Friday, April 13, 2007
They Are Us
This is my second attempt at posting today’s subject. My lovely wife encouraged me to re-write this post. In her words the first edition read like a “time line” and with good reason since I’m a “time line / frustrated history teacher” kind of guy.
I’ll start off by offering this scholarly observation:
We must be careful in what we believe, especially when it comes to what we feel are Biblical concepts. I have come to believe that the reason why is when we come to this point of belief it seems that God will test us to see how strongly we do believe. In fact, I would not be surprised to find out that God who I’m convinced has a strong sense of (just look at my face) humor, probably gets a little chuckle when one of our “beliefs” percolates up to Heaven and he follows through with sending us a “crisis of belief” (stole that from the Experiencing God guys) to see how strong are our convictions.
Enough double talk you say. Enough double talk you (sorry, little blog humor) say. Any way class, today’s belief is “unity.” You guys all remember the “u” word? Remember Jesus’ prayer in John 17:
Jn 17:20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."
At our church, “unity” has been on our hearts and minds for several years. We have always viewed our brothers in the Conservative Christian Church as family members. All of you know our common heritage in the American Restoration Movement. Wait, I hear something. Yes honey, don’t go timeline on our good friends. My apologies.
Without listing everything I could, let’s just say we believe God has been moving in our church and the local Conservative Christian Church, Discovery Christian Church (DCC) in the name of Biblical unity. We believe it has to be God because for our 2 churches to be at this point takes an all mighty, all knowing God. No man or group of men could have orchestrated the events of the past few years, months, weeks, and days to bring our 2 church families to this point. I’m sure some of you are saying, get to the point!
The “point” came to a head in late January of this year. Two members from DCC, Tim and John decided to pay our preacher, Don, a visit with a proposal. Don had preached at DCC a couple of weeks earlier on, you guessed it, unity. Their proposal was this:
1. Our preacher, Mike Grant is leaving in May to go into full time mission work in Haiti.
2. We need to look for a new preacher.
3. We like you, you being “Don.”
4. We believe in unity as much as you guys do.
5. Heck, (can you use the word “heck” in a proposal?) why don’t we just quit messing around and merge our 2 churches?
Don’s first question was an obvious one, “What do your elders and Mike think about your proposal?” Their answer was somewhat stunning, “They don’t.” “What do you mean they “don’t.” Their answer was, “They “don’t” know about our idea, yet.” So, Don encouraged them to go back to their leadership with their proposal while he did the same to us.
My “crisis of belief” came to me in the form of Don’s cell phone call to me as I was driving to see Steven play in a tournament over in Orlando. When Don relayed “the Proposal” (as we like to call it) to me I nearly ran off the road. Now, my crisis of belief / car accident (COBCA) wasn’t due to my “belief” in unity. I’ve been there for years and speaking of years I felt like Moses talking to God.
“Ah God, Cecil here. I’m honored you’ve chosen me to be a part of “the Proposal” but I need to remind you (there’s a joke in of itself) of something. I’m just a silly frustrated history teacher masquerading as a math teacher / elder. This unity thing you’ve laid in our laps is way too big for me to be a part of; besides, I’m not a man who likes to step out on faith.”
A little digression here; When I relayed this thought to Greg he reminded me of how one dimensional I am when it comes to eating out. Time and time again as we enter a restaurant I’ll think or say, I’m going to get something “different” tonight. In the end, I order the same thing I’ve ordered a thousand times. I’m sure there are some that read my blog (who never comment or call to wish me well) upon occasion who have labeled me a “change agent.” If they only knew how I love order and tradition.
So, I found myself being like Moses, telling God “His” timing wasn’t good. As I type these words I’ve learned a profound truth – God’s timing is God’s timing. It does not follow even closely the timing of men. It took me a while to realize this.
So, the next step was a meeting. A historic (Sorry Honey, I didn’t give a date) meeting between the leadership of DCC and our church. We met at our church. We “knew” them but we had questions. We felt it was important to ask questions about where they stood on fundamental Biblical beliefs. Do you know what we discovered? They had the same questions! Hence, the title of this post: They Are Us!
It took months of meetings with DCC, our deacons, their deacons, our wives and their wives to ask and answer all of our questions. We ran through the full range of emotions including fear (fear of losing church members) as we processed this movement of God and at every point 2 things became apparent:
1. God really seems to want this to happen.
2. Over and over again, we realized that “They Are Us!”
A date for our announcement was set and re-set. We ended up with April 1st. It seemed appropriate. If half the church got up to leave we could always claim, “Hey, April fools you silly people.”
