The Win-Win of Church Splits

  I can't believe I'm writing this.  Probably my mom can't either, as well as my brother who is a pastor in the Missionary Church, and a lot of my friends who are still in the church. The title alone is enough to raise the ire of church folks everywhere.   Oh, well, that hasn't stopped me before, so here I go, publishing my unpopular opinions and then letting people love me anyway.

  This post is actually a challenge of sorts to the previous post, "Thin Walls", in which I condemned the denominational and political walls that have dismembered the Body of Christ over the centuries.  This time I am saying that divisions can be good, that they serve an essential service in the Kingdom.

  Here's the thing: human nature.  Or maybe personality types, or even spiritual gifts.  What I'm talking about is the variety of people that exists in the world and in the church:  People who get bored easily and initiate change for the sake of change, and those who resist change.  People who welcome the presence and work of the Holy Spirit, and those who resist the Spirit.  People who love noisy, animated worship, and those who retreat in quiet meditation.  People who enjoy expose' and exegetic preaching, and those who can't wait for the small group so they can finally ask questions and enter the conversation.  Evangelists, and administrators.  And so on.

  It's a good thing there are different scenarios, different styles, different types of church settings, because there are so many kinds of people.  A virtual smorgasbord of worship settings exists in America, a plethora of flavors and colors.  And that's good.

  Because birds of a feather will just normally flock together.  Naturally.  That is, in harmony with the God-given nature that is within them.  This results in harmony for everybody.  Because if very different species of birds are forced to co-habitate, there can be squabbles and even violence.  That's just the way it is.

  Okay, a personal story here.  I was active in the same church all of my adult life and held various positions of leadership as a volunteer within the church.  But on random occasions during that time, I experienced resistance and even opposition to my efforts from others in the body.  My ideas were shot down, my actions were questioned, and my individuality was challenged.  My friends of the same unconventional feather noticed the same natural phenomenon.

  It happens everywhere.  Most of the time I didn't take it personally - even when it was intended to be personal, in which case I would pretend it wasn't.  It was simply different people operating within their own sets of gifts, personality types and personal preferences.

  But a chasm started to open within the church body, a gap between two large groups who held very different values.  And over twenty-five years the gap widened.

  One group placed a high value on outreach.  They were people-minded.  They stressed missions and community service and love for all.  And they would disregard sacred practices of the church to embrace the needy, whether inside or outside the congregation (i.e: they might spend their tithe money on car repairs for a needy neighbor and then not have it to put in the offering).  They were inspired by movements and champions of movements like Frank Tillapaugh and Kennan Callahan.*  I started calling them the Progressives.

  The other group were Traditionalists.  They placed a high value on structure.  The buildings and property were important to them.  The doctrines of Wesleyan evangelicalism were sacred to them, and familiar programs were set in stone.  "If it worked in the last century it will work today!"  They  didn't just resist change, they stood in the way of progress.

  Finally, a progressive and well-loved pastor who was seen as the champion of an organic  movement was forced to leave the church.  For no good reason, except that the traditionalists, who had been outnumbered for twenty years, were momentarily in control of the governing board.  And the result was a church split.  The progressives had finally reached their limit of patience with the road-blocking traditionalists, and 150 of them left all at once.  The church went from 225 to 75 almost overnight.

  It was a dizzying exodus, and my head was spinning for months after as I tried to figure out what had happened.  The perennial peacemaker and an elder at the time, I had worked harder than anyone to keep the place together, sacrificing my reputation in the process.

  But I was obviously a progressive, and I was made aware that, not only were my ideas not welcome there anymore, neither was my presence.  One of the other elders told me to give it up; "You guys lost," he said.  My response was, "We all lost; there was no winner here."  Six months after the mass exodus, my wife and I reluctantly exited too, amid turmoil and pain, much of her family remaining at the church.  

  But we are loving it now, and I've changed my tune; I no longer believe there were any losers in this parting of the ways.  Three years after the split we see what a wonderful place we are in, a place of freedom in a land of opportunity.  We will never go back to working within the walls.  Here's what's good about this church split and why we are thankful that it happened:

  1. The Traditionalists have their church back the way it was 40 years ago, the way they like it.  They have put thousands of dollars into improving the property and buildings and installing air conditioning, they have re-instated old programs and practices, and their familiar doctrines and orthodoxies are unquestioned and unthreatened within the walls.  Remember, structure is their highest value.

  2.  The Progressives, who had talked and dreamed of engaging the culture in more organic, incarnational ways but whose efforts were often blocked, have now moved outside the walls of the church and are pursuing their dreams and visions with excitement and energy. Most of them are meeting in one of several small house groups... or in the park, or at the ice cream shop, or at the ballgame.  There's nobody to tell them not to.  Remember, their highest value is people.

  3. Everybody's happy.  It was a win-win situation for both groups and continues so.

  I have concluded that as long as we are unified by our belief in Jesus, birds of a different feather may be better off not flocking together.  So there will be options for everybody.  If you like tradition you have options, and if you want to try something new, you will find a place to belong as well.  Different strokes for different folks.

  That's the nature of it.  Take a look at any school playground and you'll see that from a very young age, humans will naturally cluster with others who are like themselves.  Birds of a feather.  That's our God-given nature.  That's the way it is.

*Frank Tillapaugh wrote Unleashing the Church, defining and criticizing what he called "the fortress mentality" of exclusiveness in the church culture. (Regal Books, 1982)
 Kennan Callahan wrote Effective Church Leadership, in which he explained that America was a post-churched culture where effective leaders should see their local churches as mission outposts, not fortresses. (Jossey-Bass, 1989)
 Also see The Shaping of Things to Come, by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost, in which they analyze the Life Cycle of a Church, the focus of a church being on people in the growth stage, and on structure in the declining stage. (Hendrickson Publishers, 2003)