I’ve never known a church to make changes that didn’t cause some kind of division. It may have just been a few complaints here or there, or perhaps someone quietly leaving the church. However, more often than not, it’s a whole ordeal. So yes, we are going there. Quickly.
Division in the church can be radically reduced (or completely nonexistent) if Her members do two things:
1.Submit to the authority of the Holy Spirit.
2.Submit to the authority of church leadership.
Let’s just dig right in.
Submit to the authority of the Holy Spirit
Henry Blackaby, who wrote the study Experiencing God, taught me that anytime there is division in the church, it’s because someone isn’t following the leading of the Holy Spirit. You see, God cannot contradict Himself. He doesn’t tell Church Member A to vote “no” on a certain ballot issue and tell Church Member B to vote “yes.” He also doesn’t tell the church leadership to shift this direction, while telling a few church members that direction isn’t how we’ve always done it so we better not go there. And many times (this one is harder to wrap our minds around), the Holy Spirit doesn’t follow our opinions. While our opinion may be that we love hymns and want to sing them, the Holy Spirit may be nudging the worship leader to shift to a more current music set to appeal to more people. Just because our opinion is one way, does not mean that God’s will aligns with it. When it comes to certain things, we have got to put our opinions to the side. Swallow them up, that’s your flesh.
Submit to the Authority of Church Leadership
My flesh tells me to tread lightly here, because I wouldn’t want to offend, you know. But the Holy Spirit says “go for it, sister.” And since I just wrote that the opinions needed to be swallowed up, here goes.
God has placed the leadership of your church in their positions. Maybe you voted or maybe the district sent or maybe there is some other way the leaders in your church came to be there. However they got there is no surprise to God. He created them for this. He has been molding and shaping them to lead your church at this present time. The church is told to submit to their leaders in Hebrews 13:17 "obey your leaders and submit to them..." Are they perfect? Heavens no! Do they sometimes forget to submit to the authority of the Holy Spirit just like we do? Yep, they sure do. We, as church members, are to submit to their authority. This doesn’t necessarily mean we blindly do whatever they say (enter false prophets here…), but what we do is get to know them. We learn their love for the Lord, we begin to see how they seek God. We ask them the hard questions about their walk with Christ. We have conversations in love about the decisions and directions they are moving the church in.
When we are confident in our church leadership because we’ve taken the time to get to know them, have seen how they demonstrate their love for the Lord and His people and have had genuine conversations about the decisions they are making, we submit. If it doesn’t line up with our opinion, we can still submit because we are confident they are seeking the Lord. Although, if our church leadership is submitting to the leading of the Holy Spirit and we, as church members, have submitted to the leadership of the Holy Spirit, we’ll likely be on the same page. Even if it’s something we’ve never done before…different and scary.
The truth is that deep divides in the church are taking over. The devil is SO winning on this one. He’s got us fighting so much over paint colors and song selections, that we are not effective in winning souls for Christ. While we are fighting over who is serving on what committee, people are dying and going to hell. Don’t you think Satan loves to see a church crumbling over such petty things? We are so wrapped up in our own opinions that our focus is completely off being submissive to the Lord and our church leadership.
Make haste in fixing the divides your church has - I know you’ve got them too. We cannot waste more time fighting. Submit to the Holy Spirit and submit to your church leadership. After all, He put them there.
Application Questions
- How can you be praying for your church leadership as they navigate the circumstances of leading the church to reach the lost?
- What steps can you take to get to know your church leaders, see their love for the Lord and then willingly submit to their leadership?
- What are some divides in your church? How can you turn those on each side toward reconciliation?
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