All Your Reasons

We've been having some very interesting discussions at our small group on Sunday nights. Our topics have been, well, the controversial ones I guess. The things like drinking/drugs, divorce, how to give, music in the church, etc. etc. I think next week is women's roles in the church. Although I'm not sure about that...it might not have been suggested actually. But at any rate, it's basically just a way for our group to discuss these types of issues, not with a goal of coming to a conclusion that we all agree with, but just to hear different people's opinions and other viewpoints that we might not have heard before. It's really been pretty neat, since there are a number of different backgrounds in our group, and getting to hear those differences, as well as just learning about new ways to view these things, has been pretty cool.

I think that one that surprised me a couple weeks ago dealt with giving. Apparently, this topic is quite a firestarter for some people, and I wouldn't have really guessed that. Some of the older people in our group have witnessed some heated debates about how to give, meaning, whether you should be putting something in the plate every Sunday, or whether you can give one lump sum one Sunday a month for the same amount. I wouldn't have really thought that it was an issue at all. Or whether you are obligated to be putting something in the plate every Sunday in the first place, since it's certainly not the only way that one can give. Am I saying that you should never put anything in monetarily? Absolutely not. But I certainly don't think that you should feel like you have to if your circumstances don't allow it.

Now, I know, we're certainly the most financially blessed nation, and even when we feel like we've got no money, we're really incredibly well off. I liked how our de-facto leader put it, when he said that giving comes of our abundance. And more importantly that money is not the only thing that we should be giving...it sadly just gets the most attention. I don't know...it's just been intriguing hearing these opinions, and all the reasons that people give for doing things a certain way.

One of the better things we've talked about deals with where you fall when the Bible is silent on an issue. You either see silence on a subject allowing you to go on with something since it is not expressly forbade, or you see it as a stop sign which you cannot cross. I think I fall in to the former category, although we've been in classes with other people that certainly fall in to the second group. And when you get in to these topics like divorce, or instrumental music, you get these viewpoints of what exactly we're supposed to do. Some will say that it's not mentioned that way in the Bible, so therefore we can't do it. Other's will say that the Bible is not our manual of minutiae and therefore shouldn't be expected to give example for every single little detail of our lives. (I'm not really entirely sure where I'm going with all this rambling...)

I guess in the end, for me at least, I just figure that you need to at least know all your reasons for doing and believing something. I don't think there will be ever be two people who will agree on all aspects of anything, whether it's religion-related or not. But if you know why you believe something, and you have your personal study to go with it, who's to say that you're wrong on something that's not said to be one way or the other in the Bible? I think on the whole the CoC is getting better about the "we're right, you're all wrong" thing that has given us the stigma that many others place on us. It's sad that it happens as that whole grace thing gets forgotten a lot it seems, but it's not like these types of issues will just go away.

I think what I'm learning is that I don't need to post stuff where I need to think this late at night. If this was incoherent, my apologies. Oh, one other thing of humor/surprise/shock. So, I go to church on Sunday, and I'm looking through the reading material during the slow periods (the announcement sheet) and see that church service for Wednesday has been switched to Tuesday. Now, we meet at the local YMCA, so you might think there would be a pretty good reasons, like maybe they were holding some meeting or the building was going to have some work done on it or something. Nope. They've moved it since Halloween is on Wednesday. I guess they wanted to make sure we work the Halloween spirit in to our week.