What I’m currently reading:
People Need the Unity-Committed Church — by Mark Henderson ACU Lectureship February 19, 1996.
This is a great essasy and lecture on unity. There were quite a few passages in the essay that struck me quite hard. Henderson’s comments on how many divisions can be found within churches of Christ, Henderson’s belief that the church of Christ has a very noble desire to understand and follow God’s word, Alexander Campbell’s call to exclude those who divide by binding opinions on others, and finally, the anecdote about the ministerial fellowship meeting that Hnederson attended.
The essay quotes an article in a magazine in our fellowship stating that there are Eighty-Four seperate tests of fellowship in churches of Christ. That article was written in 1974. It makes me wonder how many there are today…
The author echoed my feelings on the Churches of Christ and the Restoration Movement by talking about the noble desires of our members to understand and follow God’s word. While unity has not always been included in that, I believe that it should be and can be, and hopefully shall be again.
Alexander Campbell’s call to exclude those who divide is quite powerful. Campbell stated: “If a man causes divisions and offenses by setting up his own decisions, his private judgment, we must consider him a factionist, and as such he must be excluded–not for his difference of opinion, but because he makes his opinion an idol, and demands homage to it.”
Campbell’s words convict me. I pray that the call for unity will not divide our churches even more.
The ministerial meeting that Henderson described got me. How amazing that an Assemblies of God minister would thank God in prayer for the Churches of Christ, and raise up one of our ministers and churches to God ask for blessings upon them… even though I disagree with the Assemblies of God in many places, we must have the attitude of their preacher, to lift up those we feel are in error and ask God to bless them.
Finally, I was struck by Henderson’s comment that by reaching to the left, we not only may be able to learn from those to our left, but that we will have things to teach those to our left as well. I believe the churches of Christ have alot to teach others, and I think that is yet another great reason to work for unity.
-Clarke
Hello all:
I put up several new links on the ICOC section of the Restorationmovement.org website. Included is a site called “Restoration Unity” which I would recommend checking out.
Also, I placed a link to Christian Church Search in the Independent Christian Church section. That site is maintained by Mark Vernik over at ConservativeCulture.com.
Hello all:
I complied a Dictionary and Primer for all of the abreviations and sects in the Churches of Christ. It is posted as a page and can be found at the very top of my blog.
-Clarke
Hello all:
My last post on the Restoration Plea left some of the questions Joel asked unanswered. So, I’d like to tackle what I think some of the answers might be. Again, below, is Joel’s question, which he posted in a comment on Travis’ blog.
BTW…Joel, if you are out there, feel free to come on over and comment on my answer to your question to someone else lol….
I would like to hear some discussion on the evolution of restoration theology. Is there a place for the restoration plea in the 21st century or is it a completely dead idea altogether? What will restoration churches look like in the future and what divergent paths will we take. Are we doomed to more division or will we see a new unit form from all of the factions that exist today?
Thanks!
Posted by Joel Maners Tuesday, December, 6, 2005 at 9:50 pm
Joel’s question got me thinking a bit about what the Restoration Movement will look like 20 or 30 years from now. While no one but God knows for sure, I’d like to take a crack at making a couple of guesses. I think there are probably two or three models of what could occur in the future.
Unification
I think that in 20 to 30 years, we might see a more unified Restoration Movement. The International Churches of Christ no longer have a denominational structure and are, for now, congregational. If the ICOC remains congregational, and the talks that are occuring between some ICOC and COC congregations continue, I believe that we could see mergers occur. I’ve already heard a rumor of one or two congregations merging, but I do not know if that is correct.
I also believe that a merged ICOC and COC would make fellowship between churches of Christ and Independent Christian Churches easier. From what I have heard, many ICOC congregations use instrumental music, but that they don’t always use it all of the time. Because attitudes towards instrumental music have been changing, the scenario of wider fellowship is more likey, but if ICOC churches and COC churches integrate, there will be a large number of members who are already used to the the idea of instrumental music.
However, this is not to predict that churches of Christ will move to instrumental music. In fact, I would say it is safer to stay a capella and just extend fellowship, without making a switch. Advocating instrumental music would be a dangerous play that would cause more splits, not unity.
My bet is that the Restoration Movement will move towards the pattern of churches of Christ in Australia and New Zealand. The churches in these two countries affiliate with both the a capella churches in America and the Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. While there are a few a capella chuches that don’t fellowship with the larger body, the most are unified, and have quite a focus on unity.
So, I see our churches becoming affiliated with the Independent Christian Churches, so that the ICC churches really are “Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. However, I alo see scattered one-cup, no-class and non-institutional churches remaining, with little to no fellowship occuring between mainline congregations and those congregations.
Disintegration
Another model that I could see occuring is disintegration. That being, more and more splits, with weaker and weaker lines of fellowship.
The reason I can see this occuring is because of the sweeping calls for change occuring in our churches. While some of the calls for change are good, especially regarding issues such as holiness and social justice, some of the change can be not so good as well. Holiness and Social Justice attitudinal changes are defensible, even demanded, by the bible. However, some change, such as wider roles for women, instrumental music in worship, praise teams, etc., are not very defensible in a fellowship that looks for authority in scripture for everything that we do. Strong pushes for these changes will most likely result in splits and disunity.
So, not only might we see one-cuppers, no-class, and non-institutional fellowships that don’t associate with other groups, we could start to see non-women leadership churches, non-praise team churches, non-this and non-that churches of Christ.
Status Quo
Finally, there is the chance that the status quo will remain. New programs, styles of music and ministry will continue to develop, but change will be small and incremental.
Let us hope and pray for more Unity in the church. Let us hope and pray that we can establish ties to our one-cup, no-class and non-institutional breathern as well. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, whether we are liberal or conservative.
-Clarke