Undivided

Please note that the following are my own opinions and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the staff or Executive Council, or any official position of Advent Christian General Conference.

I’ve been reading the recent posts on A.C. Voices with interest. I too listened to the panel discussion on denominational restructuring at the triennial convention. Although I was not surprised by the diversity of opinions presented, there was more consensus between the participants than I had anticipated. Comments were made about the need for unity of purpose at all levels of our denomination. Others noted that the question “What is an Advent Christian?” is often answered in terms of relationships. That ties in with things I’ve observed just in the past few weeks, and which I shared with my church following the convention...

For the past decade or so I have been attending the Appalachian Region Family Camp. This year in particular I realized that most of my closest friendships are people that I have gotten to know through the camp. That is somewhat ironic given that my own church has not really promoted or participated in Family Camp. There have been several years when I was the only one from my church who attended. As a result, my friends tend to be from other A.C. churches, while many members of my church may not know any Advent Christians outside our congregation. (I’m not passing judgment on any of the church members or those who have served in leadership. I’m just stating the facts.)

Those relational connections were reinforced for me during the Appalachian Regional Meeting following camp. It was reported that five churches in the Piedmont Conference are currently searching for pastors, including my own church. When we are isolated from other churches, it can feel like we are on our own or, at best, competing with other churches for the few pastors available. But when I know and love people at those other churches, I want each them to find the right pastor, and I hurt for them in the times of loss and disappointment. I pray for God’s direction and provision for them as well as for my own church.

Those kinds of relationships at the conference and regional levels don’t happen by accident. As with relationships within the local church, we need unhurried and unstructured time together to find our connections and unity in Christ. That is usually the biggest area of feedback on the triennial conventions—the available time and space for fellowship. For some people it is a reunion with college classmates, but for many of us it’s connecting with people we’ve gotten to know through camps, summer ministries, other churches, and extended family. (Our multigenerational A.C.s are all related somehow!)

However, the convention also revealed some relational disconnects as well. Only 23% of our churches sent delegates, and only 65% of our conferences sent delegates. Two small conferences had neither church nor conference representation. In addition, as I shared in my report to the delegate body, about two-thirds of churches participate in Penny Crusade, a little over half give to United Ministries, but one quarter do neither one. I have not yet correlated delegate representation with individual church giving trends; however, if churches are not contributing financially to denominational activities and they don’t feel the need to send people to the business meetings, that raises a lot of questions. Perhaps it goes back to asking them what it means for them to be Advent Christian.

Tom Loghry has already commented on the multitude of committees and boards that need filled at each church, conference, regional, and denominational level. That challenge is exacerbated by the number of churches that choose not to participate or even mention activities outside their local community. It has often been said that the pastor is the gatekeeper of the church, and if he or she doesn’t share events or fundraisers with the church board and congregation, there’s little that anyone else can do about it. As I imagine most denominations would say, we could have the best structure in the world but still be declining in numbers if each church is not involved and invested.

So as we look to the future, I don’t think restructuring is the best or only answer. I’m all for eliminating redundancy and unnecessary committees, but that only addresses one piece of the problem. From my own experience, establishing and nurturing relationships are an absolute necessity. As I write often in my blog posts, God didn’t call us into relationship with Himself alone, but He made us members of His Body, united throughout all time and space for the purpose of loving Him, loving one another, and loving the world by sharing the Gospel. I am increasingly convinced that the local church is insufficient for these things. We need frequent reminders that we really do need one another.

“In [Christ] the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord… There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 2: 21, 4:4-6).

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

On Alert

Several times recently I’ve had conversations with friends about the subject of biblical discernment. Scripture uses the Greek word diakrino in a variety of ways, and English translations include distinguish, discern, judge, or separate. Two verses in particular are:

“…to another the ability to distinguish between spirits…” (1 Cor. 12:10).

“But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 5:14).

The first of those is one of the lists of spiritual gifts. The Network Spiritual Gifts inventory describes discernment this way:

“The gift of Discernment is the divine enablement to distinguish between truth and error. It is able to discern the spirits, differentiating between good and evil, right and wrong... truth and error... accurately judging character; seeing through phoniness or deceit; helping others to see rightness or wrongness in life situations.”

