Deceitful Division: Misss-Understanding the Black-White & Gray People

I had an interesting conversation today, one that really got me thinking about the meaning between black-white and the grayscale ways of thinking. Why is it that we are so often divided by silly differences in our thought processes, when our love and goal is the same? If we claim to be believers and followers of Christ, why do we let mis-understandings break our bonds and bring division to the Church?

I am definitely more of a black-white type person. I think logically and almost algebraically, as in 2+2=4 and by grace=we have been saved. That’s how I read, that’s how I develop processes, and how I think of things in terms of organization. When I am struggling with something, my solution is to completely remove it and provide a solution knowing the exact cause. I am not trained or built to think about the process, but to think about what I need to do to get the answer. This is who God made me.

Now when communicating with grayscale people, I can come across as aggressive and intimidating. Often grayscalers think about the process, and are comfortable without having the solution or exact schedule of what is going to happen, when it’s going to happen, and et cetera. They are more abstract, this is who God made them to be. This freaks me out, not knowing. This is uncomfortable for me. But for people who think in the gray, I make them uncomfortable. This is not a good division. There is no right “way” to think.

After years of trying to understand my faith and my role in loving Jesus, there is no clear cut answer. We have a final destination in terms of the Kingdom, but we also have a very unknown road to follow. We are given hints on how to love Jesus and people, but we aren’t given a formula for the exact right way to do it. We have to deal with the unknown process to get a result. There is room for both.

When it comes to being in relationship with people, Satan’s ultimate goal is to provide mis-understanding, mis-communication, and division. He wants to confuse the heck out of people, and ruin God given unity by getting us to focus on the wrong things. He uses an argument like smoking pot or having sex before you’re married to distract us from the root issues. People are easily deceived, and if he can show you or make you feel like someone doesn’t understand you because you “think” differently, he has accomplished his goal. He creates division through a vessel of good intentions. What if we learned to accept and embrace these differences in thinking, realizing we all have the ultimate goal of serving God? It’s his job to convict; it’s our job to serve. Now that is truth.

It is good to be surrounded and in community with people who think differently. Grayscaler’s level me, and I level them. It is a win win situation when you have this combination, because all parts of the body have a place to work together and flourish; but only if both sides refuse to be divided and work toward the common goal of loving God and loving people.

There are some things that can’t be compromised, but arguing between the process and the goal is useless at times. Both people need to be accepting and embracing both sides in order to be united. Think about how much division this has caused? Broken friendships, relationships, marriages; all because we don’t know how to communicate effectively and are stubborn and pridefully attached to “our” way or no way. It’s heartbreaking. We have a responsibility to accept people just as they are. We are no better just because we are different.

I am sorry if I have mis-communicated this to people in my life. That’s not who I am, even if it has appeared that way.

Spring: To proceed or originate from a specific source or cause

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, and hath not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one be warm alone? And if a man prevail against him that is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

--Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Do you ever notice that good and bad stuff seem to happen in clumps? That when you are having a bad day, your friend is often having a bad day? When some giant blessing smacks you in the face, other people usually have awesome stuff happen to them too? I think there is something bigger behind this. This is not to say that this is always the case, but I think it’s a trend. I think when God is working on an individual level; he is also working on a corporate level.  Season by season.

As a lot of people can testify, the last year has been kind of hard. A season full of change, disaster, death, and suffering…on several different levels. This year has been traumatic, there have been many “events or situations that have caused great distress and disruption,” whether good or bad. Graduating college, deciding where to live, not knowing where I belong, all normal stages in life, but no one ever said they would be this confusing. Also, so much death, I am about to go to my third funeral this year, which is the fourth one in my lifetime. Even Michael Jackson died, and every other week it seems like some other celebrity has passed away from something other than old age. I don’t understand this, but I do know that it’s not just me who has had a difficult year.

The cool thing is, I think hardships are put into our lives to increase our capacity for suffering, loving, and enduring. In this, we become better friends and family members; we empathize more and actually allow ourselves to feel on every level. I seriously cannot watch two minutes of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition without tearing up. Even listening to the radio station and hearing some kind of praise report hits something deep inside of me that was more immune or numb before. I like it, I like it a lot.

It’s funny, because the goal of my life this last year was to really learn to give and receive “love.” There was one person in my life that I really cared about and had really hurt because I was incapable of loving. Because of this, I really felt like I needed to face some deep rooted fears. I needed to purge all those nasty selfish attitudes that kept me from being vulnerable and being the woman God designed me to be. Amazingly enough, my heart has been changed for quite some time, and due to those changes, I have been able to face life’s difficulties with confidence and stability. Not that my emotions haven’t gotten a little out of hand at times, but overall I know my motives are genuine in loving now because I remember what it was like when they weren’t.

If I hadn’t gone through stages of being selfish and disliking the things I did to people, I would have never learned what truly loving someone felt like. I wouldn’t be able to empathize, accept, and just truly care about people the way God has wanted me to. If I hadn’t gone through the suffering to reconcile, restore, and accept the things I couldn’t change, I wouldn’t be where I am at today in terms of an encourager and supporter for the people I love. My struggles have become a blessing for myself and other people in some round-about way. And it’s the same for people who encourage me in my walk; their battles and deliverance have spoken volumes into my life.

