How Do You Work With People In The Church You Just Don’t Like [Blog]
I had a crazy dream the other day. I was in a church. No that’s not the crazy part (LOL). I was sitting in the front row watching, as a group of ministers walked toward the right side of a pulpit in their white robes. As they made their way to the pulpit they turned and faced the congregation.
As I was watching, a person I really don’t care for (in real life) says “You need to be up there with them.” I replied, “No I don’t, besides no one said I had to be up there, so I’m not going.” I thought to myself mind your business!
Next, a group of people dressed in black, whom I assumed were deacons or trustees, walked toward the left side of the pulpit and as they made it there, they turned and faced the congregation as well. My grandmother was a part of the group (in the picture she’s the second person standing from the right).
PAUSE: Now for anyone that didn’t know my grandmother in real life she was heavily involved in our small church in NYC; she wore multiple hats. She was an usher, a missionary, a trustee and helped to pay the church’s rent when it was struggling. In fact, I never knew my grandmother not to be heavily involved in the life of the church. She passed away in 2003 at the age of 71 from Alzheimer’s.
BACK TO THE DREAM: As soon as I saw her I thought “I need to ask my granny “How Do You Work With People In The Church You Just Don’t Like?” Although I assumed she got along with everyone, clearly she had enough experience and would be able to answer the question.
THEN BOOM! I’m awoken by my wife! I was so close to an answer, I wanted to bomb my wife out!
So, “How Do You Work With People In The Church You Just Don’t Like?” Clearly we all will have to do this at some point but you know how it goes in the church: we often smile, work together begrudgingly and then talk about each other behind our backs.
Maybe the first thing we need to do is put it all on the table like Paul did with the church in Corinth.
Oral reports from Chloe’s people (1 Cor 1:11-12) disclosed information which Paul puts on the table such as: squabbles over leaders, matters of sexual immorality (chaps 5 & 6), fellow believers taking one another to court (ch 6), abuses of the Lord’s Supper (11:17-34), and attitudes of some toward the resurrection (15).
After Paul aired out the dirty laundry, his pastoral strategy was to remind them that they were of one body and maybe we need the same reminder: