Last week I was out on a spiritual retreat and found myself flipping through one of my old Bibles -- my main Bible from December 1995 until about 2003. I have so much scrawled in the margins of that one. Eventually the binding fell apart completely. The cover is strictly optional now and everything from Galatians on is a pull-out section for everyone who prefers the abridged version of the New Testament. So I felt compelled to retire it and pick up a newer and thinner version. The old one will never be tossed though because it's like a second diary from those years. (Yes, I keep a diary. Does admitting that and that I have a man-crush on Keith Urban warrant a punch in my man card? I hope not.)
Well, in reading it last week I came across something kind of interesting that I picked up somewhere along the way. No idea where I got it or who said it/wrote it. But it's thought-provoking, so enjoy.
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Christian community has three essential components:
T = Truth
A = Accountability
F = Fellowship
If you have A and F, but no T, you are a cult
If you have T and A, but no F, you are a seminary
If you T and F, but no A, you are like most Protestant churches today.
4 comments:
T and A in seminary...man, i knew i should have gone full time!!
OK...so my wife was horrified i posted that with her picture. She disavows all knowledge of me.
On your point though...I like it a lot. What are we saying accountability is? Because i wonder if many churches have too much accountability (if that's possible) but the wrong kind. I'm talking the judgemental accountability (the subtle you aren't christian enough for us) hat often can be smelled miles away from the churches front door.
I agree... we hold people accountable (from a distance) to what we believe they should look like in order to worship with us. But the accountability that's missing is that we won't allow anyone to hold us to any sort of practice of holiness. One confronted over blatant sin will most likely just go to another church. "I will worship with you, but don't ever tell me I'm sinning" -- that's the prevailing attitude I think.
What Bart described is not too much acct but just hypocrisy. Acct is holding each other according to Scriptures and unfortunately we don't do this today.
Churches today have become more of attracting people than representing God. It's like we have great programs and that's all good but when people sin we are afraid to tell them for fear they will leave. We hide this under 'grace' cuz we don't want to be judgemental. Paul asks in Romans 6 that should we sin more so that grace may abound? Absolutely not and when we see people consistently sinning, then we have the duty to go to them. By doing so we are showing them grace and that is to point them to Christ so that they may stop sinning.
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