Have you ever seen a good church fight? I mean not the casual disagreement about something but I mean the old fashioned fist flying, head-butting, table crashing, chair smashing on the back, bottle over the head church fight? Well I haven’t seen one either, and I hope I never do, but this week I read a story about a church that might just come close. In Fair Oaks, Kentucky, and I promise you I don’t know why all these stories end up coming from Kentucky, but in Fair Oaks, Kentucky there is a church called Calvary Baptist Church and the pastor there was a man by the name of Al Grounds. Now Al Grounds never truly wanted to be the pastor there. As a young man at age 13 he heard his calling into the ministry but he did his best to ignore it. He went on to start a successful business but he that feeling never left him, and after he was diagnosed with cancer in his throat, he told God that if he was healed he would answer that call. Well, to the doctor’s amazement he was healed, and he did answer the call. And answer it he did.
He began to preach on street corners, in bars, every where he could go and tell others about what God had done for him. He had to make up for lost time. And people responded to his message. Folks came from far and wide to hear him speak. The folks at Calvary Baptist church had heard of Al and before long they sent for him and asked if he would become their pastor. Finally, after months of saying no, Al accepted the call to Calvary Baptist.
His first two years there flew by. People who never cared about religion flocked to the church. Crowds packed the aisles. During the summer people stood outside the windows to hear the services. Never before in its history had the church grown so rapidly. People drove from as far as 75 miles away for midweek services.
The more the church grew, the busier Al became. God not only gave him back his voice and his life, He blessed his ministry in ways Al never imagined. But not everyone shared in his enthusiasm.
The first sign of trouble came as a low rumble emanating from the senior ladies’ Sunday school class. Al didn’t think much of it. After visiting several class members, he decided only one or two were actually upset. At the epicenter stood Imogene Hurst.
Imogene was always mad about something, but Al never imagined the depth of her anger toward him. His days of preaching in bars embarrassed her. She found his pastoral style undignified. But that only scratched the surface. Imogene had enjoyed her role as church matriarch for years. People looked to her before making major decisions. She wasn’t the most respected member of the church, only the best informed. She knew things about key leaders that they didn’t want anyone to know, especially their spouses. And Imogene wasn’t shy about using what she knew to get her way.
But in Al Grounds, Imogene found herself up against a man she could not manipulate. So she decided he would have to go. At the September business meeting. After dispensing with the usual round of reports and statistics, Imogene Hurst asked to be recognized. Rising to her feet she began, "I’ve been a member of this church all of my life. And all of my life this has been my church, my home. Just like it’s been home to lots of you. But it isn’t home any more." She looked around the room.
"Now, thanks to that man," she spat the words as she pointed at Brother Al, "this church is full of people who don’t belong here. They don’t live here, they don’t know us, they don’t belong. Now it’s time for them to go. I make a motion that Al Grounds be removed from the position of pastor and that all names of those living outside the city limits of Fair Oaks be removed from the church rolls." She got one of her friends to second the motion, but the rest of the church stood to testify to how Pastor Al had impacted their lives. They not only refused to let him go, but the church rescinded the membership of Imogene and her twelve others who were with her. As she left the building she screamed out loudly, “This is not the end of it! This is not the end of it!”
And it wasn’t. A few weeks later Pastor Al was called to the Sherriff’s office to be notified that he and 5 deacons were being sued by Imogene and her gang for $140,000. He didn’t give it much worry because he knew there wasn’t grounds for the case, but soon after there were obscene phone calls made to him and his family, threats on his life, and even during one service, a man pretended to come to answer the altar call only to pull out a knife and charge toward the pastor. Luckily he was stopped, but things kept going downhill.
Jesus said, “By This all men will know you are my believers if you love one another.” It’s a sad thing when people fight, it’s an even sadder thing when Christians fight. Now the church fight at Calvary Baptist in Fair Oaks wasn’t the first nor I dare say will it be the last. In the Philippians church, there was a fight taking place between two women in the church. We are not told what their dispute was, but it must have been pretty big because Paul heard about thousands of miles away and we are still talking about close to 2000 years later.
Paul as the founder of that church has heard about the fight and about what it was doing to the church, and so in a letter that was supposed to encourage the people of that church, he saw the need to address the issue of these two women bickering and fighting. When a church fights it does a great deal of damage, so I want to this morning share with you what happens when the church fights and how we can work to solve our own problems if they ever arrive in this church. Please leave your knifes at home!
Now in this passage I want to give you a little background to how things worked back then. When ever Paul or a leader of the early church would write a letter, it was a big thing. The church would gather around, and they would have met in a home or in a hidden spot in that time, but when they had gathered the pastor would then read the letter publicly out load.
Imagine sitting in the congregation listening to Paul’s letter being read. There are two women, sitting on opposite sides of the room, listening intently. Each of them is surrounded by their supporters. They both gave a hearty amen when Paul said that he was “confident that He who began a good work in you would carry it on to completion to the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1:6) Both women dabbed their eyes with tissues when the great Christ-hymn of chapter two was read (Phil 2:5-11) and they both nodded resolutely when Paul told them beware false teachers (see 3:18-21).
But imagine what it was like when Paul starts chapter four by calling each of these women out by name. I imagine everyone turning around looking at them. And I imagine them feeling pretty low at that point. Now I’m sure Paul does not mean to embarrass these two women, but does not hesitate to deal with issue head on because Paul knew the harm such a bitterness between two church members could do.
Think about the impact it had on these two women alone. Coming to church must have been a burden to them and their spiritual joy must have been removed. Now notice that Paul in here says that these are not bad women. These were women whose names were written the book of life, these were both women who had labored to spread the gospel. These were women who loved the church! But what must church now be like for them? Now not only would there action impact the life of the church, and the church’s mission and focus, but think about the impact it had on these two women. Now I don’t know who was at fault in this dispute, but whatever had happened it had the potential to harm folks, not only emotionally but also spiritually.
