Church Politics Make Me Nauseous

Tonight I went to my first church business meeting. The ironic thing is that I was really excited about it. The community I'm involved in, the Ring, was going to be affected one way or the other with the way the voting went, so I went to show my support.

Here's how I thought tonight would go. I'd go to church, hear a message, and then have a meeting afterwards. During the meeting, I thought that a friend of mine, Josh, would talk a little bit about the future of the Ring to the rest of the church, have everybody vote, and then everyone would high-five each other and we'd all hold hands and skip out of the church. One big happy family.

I'm pathetically naive.

Not about the vote, that went fine. Without a hitch. What sucked was after the vote. There was a time for any other motions to come before the church. A man walks up and asks if "Mr. White" can finish out his study on Ezekiel. This is my first business meeting and I think, man, that's a little weird, to ask about some guy being able to finish out his bible study. The reaction from the crowd was even more weird. They asked how long he would take to finish it. Wait a sec. Huh? Since when do we (church body) decide how long a study should be? When did we get that responsibility? Aren't we as the body supposed to be led, not lead? Sorry, I'm digressing. So the vote passes and Mr. White gets up there. He says, "I'm not sure how much time I've got." People speak out and tell him to be finished by 7pm. Its around 6:45pm at this point. So this man starts talking. From what I've heard tonight, he is following God's call. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on which side (that's right, I said side) you're on, that call seems to be calling out the church body itself as a whole as to what's going wrong. He's not pulling any punches. And apparently has made some enemies in the process. Because every two minutes he would look at his watch to make sure he was keeping to the proscribed time. My heart broke a little each time he glanced at his watch. I just wanted to stand up and yell, it's ok to speak God's truth!! Sometimes reproach is a necessary tool. God's word even tells us how to go about it the right way. So he finishes his message in his allotted time. I'm heartsick at this point, but it gets worse. After everything is over, there are two men in front of me who are whispering to each other. They are very intense and have a malicious air about them. One of them is whispering behind his styrofoam cup into the other man's ear. That's when I wanted to throw up. How does a church get like this? I don't understand it. I just want to throw something and sob at the same time. The Bride should not be acting like this. We should not look like the world. And from my perception of this evening, that's what I saw in my church tonight. A whole lotta world, and not a lotta God.