Day 92-Feeling Different from others

When I was a kid, my parents changed churches four times. It was very confusing experience. As soon as I began to feel comfortable, make friends, fit in, we would move and I never really understood why at the time. Often it was a church fight. The losers in the fight would leave. As a I see two values that are in tension with each other.

One is unity. We should work hard to establish and maintain unity.

But there are times when it seems God does not want us to be united, but God wants to start something, do something new. So the protestants separated from the Catholics. The Cumberland presbyterians separated from other Presbyterians. The trick is not to look on the other as the enemy, but to continue to pray and love and be humble before them even if there is disagreement.

The Christian church is huge and diverse. There is a lot of variety. If one church does things which make it difficult for you to stay connected to God, and others and be yourself, try another.

that said there are churches that call themselves Christians but have denied the essential truths that make us distinctly Christian and are something different. These truths are found in documents like the Apostles Creed. if a group denies one of these core truths (like the divine/human nature of Jesus, the authority of the Bible, the need for salvation)they should not be considered Christian. So if you should live away from home during college, you need to be careful about your new church.

Luther said: In the essentials the church needs to be united. In the less important things there can be diversity (Like hymns or worship songs, does the pastor wear a black robe or a hawaiian shirt etc.) but in all things there neeeds to be love.