A Safe Church – Are We One?
Paul has laid out some powerful steps which are necessary to assure a church environment of peace, serenity and safety. People strong in grace, sharing hardships, avoiding word wars, remembering Jesus, enduring all things for the collective body of the chosen, and avoiding the things that hold the power to contaminate the church body.
As we complete our study of 2 Timothy, our examination goes deep and becomes extremely personal. Following the first erosion in Acts five the Bible records many elements of human behavior that were at work to attack the element of safety within various congregations of Jesus’ church. We probably should not expect that anything will be much different during our day. This study will illustrate how church peacefulness is never a fully accomplished task, nor is it ever a completely void virtue within modern churches.
Today’s church safety, like that in the first century, is tied to each Christian’s devotion to developing and maintaining such an atmosphere. This lesson will ask three questions concerning a congregation’s peaceful environment. Each question gets us closer to one’s personal responsibility in the mater of congregational serenity.
The lesson concludes with a specific challenge. Members of our congregation were asked to make a commitment to live by a “Safety Proverb.” They did so by signing a business card on which they vowed to live within the parameters of the proverb. They were encouraged to carry their card as a personal reminder and to show the card to others when beginning to share thoughts over which another might become defensive. Another suggested use was to show the card to another if their sharing traveled down a path that was void of the safety proverb standard.
If you are serious about making your church a safer place you may want to become a “card-carrying-Christian” as well. That safety proverb goes like this: “Everyone is free to have their thoughts and express them appropriately but they must be void of any tone of demanding compliance.” Sounds like a very safe producing promise doesn’t it? Now it is up to each to JUST DO IT!
