I think if the churches of America that had some good things going for it could merge, you might get be getting somewhere.  Jesus said we must worship Him in Spirit and TRUTH.  It seems you could categorize the average church that isn’t apostate yet into either of those.  Spiritual churches.  And churches of truth.

It is a rare church that has the right mix of each.  You need to have both.  Most churches are unbalanced and they are either “right” and proud of being the only ones going to heaven — or they are so feelings based they have no clue how to lead anyone anywhere.

I have been around the “various camps” and there is a biblical case made for being a church for truth, and one for spirit.   However, actually finding the church that does both is not as easy.  The problem is everyone seems to think they have that balance, and they easily pick out the church that has “less truth” or they can easily pick out the church that has “less spirit” than them.  Yet it seems they can’t see where they are unbalanced.

A Pastor said, that “Passion without principle is unstable”.   It is good to be passionate, it is good to be emotional.  We should not be dry eyed, and hard-hearted when dealing with people’s issues and dealing with a lost world headed for hell.  However, there needs to be doctrine as an anchor or there is no controlling where the emotions take you.

“Principle without passion is cold” is the other quote a Pastor made.   I attend an Independent Fundamental Baptist church.  They are “right”, they know they are “right”, and they are proud they are “right”.  However, I think what is lacking in “my circles” is the tears, the mercy, and the compassion.  At times, it seems that all that is shown is law, tough love, and the judgment of God.  Hence, I think that one error in those of  us who are better at fighting for the truth, is we end up cutting people’s heads off in the process.  Yes, we won the battle (the argument) but we are losing the war (their hearts and the next generation).

God uses our mistakes and even our sins to bring us to Him and exhaust us of other futile options.  In the truth camp, they act like the older brother proud they haven’t had a major sin in 30 years.   They don’t realize that the sins of self-righteousness, pride, and thinking you are better than someone because of church-absorbed holiness are the sins of the pharisees.  God came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.  Yet in the truth camp, we think God is impressed with our righteousness, and surely must look upon us with high regards.

I can contrast that with an example.   Let’s look at Teddy, someone who has close friends in the “Spirit” camp and his Pastor is in the “truth camp”.  Teddy makes some dumb decisions during a time of crisis, loses everything, and ends up attempting suicide.  The police are called and Teddy ends up locked up in a mental ward for a month.  The Pastor visits him, with eyes of disappointment and comes in with a discouraged hopeless air about him.   The Pastor gives him the truth, that Teddy sure made a mess of things.  Yes, Teddy agrees and puts his head down.  The Pastor shows disappointment in Teddy.  Teddy can no longer be trusted, Teddy is off the ministry roster.  Bad Teddy.  What are we going to do with you?

Now Teddy gets a visit from Sam Spirit.  Sam comes in with a warm smile and is up beat and glad to see Teddy.  He gives him a huge hug.  “Teddy, this is a difficult situation no doubt, but  look at how God orchestrated things for you.  Instead of you getting your own way, the police were called, God spared your life, and God has truly got your attention! This will no doubt be a turning point in your life because this has caused you to look to Jesus! I am actually excited for you to see what God is going to do! Let’s pray!”

The spirit camp actually had a lot of truth in it as well as if Teddy did look to God and did start to see God’s hands in a tough circumstances.   The problem often in the truth camps are they tend to be stuck in the moment, and they tend to not have the eyes of faith.  Faith is looking at the overwhelming obstacle of the Red Sea and taking a step when it makes no sense and at the end rejoicing , blown away at what God did but knowing somehow someway God would not let you down.  The truth camp seems to focus on the water and the impossibility of the situation and the fact that no Baptist had ever previously before went through the Red Sea.  Often the problem is 2 fold.  First, the leaders don’t have the faith that the waters will part.  And two, they don’t want to find out they were wrong so they don’t want anyone else to have that faith either.    God is able!  We preach it, we amen it, but for some reason when we have to face it often the Truth Camp attitude is one with eyes locked in on the giants in the land, the grasshoppers in the pews, and not an eye on Jesus.

I think the TRUTH camp needs to appreciate and be thankful they are where they are at because of God.  If you grew up in a head-hunter family, you likely would act different and have different values than if you grew up in a church with a family that took you to service 3 days a week.   Yes, you have free will to be a rebel where you would order pizza and wings when the family is having friends over for dinner -literally in the head hunter scenario   And you can be a rebel plugging your ears three times a week instead of embracing the preaching.  However, if you grow up with character and love God it usually is because the family you were in loved God and instilled character in them.  Because their family did.  Rarely can you say, wow, look at me, look at my wonderful character!  So, we cannot look down at people new to church or who did not grow up in church and think we are better because they haven’t arrived.  We cannot look at those who fall back into their drug of choice in a bad moment and write them off.  That could be the time where someone with the eyes of faith can be there to say, “wow, God loves you too much to leave that junk in your life!  Drag this thing into the light and let’s both watch it die together!!!!!””  Far too often, we get the eyes of doubt and the eyes of judgement instead.  Ha! I knew you weren’t ready for the Seniors ministry!  That is why we never let you preach Sunday night service to begin with!

We need to provide means of restoration instead of condemnation.

And less about information and seek more illumination.

Not salivating about the latest fall to use for an illustration, but use people’s struggles and failures as validation.  That God is real.  That God is able.  That God loves them.

And maybe, just maybe, we would have something to offer the next generation.