Since that time we’ve made the announcement and to my knowledge we haven’t lost one member. More over, applause, cheers, and amen’s were offered when we presented our “FRP,” that would be “Family Reunion Plan.” I am so proud of our church, my fellow elders, our deacons, our wives, and the good folks at DCC. This has been a growing process for this boy as well. It has forced me to do something that I have trouble with, stepping out on faith and trusting in God and not in my abilities.
We have a long ways to go. Our intention is to bring about this family reunion in January of 2008. At that point we would become the “Discovery Church of Christ.” I’m sure along the way there will be many hurdles to hurdle. It is our intention to meet any and all challenges with the guidance of God. As someone asked, “Is this a “done deal?”?” My answer was and is, “Only God knows.”
This is where you can come in to the FRP. As we told our church family, we need your help. We need prayers, lots of prayers. We need wisdom that at times we don’t possess. Please, when you can bathe our two church families in prayer and if you have any expertise to offer, we would gladly accept it.
God is good family. God bless.
I’ll start off by offering this scholarly observation:
We must be careful in what we believe, especially when it comes to what we feel are Biblical concepts. I have come to believe that the reason why is when we come to this point of belief it seems that God will test us to see how strongly we do believe. In fact, I would not be surprised to find out that God who I’m convinced has a strong sense of (just look at my face) humor, probably gets a little chuckle when one of our “beliefs” percolates up to Heaven and he follows through with sending us a “crisis of belief” (stole that from the Experiencing God guys) to see how strong are our convictions.
Enough double talk you say. Enough double talk you (sorry, little blog humor) say. Any way class, today’s belief is “unity.” You guys all remember the “u” word? Remember Jesus’ prayer in John 17:
Jn 17:20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."
At our church, “unity” has been on our hearts and minds for several years. We have always viewed our brothers in the Conservative Christian Church as family members. All of you know our common heritage in the American Restoration Movement. Wait, I hear something. Yes honey, don’t go timeline on our good friends. My apologies.
Without listing everything I could, let’s just say we believe God has been moving in our church and the local Conservative Christian Church, Discovery Christian Church (DCC) in the name of Biblical unity. We believe it has to be God because for our 2 churches to be at this point takes an all mighty, all knowing God. No man or group of men could have orchestrated the events of the past few years, months, weeks, and days to bring our 2 church families to this point. I’m sure some of you are saying, get to the point!
The “point” came to a head in late January of this year. Two members from DCC, Tim and John decided to pay our preacher, Don, a visit with a proposal. Don had preached at DCC a couple of weeks earlier on, you guessed it, unity. Their proposal was this:
1. Our preacher, Mike Grant is leaving in May to go into full time mission work in Haiti.
2. We need to look for a new preacher.
3. We like you, you being “Don.”
4. We believe in unity as much as you guys do.
5. Heck, (can you use the word “heck” in a proposal?) why don’t we just quit messing around and merge our 2 churches?
Don’s first question was an obvious one, “What do your elders and Mike think about your proposal?” Their answer was somewhat stunning, “They don’t.” “What do you mean they “don’t.” Their answer was, “They “don’t” know about our idea, yet.” So, Don encouraged them to go back to their leadership with their proposal while he did the same to us.
My “crisis of belief” came to me in the form of Don’s cell phone call to me as I was driving to see Steven play in a tournament over in Orlando. When Don relayed “the Proposal” (as we like to call it) to me I nearly ran off the road. Now, my crisis of belief / car accident (COBCA) wasn’t due to my “belief” in unity. I’ve been there for years and speaking of years I felt like Moses talking to God.
“Ah God, Cecil here. I’m honored you’ve chosen me to be a part of “the Proposal” but I need to remind you (there’s a joke in of itself) of something. I’m just a silly frustrated history teacher masquerading as a math teacher / elder. This unity thing you’ve laid in our laps is way too big for me to be a part of; besides, I’m not a man who likes to step out on faith.”
A little digression here; When I relayed this thought to Greg he reminded me of how one dimensional I am when it comes to eating out. Time and time again as we enter a restaurant I’ll think or say, I’m going to get something “different” tonight. In the end, I order the same thing I’ve ordered a thousand times. I’m sure there are some that read my blog (who never comment or call to wish me well) upon occasion who have labeled me a “change agent.” If they only knew how I love order and tradition.
So, I found myself being like Moses, telling God “His” timing wasn’t good. As I type these words I’ve learned a profound truth – God’s timing is God’s timing. It does not follow even closely the timing of men. It took me a while to realize this.
So, the next step was a meeting. A historic (Sorry Honey, I didn’t give a date) meeting between the leadership of DCC and our church. We met at our church. We “knew” them but we had questions. We felt it was important to ask questions about where they stood on fundamental Biblical beliefs. Do you know what we discovered? They had the same questions! Hence, the title of this post: They Are Us!
