I’m Traditionally Progressive as a Conservative Liberal

I often feel as that guy looks when I think and write about topics that are divisive and a source of arguments and contention for Christians. I’ve lived on both sides of many of these issues. When I was child, I was taught (by well-intentioned Godly men) that being conservative meant being correct and being liberal meant being wrong. I wanted to be right in the eyes of the people I loved and respected and especially in God’s sight, so I did the best I could to think, act and look conservative.

I didn’t realize until I was older that an approach like that was dangerous to my faith. Since then, particularly since leaving college, my thoughts and ideas have grown and evolved. The growth and evolving hasn’t just come as a result of age and maturity (though that certainly does add to a persons’ ability to critically think through ideas). More than that though, God has used my decisions (and their consequences) to mold my faith. After college I went straight into youth ministry. After about three years I realized that I just wasn’t ready for the magnitude of that job, so I went into secular work. It was during those next five years that my spiritual life bottomed out and I realized the mistake I had made in grounding my faith in being conservative. Unfortunately, damage had been done.

It’s important to clarify that being conservative isn’t wrong, or right. Neither is being liberal. That’s not the point. The point is the journey, the destination and the map we use while we travel on our journeys en route to our destination. You see, when I left college I had been on a journey to the wrong destination for much of my entire life. My destination was thinking, acting, looking and being conservative. I did a really good job and had essentially reached the destination; and yet my faith collapsed beneath me as if I were standing in quick sand. Why? Because God never once asked or desired for me to end up there. It turned out that I had spent a short lifetime aiming at the wrong bulls-eye. Once I discovered this, it was just a matter of finding the right bulls-eye.

Unfortunately, I’m not alone in choosing the wrong bulls-eye. Or in my attitude towards those who chose to think differently than I do. For example, I once heard an Elder boast to the entire congregation that he was proud of being conservative, as he denigrated a Christian brother who he referred to as a liberal. So what, you might ask? Well, here’s the problem with that statement. It’s a man-made term with man-made inferences. God never once, in His revelation, said to be conservative, or liberal. He just said to be holy. Notice Peter’s comments in his first letter, “but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in your behavior; because it is written, ‘you shall be holy for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16).

How often do we use and hear these four words: progressive and traditional, liberal and conservative? When it comes to these words, Christians have done more defining than Webster himself. We’ve used our own definitions of these names to categorize and group ourselves and then to throw rocks at everyone who wasn’t invited into our group. It really needs to stop. Every day, I live with the guilt of knowing that I spent years with my head down looking for the next rock to hurl instead of looking up, searching for my brother to serve. I’ve asked God to forgive me. After God, I owe more people apologies than I could ever name in a lifetime.

For me, the irony is overwhelming. Not only in terms of my own guilt, but because I have been called both a liberal and an ultra-conservative. How is that possible? It’s possible because of the inherent fallacy of the name calling. Like I mentioned, I have spent most of my life being taught to be a conservative and doing my best to live out my training. So, I’m really not shocked that I have been described as an ultra-conservative. But when a friend told me that I was thought of as liberal and the congregation where my wife and I had just placed membership would not allow me to teach Bible classes, I was devastated; and I gave Satan the foothold I knew to avoid. The fact is that I was called an ultra-conservative because of my narrow-minded views and judgmental attitude. I was ‘marked’ as a liberal only because I went to Harding University. I suppose I should have gone to Freed-Hardeman. Although, for those Christians, the Memphis School of Preaching would have been even better.

Enough of the rambling monologue. Here’s how I define those terms. Perhaps, this will help you to arrive at your own definition or increase your personal understand of how you have been thinking. The idea of being ‘traditional’ implies the idea of sticking to traditions. For example, the congregation where I worship and serve has a tradition of assembling twice on Sunday. We’re traditional in that sense. Whereas, another congregation chooses to meet only in the morning for worship and Bible study then chooses to meet in smaller groups that evening. That congregation would be thought of as progressive because of they have progressed forward away from the tradition of meeting twice on Sunday.

Conservative and liberal is considerably more abstract and relative, which makes them harder to define with consistency and accuracy. This is also one of the fundamental disagreements I have against using these terms in any capacity (as it relates to characterizing Christians or specific congregations). To you, I might be liberal. But to another person I am a rigid and conservative fundamentalist. For example, the fact that I have absolutely no problem with a praise team being used to amplify worship would make me a liberal to some of my brothers and sisters in the area where I live. However, because I am not comfortable with a praise team band, many other folks whom I love dearly would think of me as a conservative. So where is the baseline? How do I know if I am right to label myself (or someone else) one way or the other? You don’t and you can’t. There will always be someone more or less liberal than you. As well, there will always be someone more or less conservative than you.

This leads to the biggest issue I have with these names; and why I am so tired of hearing them. THEY ARE NOT BIBLICAL NAMES. I am proud to be affiliated with the Restoration Movement (though I could hardly classify it as a movement these days). One self-defining term of the restoration plea is calling Bible things by Bible names. I’m not sure if that holds any authority with you or not. But I find it terribly ironic that many who hold to that creed also hold dearly to the idea that conservative is right (correct) and liberal is wrong. None of these four words (progressive, traditional, conservative, liberal) were ever uttered from the mouth of our Lord or those that He commissioned to begin and grow His Church. Why on earth would I then do it?!

Instead of approaching conflict and differences of opinion by hurling rocks across the arbitrary line that we have drawn, let’s step across the line and take our brothers by the hand and love each other. We’re not always going to agree. And on some issues, someone is going to be wrong. But instead of taking on the role of judge and executioner with every issue, let’s reserve those roles for the one person who earned them. Instead, why don’t you and I focus on loving as best we are able, and teaching as best we know how?