And any church fight, if left unresolved has the potential to scar people spiritually for life. In the example of the Calvary Baptist church, one of the five deacons mentioned in the law suit committed suicide, Pastor Al crumbled under the pressure. His marriage had crumbled, his business went down, and he couldn’t handle the pressure of that church any more, so after the law suit was dismissed and the members reinstated, Pastor Al not only resigned as Pastor, but he stopped going to church all together, and who could blame him. You see these arguments have consequences, and what may be a remark you make just to speak your mind may end up wounding someone deeply. And that must have torn at them, and then not only this, but it threatened to tear the church apart as well.
When ever you have two folks in the church fighting like this, inevitably folks are going to take sides. In the first church I pastored, we had an argument between two families in the church. One was a family who had the family. This was a godly family who had a bunch of kids, and grandkids, and even great grandkids who came to that church. They were not wealthy though, both were retired school teachers. On the others side of the church we had a smaller family who didn’t have as many kids and grandkids, and those they did have seldom came to church, but they had the money. And when ever an argument arose, I knew basically there would be two camps of thought, this family and that family, with each coming to me saying what they were going to do and so, and the other church members would simply join in on either side they thought was right.
Now its important to notice that Paul didn’t take sides in this letter. Now remember this is not a fight over some deep theological issue, in chapter two we get a hint its over someone being selfish, so Paul is not saying that the issue doesn’t matter, nor was Paul saying that everybody was right, he was saying that whatever you two are fighting about, you have much more in common not to fight about. Basically, work it out and get over it.
Now not only does it harm those involve and also the church, it sets a bad example to the rest of the world. If the world is going to know that we are Jesus’ disciples by the way we love each other, then what does it then say when we are fussing and fighting? Max Lucado once compared the church to a boat tied to the dock with folks waiting to get onboard, but because those already onboard the boat was fighting so much the boat was rocking so heavily to the point that those waiting to get on board no longer wanted to. When the church is fighting, we look anything but attractive to those who want to know Christ.
With all this being said, how can we best avoid the big church fight? Well, first let me say that the best think to do is to take care of the problem as soon as it happens. Now disagreements are going to happen in the church. Feelings are going to get hurt in the church. These things will happen. The church is not a perfect place. But the best thing to do is when those things happen, take care of them right away. If somebody makes you mad in the church, go talk to that person about it, not behind their back about it. I was reading an article by a Korean Methodist preacher this week about church conflict, and he wrote that he never understood much about church conflict until it was pointed out by a senior pastor of the church he served on how best to resolve conflict. He wrote I mentioned to Pastor Brian that I thought someone might be mad at me. He encouraged me to call them and talk them about it. I said I would, hoping to put it off for a year or two. Then he said, “I want you to call them by 7:00 tonight. I will call at 7:15 to see how it went.” That wasn’t fair! I remember picking up the phone, with my hands trembling and voice shaking, and discovering that they were not mad at me at all. It was a complete misunderstanding. I learned a valuable lesson that day. It is always better to deal with conflict immediately than put it off indefinitely.”
And that is true, its best to deal with it right away and to talk to the person about it. Now if you don’t feel comfortable about that, please come and talk to me about it and we will see what we can do about it. If it is about me, please feel free to come and talk to me about it. Don’t be afraid, I’m not really that mean. Really. I had a girl in a church I pastored at the time named Kelly, and she was about 17 years old and was about 9 months pregnant and had just started coming to church, and during the sermon, I noticed that she was in pain and had her head on the pew ahead of her, and after the sermon, we had to actually carry her out to the car and take her to the hospital. She had gone in labor during my sermon, and afterwards I asked her why she didn’t leave during the message, she said she was afraid she would make me mad if she did. I’m not really that mean, but if you don’t feel comfortable talking to me about being mad at me, that’s one of the reasons we have a Pastor Parish Relations Committee, so speak to one of them and they will relay the message to me.
Now it’s important to remember that whoever the person is that you are mad at, remember that they are your brother or sister in Christ, they are not your enemy. Now notice that Paul in here says that these are not bad women. These were women whose names were written the book of life, these were both women who had labored to spread the gospel. The church has enemies but these women were not it. I remember something that I heard a while back that was told by a professor to a group of graduates in seminary. He said you go out there and you fight the good fight, but you make sure it’s a good fight you are fighting and not each other. Whenever you have a fight with a person in the church, remember we are people of grace, that means we treat others as we want to be treated, not like they treat us. That means that we practice forgiveness and not hold grudges. That means that we hold our tongues and not gossip or say things we would later regret.
Now what about we as a church when we see two of our members fighting in the church, what do we do? Well the first thing is that we can’t ignore it. Now a lot of times we simply don’t want to get involved in somebody else’s dispute. Our fear is that the result will only be that “both” parties are mad at us. Have you ever watched one of those “Cop Reality Shows” where the police are called out to break up a domestic disturbance, and when the police try to break up the fight they both turn on the policemen. That is what we are afraid will happen to us! They’re both going to get mad at us.
But as Christians we are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation. Paul called on his loyal yoke to help these two women get along. You see, in truth we are indeed are brother’s keeper. And we must work to bring folks to together.
You know, I love how in this chapter with all that Paul has going on in the church, with all the strife taking place, Paul has that wonderful verse that is often quoted, Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. You see the church is supposed to a place of rejoicing, not a place of bickering and fighting. If you have something against someone this morning, I encourage you to take care of that today. Don’t let anything rob you of that joy in Christ that is yours today.
