The price of doctrine, when is it too high?
In this town of around 500,000 no church is a perfect fit for us. So trying to decide on the right church requires trade-offs. The question is what do you give up? Liturgy? Doctrine? Community?
Our tendency has been to hold-on to doctrine. Usually this comes at the expense of community, which explains why we drove 45 minutes to worship in Georgia. But while there we also discovered liturgy. The price of doctrine in Dayton seems higher and may require trading-off both community and liturgy.
I'm also re-valuing community. I'd like my children to have friends close enough that they see each other a lot. I'd like for my family to be in a church that is able to serve its community. Is this possible in a church where the people are spread out across several counties?
If a church has doctrine but its people are not able to serve one another, and outsiders, as a church, is the price of a common doctrine too high?
6 comments:
I know what you mean, Tim. Doctrine is the determinative factor for me. But, I would love a higher liturgy. And, I would dearly love a geographically close community.
This is easy for me, the childless one, to say but I would rather have my kids see their church family friends less often than risk infecting them with bad doctrine. Is it healthy to continually "debrief" your kids after church? "I know Pastor said XZY but that's not what we believe." What are we teaching kids when we do this?
I can sympathize with you Tim, believe me. I think we can serve one another in a spread out community. I think we could, with effort, serve the community even when we are not centralized. Now, if we could just work on liturgy...
We've come to the conclusion that liturgy get the highest position for the simple reason that lex orandi lex credendi. We simply have to have our kids in a church where what we actually do in the service is solidly Biblical, even if the sermons are on the light side, and the denom is messed up at the national level. We can be sure they get good doctrinal teaching at home.
Kelly
I'm afraid I'm going to have to amend my above statement. Since Mike said, "We have to find a church in town," that obviously means that he values community above the other considerations. After that, I can't tell you whether we've chosen liturgy over doctrine or vice versa. We like the Lutheran liturgy better than the Episcopal (it's more Biblical and it's lovlier), but the Episcopal church will commune all our children after we join, which is in line with our doctrinal beliefs.
Thank you Barb and Kelly for your comments. I apologize for not replying sooner. It was mid-terms week at school and I dared not go on-line until the exams are over.
It seems that each time the military moves us it takes a while for us to "leave" our old church. I'm sure to some degree this clouds our judgment as we look for a new one. In time, God will give us clarity.
Tim,
This is Stephen from Macon, Ga. Hope you guys are doing well!
I look at the issues a little differently. Doctrine drives community and liturgy. They cannot be separated. We cannot and should not place community over doctrine, because the truth accords with godliness (Titus 1). Godly elders will drive the doctrine home in practical application of the truth.
Just a thought.
Stephen, it's good to hear from you!
Thanks from the comment. I agree with you. But regrettably there isn't always a church with elders like that nearby. I'm in a town of 500,000 people and there's one (maybe two) churches like that. The congregation is spread out all over the area. So it seems to me that after finding a church, in order to have community the people would have to move closer together.
Or I suppose you could do what you're doing and plant a church nearby. :-)
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