What’s in a Name?

 Our church has published a one-page summary of what we believe for visitors, so that they don’t have to wade through our whole doctrinal statement.  At the end of that summary are these words: “There is room for a variety of views in many non-essential areas in our congregation.  We agree on the central points of the Christian faith and our commitment to the unity of the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:1-3) convinces us that it is making mountains out of molehills to argue over lesser issues.” 

 

Now, it would be a serious misunderstanding if you concluded that there are not consistent friendly, or even passionate, discussions over points of disagreement beyond our stated doctrinal position among those in our body.  But, we strongly resist the tendency for the interchange to get heated.  We are of one mind that, if you will, we will “argue” over our differences only with a cool head and a loving heart.

 

What’s in a name?  In this case, the name of this blog sums up what I have grown to understand to be the believer’s proper responsibility to blog (posting and commenting) in such a way as to honor our Lord.  In these past months, I have witnessed many otherwise godly people say absolutely vicious things to those with whom they disagreed and I have been guilty of overstating some things for effect myself on occasion, in the flow of my typical stream-of-consciousness writing style.  As a result, I have been occasionally offended, and always embarrassed, by the out-of-control statements or allegations, whether by someone else or myself.  Sadly, what Jesus’ half-brother concludes because of the potential for the tongue to cause incredible damage is at least as true in regard to blogging: “My brothers, these things should not be this way” (James 3:10, HCSB).

 

So, our mission in the time ahead–should you choose to accept the mission of interacting with my posts by commenting–is to do all to the glory of God, and make no lame excuses for why we acted like the unbelieving world in the way we communicated.  I, for one, am completely convinced that we will accomplish a lot more of the “iron sharpens iron” positive rubbing off on one another this way than lobbing written hand grenades at each other.  Now, it’s time to put our Spirit-controlled words where our current good intentions are… and agree to disagree agreeably.

 

For whatever it’s worth, it is my plan to post three times per week most weeks, with the Monday and Wednesday posts being essays specifically for this blog audience.  On most Fridays, though, I will post my copyrighted weekly column in the local newspaper here in the Texas Hill Country, The Canyon Lake Times-Guardian.  It will give you some idea of how I write for a more popular–and partly non-Christian–readership.  It has been my joy to write this type of weekly column for six and a half years, and I would urge those of you who are local pastors to seek out such an opportunity in your area.  It allows the sowing of the seed of the gospel in some interesting creative ways (e.g., through recent reviews of the movies “Amazing Grace” and “Evan Almighty” and presenting Christian perspectives on all our cultural holidays). 

 

This Friday, however, since I’m launching the blog mid-week, I will do my first substantive post: “Trustee ‘Accountability’ vs. the Reality of Sin.”  I invite your thoughtful reading, as well as your comments, but with the two provisos that I have discussed under “About This Blog”: 1) Have a balanced “take“; and 2) Don’t sin.  In other words, let’s agree to disagree agreeably.