• Church Conflict

  Contributed by Sermon Central on Jan 16, 2011 (message contributor)

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  Scripture:  Numbers 16:1-41

  Tags:  Divisions

CHURCH CONFLICT

In Winchester, Ohio there’s a church called the Bethlehem Church of Christ. It’s been in existence for over 150 years, and over the years different events have been recorded in their “history” book. One of their recent ministers was reading back over the different entries in this book when he ran across the following item from the year 1840:

“We had fighting right here at home. The Democrats and Republicans were so bitter against one another, it broke the church up.”

One eyewitness reported a fist fight over the issue: “Two of our best men fought to a finish. One wanted to know if the other had enough. He said he had, so he let him up.”

According to a survey conducted in 2004, preachers from across the nation were asked what topic they felt hadn’t been properly covered in their Bible college training and the top answer was:

Conflict management - 31%.

(From a sermon by Teddy Walker, The Spirit of Korah, 6/30/2010)