Chapter 21- Protecting Your Church

We're not talking about the using armed guards here. Rather, it's about keeping peace and unity within your church family. Any time you put a group of diverse individuals together, there will inevitably be differences. How we deal with those differences is key to supporting and promoting a healthy church. There are a number of things we can do to ensure that we, as individuals, support God's call for His "household" (or church) to function in peaceful harmony.

Focusing on what we have in common, not the differences is essential to maintaining a warm, welcoming experience for all who visit God's house. Personal differences must never be allowed to divide God's family. God himself chose to give each of us our own personality, background, race, and specific preferences- we must choose to embrace and welcome the variety infused within our church families.

Be realistic in your expectations of your church. We must passionately love and support our church despite imperfections. Understand that humans will disappoint you and let you down, because all humans are imperfect! Every effort should be made to work through whatever issues arise, it will inevitably make the church family stronger and facilitate spiritual growth.

We must choose to encourage rather than criticize! This is so easy to say, yet it can be really hard to practice. Sometimes we don't even realize we are criticizing our brothers and sisters. It seems to take more effort to encourage others than it does to pass judgement. We'll leave it at that...

Refuse to listen to gossip. Sounds easy...yet often we refrain from telling a gossiper that we don't want to hear it. Why is that? I'm going to blame it on imperfection and Satan's persuasion- either way, gossip causes great tension in God's household and deep wounds to the subject. Prayer will help resist the temptation to participate.

Practice God's method for conflict resolution. Go directly to the person involved as soon as possible. If that doesn't resolve the issue, take one or two others to help confirm the problem and help reconcile the relationship (mediate). If that doesn't work, take it to the church leaders.

Support your pastor and leaders. They are only human. Their responsibility and challenges are numerous. It's imperative that we do all that is in our power to show our loyal support for all their efforts.