One of the more obvious examples in the Bible comes from Acts 5:1-4 in the story of Ananias and Sapphira. The Apostle Peter knew that they were being deceptive in reporting how much they earned on the sale of some property, because the Holy Spirit somehow revealed it to him. Peter reminded them, and everyone else, that though they might deceive men, they could not deceive God.

In the church today, I’m not sure most people understand or know what to do with the gift of discernment. When we’re young we are often told we are to obey our leaders without question. We come to trust our teachers and pastors and others in authority, so when they trust someone else, we generally do too. But as we’ve seen in a multitude of church scandals in recent years, not every Christian leader is worthy of trust. Many people have been deceived and wounded by those who claimed to represent God. Many times the truth doesn’t come out until years later, because people rightly fear that no one will believe their claims.

I can think of multiple examples of people I have personally met who immediately raised suspicions in my spirit, but for no clear reason I could describe at the time. I ignored or shelved my feelings because other people trusted those men. In each case, truths later came out that revealed years of inappropriate and sinful words and behavior. Now I am much quicker to listen to that “sixth sense” and seek to understand what the Holy Spirit may be revealing.

One time I was standing in line at a fast food restaurant and suddenly knew something about two people who were several feet ahead of me in line, even though I couldn’t hear anything they said and couldn’t even see their faces. When they turned around there was clear evidence that what I suspected actually was true. It was odd at the time to know something about people I had never met and would never speak to, but I understood it as God’s reminder to me that He knows our hearts even if no one else does.

Those who do have the gift of discernment need to take it seriously and act as the Spirit leads—carefully and graciously uncovering hidden sins that may endanger other people or cause dissension and division in the church. Our goal should always be the glory of God and the welfare of His people, including those who may be deceiving themselves about the state of their own hearts.

“And [Jesus] said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God’” (Luke 16:15).

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

It All Adds Up

I keep a list of possible topics for my blog though I don’t often go back and use them. However, one caught my eye today— “Relationships are our greatest asset.” I think we can all agree that there are few blessings in life that are quite as valuable as our close relationships with friends and family. But from an accounting perspective, our greatest assets are also our greatest liabilities. Nothing hurts nearly as much as broken or wounded relationships. It’s also true that every relationship is unique. So when one relationship is hurt, although others can help to compensate for the loss, they never really replace the damaged one.

To toss in another accounting idea, we often forget about the return on investment for relationships. Close relationships require a significant investment of time and energy, especially at the beginning. Once that investment has been made then there is greater benefit experienced, and even small amounts of time with those we love are more valuable than longer periods with those we don’t yet know well. Oftentimes in the church it seems like we are unwilling to make the initial investment in relationships, so we never get the full benefit from our brothers and sisters in Christ that we could.

We also need to remember that all relationships require an ongoing investment of time. You can’t stop paying your insurance premiums and expect to keep the same level of benefit forever, and you can’t stop talking to your friends and expect the relationships to remain intact.

In a recent XPastor webinar, Warren Bird commented that “Trust is built in drops, but lost in buckets.” Although he was talking about organizational leadership, the same applies to individuals. We build trust in relationships slowly, but it can be lost very quickly by careless words, disagreements, and other challenges. When those buckets fall, it takes a new investment to rebuild what has been lost.

When it comes to relationships, I tend think of Job. It’s often been said that his friends did a good job before they started talking.

“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this… they raised their voices and wept... and they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great” (2:11,13).

But once they started speculating on the reasons for his suffering, Job said,

“My relatives have failed me, my close friends have forgotten me… Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!” (19:14, 21).

Having been through a variety of pains in relationships lately, it’s tempting to just quit on people. It’s hard to keep expending effort on those who never seem to respond. (I suppose many of those who are parents feel the same way.) Current culture tends to favor looking out for yourself and giving up on difficult relationships. But for Christians, since we’re commanded to love even our enemies (Matt. 5:44), pulling away from our Christian brothers and sisters is usually not an option. The only exception given in Scripture is for those who claim to be Christians but are living in ongoing, unrepentant sin (1 Cor. 5:11). It is far too easy in our “pick-a-church” culture to walk away when things get hard rather than enduring with one another and working through the hard times together. We are called to a higher standard of loving others as God loved us (1 John 4:9-11). May we all make the effort to do so!

“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection... Live in harmony with one another... If possible so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:9-10, 16, 18).

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.