It took months of meetings with DCC, our deacons, their deacons, our wives and their wives to ask and answer all of our questions. We ran through the full range of emotions including fear (fear of losing church members) as we processed this movement of God and at every point 2 things became apparent:
1. God really seems to want this to happen.
2. Over and over again, we realized that “They Are Us!”
A date for our announcement was set and re-set. We ended up with April 1st. It seemed appropriate. If half the church got up to leave we could always claim, “Hey, April fools you silly people.”
Since that time we’ve made the announcement and to my knowledge we haven’t lost one member. More over, applause, cheers, and amen’s were offered when we presented our “FRP,” that would be “Family Reunion Plan.” I am so proud of our church, my fellow elders, our deacons, our wives, and the good folks at DCC. This has been a growing process for this boy as well. It has forced me to do something that I have trouble with, stepping out on faith and trusting in God and not in my abilities.
We have a long ways to go. Our intention is to bring about this family reunion in January of 2008. At that point we would become the “Discovery Church of Christ.” I’m sure along the way there will be many hurdles to hurdle. It is our intention to meet any and all challenges with the guidance of God. As someone asked, “Is this a “done deal?”?” My answer was and is, “Only God knows.”
This is where you can come in to the FRP. As we told our church family, we need your help. We need prayers, lots of prayers. We need wisdom that at times we don’t possess. Please, when you can bathe our two church families in prayer and if you have any expertise to offer, we would gladly accept it.
God is good family. God bless.
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I would say that God has a plan and it is often challenging to our comfort zones. Cindy and I made the mistake 23 years ago of letting God know that we were ready to step into full time ministry in almost any state, but Florida. And most of you know we've been in Florida for 23 years.
In our class last Wednesday night, we talked about how that in the early days of the restoration movement it was a common experience for preachers of various denominational affiliations to speak in churches of a different denominational affiliation. When a preacher was known as a good communicator and effective in his sharing of the word other people wanted to hear him and he was often invited to speak in churches of all sorts. In those days the priesthood of all believers was a highly valued principle and individuals were believed to be capable of examining the word and receiving what any speaker had to say through the eyes of Scripture. Not until much later in the restoration movement did the idea of only hearing from “our people” or only attending a church with “Church of Christ” on the sign develop. Much of this thinking came about because of the influence wielded by the various editors of the religious papers of the day.
This sort of attitude (receiving all or hearing all who are devoted to Christ or who speak powerfully for Christ) led to many churches "buying into" or "converting" to the concept of New Testament Christianity that was preached by many of these powerful communicators of the day.
Of course as the restoration movement developed and individual "doctrines" crystallized, a major split occurred between Disciples of Christ and what came to be known as Churches of Christ primarily over the different ways these individual groups looked at Scripture.
Within the last year there has been a major effort among Churches of Christ and Christian Churches to move beyond the division of the past and to at the very least acknowledge each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and to work toward the uniting of these two movements.
A friend of mine and I have had a long-standing relationship with other ministers and teachers from the Conservative Christian Churches. He and I have even taught courses or sections of courses at Florida Christian College, a Christian Church college. We have discovered that there is very little to separate us in our understanding of Scripture other than they use instruments in worship and we generally don't.
We have often commented that until we get the people in the pews together we are never going to achieve real unity. What God may do with DCC and the Central Church could be an example to others of how we can begin to reclaim some of the power of the motto of our earlier days–“Christians only, but not the only Christians”.
All of you are in our prayers that God will lead you and direct your hearts toward unity.
Peace.
In our class last Wednesday night, we talked about how that in the early days of the restoration movement it was a common experience for preachers of various denominational affiliations to speak in churches of a different denominational affiliation. When a preacher was known as a good communicator and effective in his sharing of the word other people wanted to hear him and he was often invited to speak in churches of all sorts. In those days the priesthood of all believers was a highly valued principle and individuals were believed to be capable of examining the word and receiving what any speaker had to say through the eyes of Scripture. Not until much later in the restoration movement did the idea of only hearing from “our people” or only attending a church with “Church of Christ” on the sign develop. Much of this thinking came about because of the influence wielded by the various editors of the religious papers of the day.
This sort of attitude (receiving all or hearing all who are devoted to Christ or who speak powerfully for Christ) led to many churches "buying into" or "converting" to the concept of New Testament Christianity that was preached by many of these powerful communicators of the day.
Of course as the restoration movement developed and individual "doctrines" crystallized, a major split occurred between Disciples of Christ and what came to be known as Churches of Christ primarily over the different ways these individual groups looked at Scripture.
Within the last year there has been a major effort among Churches of Christ and Christian Churches to move beyond the division of the past and to at the very least acknowledge each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and to work toward the uniting of these two movements.
