Evenly divided
I just read where we as a country are ‘evenly divided’ regarding the war in Iraq. If you look back over the last few years you can see we are ‘evenly divided’ over many things. War, abortion, welfare, workfare, immigration, legalized drugs, taxes, national health care and the list goes on.
It occurs to me that we never get a clear majority in anything anymore. If the voters get out for Obama this fall he will likely win by a point or two and no more. If the GOP gets the vote out then McCain will win and whatever the case the winner will declare a ‘clear mandate’ from the people to do whatever he promised to do or to do whatever he thinks is best for the country and clearly half of the population will disagree. I would say that we all lose if this is the pattern we continue on.
This leads me to a true story about a church I was a member of that faced a similar situation. Faith Missionary Church in Indianapolis faced a crisis. We were land locked, running multiple services and bursting at the seams. We had a problem of too many people and not enough parking, seats, etc. and the battle began.
Half the church wanted to start a sister church and relieve the congestion by taking a few families (maybe 200 people) to another location and start a sister or daughter church. They would call a pastor and gather a worship team and start a church much like the one we had and multiply our effectiveness this way.
The other half wanted to sell the building we had and move to a much bigger site and build a new church that would house all of us together and allow room to expand as we needed to in the future.
Both solutions were discussed at length and every time it came to a vote we were split 50/50. There would be a vote where one side ‘won’ by 1 or 2 votes or the other side ‘won’ by 1 or 2 votes and the leadership wisely recognized that they could not follow either idea because of the close division. It got heated at times and I have to say that we were at risk for a full collapse.
As I recall it now I don’t remember how we arrived at the solution that we did but this is what happened. Since we had to do something or die as a congregation we rented a facility that would handle about 200-250 people comfortably and asked those that wanted to start a new church to plan on going to the north side facility. Plans were made and staff called and we set a date. On that day fully 400 people moved to the new facility. That was about half of the congregation. (funny how that happened) and that was the beginning of the solution. The new church as called Grace Community Church. We were never considered a sister church but I guess in effect we were for a while.
Today both churches exist and are thriving. Grace Community Church has an attendance of about 6000 every Sunday on a 50 acre facility and Faith Missionary Church is a thriving membership of less than 1000 but given the space they have that is at full capacity. Faith Missionary Church started some other sister and daughter churches and those continue but here is my point. We found a solution to what seemed like a no win problem. I believe God orchestrated what we did but it was not something forced on either side. It was a mutual agreement to disagree and one if the best church ‘splits’ I was ever privileged to experience.
We need to focus on our country that way today. There has to be a solution and the constant bickering is not going to solve it. It is not about right and left or right and wrong. It is about freedom and liberty. It is about caring for the other side more than you care for yourself. As a believer in Christ it is not about ‘thou shalt not’ but instead should be Love the Lord your God with all your mind, soul an strength and love your neighbor as yourself. If we get this it will be a better place and maybe it won’t be evenly divided anymore. Are you willing to take the first step?
United we stand. Evenly divided we fall.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
It’s a Good Life.
Jerry Robertson