About Adam Collier

http://AdamCollier.com/about

Find more about me on:

Here are my most recent posts

topless man wearing black sunglasses and black boxing gloves

How to Improve Christian Fellowship with Conflict

There is a strong and well-known connection between fellowship and conflict, between love and conflict.

If you cruise around YouTube listening to sermons, we can hear some dreadful and harmful-to-Christ teachings being taught in churches. Teachings which also conflict with one another.

A good deal of false teaching which are mixed in with some of the most wonderful and glorious teachings. Teachings which are changing lives and are undoing wickedness in communities all over the earth.

I believe a big reason this mixture goes on unchallenged is that we are not really in fellowship with one another. We are segregated based on pet-peeve doctrines. Most church leaders are isolated and are trained to be so in seminary. Or trained to be so by the former generation’s on the job training. Trained to hide behind their small collections of truth. We tend to major on what we are convinced is true then use that truth to judge and beat up on our brothers and sisters who emphasize something else. Seminarians who surround themselves with their personal amen corner of buddies. Corners which are just big enough to eek out a salary, yet small enough to not have to deal with much of any real conflict.

Limited and inadequate knowledge of Jesus Christ is the massive price that we pay for this segregation.

When some day we want to be biblical, then together we will know the mind of Christ. One man teaching alone every week needs to, at very minimum, be in fellowship with others doing the same. And the congregations need to be mixed up, the Baptists with the Pentecostals, the Lutherans with the independent charismatics.

Not too long ago I heard and older pastor say “a lot of people don’t like my son”, who had recently taken over as the pastor of his church and then said, “if you don’t like him go listen to someone else”

This attitude of agree, keep silent or or get out is one of the most divisive ways of thinking that can exist in the church today. It spreads and has filled the political culture of our nation in cancel culture. It is evil, it thinks it must dominate others who disagree and it is an attitude of short sighted group-think and abandonment.

Some day I predict that the Baptists will routinely be arguing and fellowshipping with the independent Pentecostals, who will be arguing and fellowshipping with the Lutherans, and the Catholics, and the Wesleyans, and every other flavor. And we will know how to do it without hating and abandoning one another or driving one another.

Then I predict we will sell our fancy religious buildings and do great works of God with our money instead.

The sin of isolation and denominationalism causes us to teach poorly and remain in the dark regarding knowledge of much of Christ.

Can We Embrace Conflict to improve Fellowship?

I believe we can greatly enhance our fellowship by specifically embracing fellowship. But we must be taught how to approach conflict and how to react to conflict.

The chief motive needs to be the pursuit of truth. All conflict must be tolerated if and under the condition that we want to come to know the truth. Attitudes of I must be right or I don’t want to be wrong must be banished out loud and repeatedly. Also, accusatory attitudes which seek to shame someone must not be tolerated. Resentment also results from accusations which cause someone accused to behave defensively. Then the conflict becomes fight back from the attack mentality. And the pursuit of truth gets lost to the battle.

But if conflict is encouranged and taught from leaders. Then the groundwork is set.

Another things that must be taught is how to react when people defeat you in conflict. Some people are good debaters, other people are lousy debaters. That often has little on whether they are correct or not. Mistaken people can sometimes out-debate people with great wisdom and knowledge. But they should not always win the conflict, this is very important. And this is where other people must step in and help guide the conflict.

I have won debates before that I later reflected I was totally wrong. And vice versa I’ve given up on a conflict because the person got so hostile I cared more about the friendship than I did on winning the debate.

If you are leading Christian teams in conflict I suggest openly and often teaching the following.

  • Conflict is good and we should do it more.
  • Losing conflict is normal and ok.
  • It is ok if people are wrong or mistaken, we do not accuse one another of evil if we believe they are wrong.
  • Conflict is a powerful tool to come to the knowledge of truth, in a ecclesia/ church setting it is intended for the purpose of knowing Jesus Christ.
  • Conflict is also useful in rooting out deception and strongholds which hold us all back.
  • Knowing Jesus Christ in a variety of ways is the most important thing a Christian community set out to do.
  • Strong debaters are required to periodically stand down when they are dominating others.
  • Weak debaters are required to periodically stand their ground when they believe they have a strong point but are not communicating it well.
  • After every conflict both parties are required to thank the other for a good debate and remind one another of knowing Jesus Christ is the chief aim.