The Deception of 50/50 Relationships

Too often, marriage is referred to as a 50/50 deal. I hear it all the time. It’s a common phrase we use to describe how our relationship with our spouse should look. But, if you’ve been married for more than a few years you probably realize how false this idea is and how much it actually leads to unmet expectations, disappointment and conflict.

The idea of “meeting in the middle” or the relationship being a “50/50 give and take” sounds judicious, fair and profitable for both spouses. The problem is that 50/50 is almost always impossible. Why, because we are not always going to agree on where the half-way point is, at least not for every issue or circumstance (no matter how big or small). In other words, what happens when I feel like I have been giving or doing my half or my 50, but my wife feels like I am only at 30? What then? Well, we’re left with unmet expectations, disappointment and eventual conflict.

Here’s an example: the husband feels like his 50 is to work hard and provide for the family and his wife should take care of everything at home: the kids, housework, paying the bills, etc. In his mind, that’s 50/50. On the other hand, the wife might be thinking that his 50 includes helping out around the house a little and consistently backing her up with the kids. Both are sincere in their expectations. And both are sincerely trying to meet them. The problem is that they don’t agree on the expectations. They don’t agree on where the 50/50 is. The result is obvious and unavoidable: unmet expectations, disappointment and conflict.

I had the chance to speak at Bible Camp last week. The theme for the week was “Peacemakers”. I was asked to speak on “Causes on Conflict”. Here was my bottom line point: conflict occurs when someone chooses not to act like Jesus; or said another way, every time someone chooses not to act like Jesus, there will be conflict. Let’s plug this into the 50/50 problem. Is Jesus a 50/50 person? Does he have a 50/50 plan? No, not at all. Take a look at what Paul wrote to the Philippians. Keep in mind that, in this passage, he was telling them how to create and maintain unity.

Philippians 2:3-8

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; ⁴do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. ⁵Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. ⁸Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

There was nothing 50/50 about what Jesus did for me. He left heaven: not 50/50. He gave up his deified form and became a human: not 50/50. In humility he considered himself lower than me: not 50/50. He died for me: not 50/50. There was nothing 50/50 about what Jesus did for me. Why then do we think that 50/50 relationships honor God, create harmony or endure tough times? Godly, healthy marriages that endure have two spouses that go 100/100. Nothing less will do.

How to Make a Church Grow

This is an article written by Keith Brenton.

How to Make a Church Grow.

Don’t try. Okay, that would be my first post shorter than its title, but I’m tempted to leave it at that. Here’s what I mean, though: Don’t make church growth your goal. Make your goal preaching Christ, making disciples, putting people to God’s work with the help of His Holy Spirit. The church that results from that will grow, if the seed finds receptive soil and God gives the growth. Keep watering. Plant more seed; the Word — you know.

Don’t worry about uplifting worship times, awesome praise teams or incredibly gifted worship bands or dynamic speakers or cool videos or  special programs or targeted ministries or awesome marketing or a big, sprawling building or sufficient parking or offering seeker services or traditional services or progressive services. Some of that may come, but fend it off as long as you can.

Tell them about Jesus. Show them Jesus. Win them to Jesus. Demonstrate to them how they are visiting Him in jail; how they are clothing His nakedness and feeding His hunger. When they have worked side by side with each other and with the Spirit, they will want to gather in praise, as often and as devotedly as possible.

People who can see the work of God – the work He is doing through them; in partnership with them – when they see that work in the lives of others … they’ll see it in their own lives too and you won’t be able to shut them up when it comes time for worship. Or any other time. It will well up from within them like a spring of living water. Just stand back and thank God when it happens and you get caught in the spray.

You may not be able to limit them to just meeting on Sundays to worship together. They might just open their hearts and their homes and their dinner tables and their earnings to each other. They might sell their possessions and give to those who have need until no one among them has need anymore.

I know all this sounds too good to be true. I know it sounds like a pipe dream. I know it sounds all but impossible. But it also sounds a lot like the last few verses of Acts 2, and well into Acts 3 and 4. And it also sounds like what Jesus said about nothing being impossible with God (Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27).

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate these thoughts. We recently shared this same idea with our Church family. We took it a small step forward though. We have one of those old-school attendance boards at the front of our auditorium. You know, the one that has the attendance and contribution numbers for the past couple of weeks. We would have just taken it completely down. But it’s been up there for a while (probably over 30 years), so I wasn’t sure what was under it or what would happen if I tried to take it down. So we did the next best thing . . . we replaced the attendance numbers with the number one. So now, last weeks’ attendance and today’s attendance reads “1”.

It’s so easy to get caught up in numbers. What does a number mean anyways? Really, it’s just a way to gauge our success and feel good about ourselves. That’s not what we should be about. As a family we’ve determined to be about the next Soul that God sends our way. Jesus would have died for one. So everything we’re going to do, worry over and plan for is the next one that God sends our way. Nothing more, nothing less.

Here’s the way we brought it home. Let’s say that we experience growth that we can notice and feel good about. Slowly the auditorium becomes more and more full. It’s harder to find a parking spot and our favorite seat always seems to be taken by a visitor. That’s terrific! But here’s the problem. While the preacher is applauding the growth from the pulpit and the Elders are feeling good about their leadership, there’s a middle-aged couple sitting in the back whose oldest son left the Church, God and his faith years ago. And after their prayers each night, that Mom cries herself to sleep knowing that her son is lost.

When you put yourselves in their shoes, those great numbers really don’t seem to matter as much. Yes, we will celebrate each success and praise God each step of the way. But we will never forget that Christ came to die for each one of us. And until He returns there will always be another lost son searching for his way home.