build up the whole Body of Christ.



So with that in mind, I seek your help. I am looking for people who will help by contributing to this blog. I also solicit your readership, your comments, your contributions, and your prayers.