What do you think about conflict, comment below!

for more content on conflict

Here is a great teaching on YouTube by Patrick Lencioni on conflict

person standing on shore and admiring wavy ocean in sunlight

Insecurity and Jesus Christ

Insecurity and anxiety are debilitating emotions. Nothing affects behavior more than feelings of insecurity. When humanity snubbed our creator we fell deep depths of insecurity and vulnerability.

When a person begins to believe in and follow Jesus Christ, very often the most notable and immediate affects He has on us is an inner sense of security and peace. I prize that sense of security as one of the most priceless gifts in my life.

But there are times when as a Christian our security and anxiety levels can be rattled. Furthermore have different weaknesses and even emotional wounds and illnesses to overcome if we are to feel secure and free of anxiety. Tehre is more work to be done and I believe its work of Jesus Christ through others that can help us to rest secure. It is a committment and a pursuit of Jesus Christ that every Chrsitian must take up if they are to experience that secure and stable emotional resting place.

Feelings the sense of being left out, feeling the need to accuse others. Feeling the needs to criticize everything around you that doesn’t meet your expectations. Feeling the sense that life is passing us by and things are left undone can be a result or even a cause of deep inner insecurity.

As in all things it is Jesus Christ himself who gets the job done for us initially and throughout a lifetime. Jesus Christ makes us to rest secure perpetually and ongoing as we face new and different difficulties. He is the one who makes us rest daily under the shadow of his wings. He makes us safe from harm, he heals our diseases, he forgives us our trespasses. But he also sends us friends, he give us jobs, he provides for our needs. He illuminates our darkness and opens the eyes of our understanding.

But if you are feeling a sense of insecurity and regret you should begin to pray, begin to pursue him begin to seek him with great resolve. Pour out your heart to him and watch him do to your emotions what only he can do.

If you are seeking first Jesus Christ nothing feels left undone, only his feelings of things left undone become ours and he lets us get to work on them, which brings us great joy. If we are seeking first Jesus Christ our accusations and criticism’s of others and of the situations we find, just melt away and we simply stop feeling inferior. If we are seeking first Jesus Christ we become settled in our hearts, stable in our behavior, calmly confident of our lives and our situations.

And the the ‘Wonderful Counselor’, and ‘The Comforter’, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ does an inner work in us that no one else could possibly do.

Means To An End …Becoming The End

In business when we hire new people the goal is to train them to do a job independently and not need continual training and reminding, reassurance, and driving them hard, to do a particular job. Some jobs this takes many months, other jobs it takes just a day or two.

In discipleship the goal is the same. The training (teaching) is a means to an end.

The end is spiritual maturity and a person who listens to, cooperates with and responds to the life of Jesus Christ within.

That is the most precise definition one can muster because this life of God in a cooperating and listening person looks different in everyone.

The act of training and discipleship is not THE end in itself.

If you’ve been trained in seminary or elsewhere that the training is the end itself, it’s time to retrain. All is not lost.

Not even evangelism is a legitimate end to justify the forever sermonizing a community. Sometimes Jesus is not evangelizing, there is no autopilot that if we do abc that is success. No hearing cooperating and serving the life of Jesus is the end for all ministry.

The Sunday sermon is engineered to be the end, it is either:

1) intellectual religious entertainment among the thoughtful Christians.
or
2) Repeated reassurance I am going to heaven among the evangelicals.
or
3) Repeated reassurance I am living a life pleasing to God (and myself) among the rich Christians.
4) Repeated reassurance I can try harder and be better and solve my problems, among the poor Christians.

Just to name a few.

If that is your ministry philosophy, forever teaching but never bringing followers to a place of self sufficiency your philosophy is deeply flawed.

Even Jesus did not do that. Jesus sent his disciples out after and during the training time, (within 3 years of beginning) then after only 3 years he left them alone to the Holy Spirit.

Paul would take just a few months to teach his disciples then leave them to the Holy Spirit. Him Leaving was critical to their growth and dependence on the Spirit as a group.

How long have you been hearing sermons you agree with? 5, 10, 25, 50 years?

The Sunday sermon (which I have loved for years) is more like a Greek pagan philosophizing tradition, adopted for Sunday mornings.

Stay Up To Date With Email

​-

Check This Out

I use & recommend Bluehost, buy your domain and hosting here!

Get Adam’s From His Side Book Here! Its about Church Transformaton from Institutional Church to Living Ecclesia

Visitors

  • 53,454 hits

Connect on Twitter

en_USEnglish