God puts special people into your life during these seasons of “wandering in the desert” and suffering, even if everything doesn’t make sense yet. We are all in this together…and soon enough we will be reaping the rewards of a GIANT HARVEST of Blessings. Until that day, let’s love and enjoy each day as it comes. What else are we supposed to do? Day by day, clump by clump, there are people who have felt what you feel and know where you’re at. With all this death, a lot of new life is bound to spring up….and it’s finally the beginning of SPRING...

How to Build Leaders, Not Just Motivate Them

 “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

--Ephesians 4:11-16

I have never been so excited about a church before. The last few months I have been going back to the church I grew up in, and am currently taking a course on the Apostolic Ministry/Church. Now the word “apostolic” can be mis-communicated. People could have immediate reactions to the word because it sounds a little bit weird or uber religious. But in all reality, apostolic means “to be sent.” It is not a creepy, cultish sounding religious word at all.

Church’s today typically have some kind of meaning that people associate it with. There are mega-churches, gospel churches, artsy churches, sinner churches, conservative churches, liberal churches, tele-evangelist churches…so many different options. But what about a church that focuses on the completeness and fullness of Christ in every dimension? What about a church that trains and equips “saints”/leaders to be effective members of society? What about a church that is genuinely motivated and is actually led based off of the solid foundation that only Christ alone offers? The idea of the Apostolic Church represents the fullness of Christ, and actually trains apostles “to be sent” into the world. Let me show you why this is important, through evaluating phases of church history in a nutshell.

Church history began around 100 AD when Augustine decided to put a name to the Church. This was right after Jesus and his apostles lived, and the Church became a type of catholic “organization” instead of lifestyle. In this, the first phase of church history was extremely focused on having the clergy as middle men to ones relationship with God. There was a huge emphasis on the Pastor and his authority. There was a “worship of the Priest,” one extreme focus.

Then, by around the 1400s, long after Constantine declared Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire and the crusades occurred, the Reformation began. All of a sudden the emphasis was taken off of the Pastor, and put into the legitimacy of the word. There was an extreme focus on intellect, theology, and dissecting the “newly” printed Bible. John Calvin and Martin Luther were huge during these times, and denominations started forming within Christianity. There was a “worship of the word” through the use of teachers; another extreme focus.

By the 1700s, there was a “Great Awakening” in which the Missionary Tradition began. Evangelism, the Great Commission, zeal, and saving the world became the mission of ordinary people. A concern for the greater good of humanity was spreading like wild fire, and people were so excited about their role in bringing heaven to earth. But in this hunger and excitement, the word started to get mixed in with the culture and feelings started to manipulate the legitimacy of truth. People didn’t know how to grow past this. They didn’t know how to start and finish something because they were missing a solid foundation. There was a “worship of evangelism,” one extreme focus.

As we reach the 1900s, the Charismatic Tradition began. There was the Azusa Street Revival from 1906-1915, in which there was a huge outpouring of the holy spirit into the city and to women specifically. Spiritual gifts were emphasized, and speaking in tongues and inter-racial mingling characterized those years. As we move on, prophecy and it’s attributes in encouragement, exhortation, and edification were extremely prevalent. Tele-evangelists, mega-churches, and personality cults began to form. The events and the feelings involved were leading the Church. There was a “worship of the experience,” one extreme focus.

That brings us to today. Now according to the verses in Ephesians 4:11-16, there is a need for a five- fold ministry. “Some (are) to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers.” This creates fullness, and also provides accountability. I find it quite interesting that during each segment in history there was an extreme focus on ONE of the important attributes. But there was also NO focus on the others. For example, if you only exercise one muscle, your whole body will look out of proportion. How can we reach the fullness of Christ if we are only limiting him to one attribute?

The Apostolic Church takes the best attributes of the pastor, teacher, evangelist, and prophet to provide completeness. In this, by using all the “supporting ligaments,” we will “attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” because we will be lacking nothing. We will “no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming” BECAUSE we have accountability from the five-fold ministry. And when we reach this, we can “be sent” into the world as apostles, instead of men and women trying to operate with one arm and one leg.

We need each other and a ministry that builds leaders, not just motivates them.

Fearful Substitution

"Hatred is best combined with Fear. Cowardice, alone of all the vices, is purely painful - horrible to anticipate, horrible to feel, horrible to remember; Hatred has it's pleasures. It is therefore often the COMPENSATION by which a frightened man reimburses himself for the miseries of Fear. The more he fears, the more he will hate."

--C.S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters)

Your Own Mix

YOU'RE REALLY SPECIAL! You really are! In all the world there's no one like you. Never has been. Never will be.

No one has your eyes, your nose, your hair, your hands, your voice, your smile. You're special!

No one anywhere has exactly your handwriting, exactly your finger-prints, exactly your tastes in food or music or TV. Since the beginning of time, there's been no one who laughs like you, no one who cries like you, no one who sees things just the way you do. You're special.

Look, you're the only one on this planet who's got your set of abilities. Sure there'll always be someone who's better at some of the things you're good at—but no one in the entire universe has your unique combination of talents and skills, dreams and feelings.

No one else through all eternity will ever look, talk, walk, think or do the way you do. You're special. You're rare. And like anything that's rare, you're valuable.

That's why you don't need to copy your friends. You can accept—yeah, you can celebrate—your differences! You can risk being yourself.

Hey, you're no ACCIDENT. God made you special for a very special purpose. He's got a job for you that no one else can do as well. Out of all the billions of applicants, only one is qualified. Only one has what it takes.

That one is YOU...because you're special!

--John Cooney--