A friend of mine and I have had a long-standing relationship with other ministers and teachers from the Conservative Christian Churches. He and I have even taught courses or sections of courses at Florida Christian College, a Christian Church college. We have discovered that there is very little to separate us in our understanding of Scripture other than they use instruments in worship and we generally don't.
We have often commented that until we get the people in the pews together we are never going to achieve real unity. What God may do with DCC and the Central Church could be an example to others of how we can begin to reclaim some of the power of the motto of our earlier days–“Christians only, but not the only Christians”.
All of you are in our prayers that God will lead you and direct your hearts toward unity.
Peace.
I'm very proud of your leadership team, both Central and Discovery! I've prayed often for all of you and the results of this to honor the Father and his kingdom. I'm sure you'll take major flak and incoming barrages of "friendly fire" from others who claim to be of the restoration heritage, but stand firm and let God work in this.
Steve: Janice and I let it be known from the very first conversation with an elder in Long Beach that we had no desire to move our family to the Los Angeles area. We're into year # 14 now!
Steve: Janice and I let it be known from the very first conversation with an elder in Long Beach that we had no desire to move our family to the Los Angeles area. We're into year # 14 now!
Today the part of Meowmix will be played by cwinwc.
Actually Judy emailed her comment to me. Seems she is having problems posting.
Meowmix -
This is very exciting, Cecil. I feel much fullness of heart and have asked God to be with all of you. At the same time, I guess I'd be sharing your "crisis of faith" because some things come to mind with trepidation (did I spell that right?). You have my prayers, both church families do, that His will be done and that His blessings will rest on you.
Actually Judy emailed her comment to me. Seems she is having problems posting.
Meowmix -
This is very exciting, Cecil. I feel much fullness of heart and have asked God to be with all of you. At the same time, I guess I'd be sharing your "crisis of faith" because some things come to mind with trepidation (did I spell that right?). You have my prayers, both church families do, that His will be done and that His blessings will rest on you.
I'm so proud of everyone involved in this. Of COURSE, God wants his children to all act like members of the same family! I hope there is some exposure for what you are doing. The world could stand to see that we are one.
It seems like this would be an opportune time to ditch that "Church of Christ" label. I love the "of Christ" part, but the stigma of the last century outweighs it.
Any other names proposed?
It seems like this would be an opportune time to ditch that "Church of Christ" label. I love the "of Christ" part, but the stigma of the last century outweighs it.
Any other names proposed?
I love you, Steve, but I can't hang with you on this one. I found myself being thankful that the surviving name was going to be "Church of Christ." I just believe His body should wear His name. So shoot me.........! :)
I love reading that. I have been praying for your Churches and the Proposal for months now and am encouraged with every bit of news. I will continue those prayers and also pray that as news spreads the Spirit's inspriation toward unity spreads with it.
I have no expert advice to offer, so I will steal from my namesake and simply incourage you to be strong and courageous and do not be afraid. The Lord our God is with you. He will guide you when you ask and more importanly, He will redeem you if you fail.
God bless you and your work.
I have no expert advice to offer, so I will steal from my namesake and simply incourage you to be strong and courageous and do not be afraid. The Lord our God is with you. He will guide you when you ask and more importanly, He will redeem you if you fail.
God bless you and your work.
God help us all to find this kind of heart and unify with other believers around us. I am attending a meeting today with people from many different backgrounds in order to share ways of worshiping God as a congregation. It's called a "Worship Leaders' Breakfast." I'm sure that many in our "fellowship" in our area, if they knew, would condemn me big time. I'm really getting a belly-full of this attitude. I am really proud of you guys there at Central and the DCC. It sounds very exciting and something that I hope to be a part of before I die right here in the buckle of the Bible belt. I know from asking this that I must be careful what I ask for. God just might put me in the middle of something that I don't understand, but I also stand ready to be used in a situation that would bring about real unity in Jesus. I think He would be most proud of that.
God bless you all in your endeavors for peace.
God bless you all in your endeavors for peace.
Greg: .........noooooo, not necessarily, I don't think. There are others I could hang with. I was just relaying that I felt a sense of relief that was the surviving name. (As I said........."so shoot me!") I, too, am infinitely thankful for and proud of what these two churches are doing and for Cecil's involvement in it. He and all concerned have my support and prayers.
Puck - Thanks for the support.
Greg - "Friendly fire" from outside our church (as it always is here in CF) has started.
Steve - So far that is the only name that's been proposed
Judy - Thanks for the support.
Josh - I love that song!
Keith - I had indigestion (aka "belly full") last night. Thanks for the comment.
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Greg - "Friendly fire" from outside our church (as it always is here in CF) has started.
Steve - So far that is the only name that's been proposed
Judy - Thanks for the support.
Josh - I love that song!
Keith - I had indigestion (aka "belly full") last night. Thanks for the comment.
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