Back in 1978, the Church of Christ on Oakton Street in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines had a decision to make. I don’t know what all the decisions were. I was 10, and living anywhere near Chicago would not even be on my radar for at least another decade. But it came down to this: stay where they were, or buy a school in a nearby suburb that had been closed a couple of years earlier to use as a new building?
Decisions like that can be difficult for churches. On the one hand, churches usually come to exist because they have a mission in a particular place and context, and it’s right to think long and hard about giving that up. On the other, sometimes God calls us to other places, and it’s right not to shut the door on that possibility without a lot of prayer and consideration.
Some decisions come down to, not right vs. wrong, but what’s the best of two valid choices. Maybe it’s like that more times than not. From a distance, as someone who was never directly involved in the decisions, that’s certainly what it seems like was the case with this church in the Chicago suburbs. One building had a high-traffic location on a major street. The other was in a residential area with lots of neighbors around. One had the church’s history. One was full of potential.
I don’t know exactly how the decision was made, but it was made, and in May of 1978 the church bought that school and made the move.
At least most of them did. A few families, convinced they shouldn’t leave Des Plaines, rented a field house and decided to keep meeting there. I don’t know if there were hurt feelings on both sides — I can imagine there might have been.
Within a couple of weeks, though, and through a series of circumstances so improbable that a person of faith might seriously doubt that they were coincidence, that church that remained in Des Plaines had bought another building, on the corner of Illinois Street and Everett Avenue. Its members started referring to it, informally and affectionately, as “Little Des Plaines.”
I know this because my wife and her mother and father were one of those families who stayed. They helped to buy the building, do maintenance, teach classes — they helped to sustain Little Des Plaines and helped it to survive and even thrive on that corner.
The rest of the church moved to Cardinal Drive, in Rolling Meadows, and they did the same there.
And a few years later, when Laura was a teenager and Cardinal Drive had a very active youth group, their family moved there. Another tough decision, another one that was more about two valid choices than right or wrong. They didn’t lose the friends they had at Little Des Plaines. And they were able to reconnect with friends they’d had at Oakton Street.
A few years later, when Laura and I married (at Cardinal Drive!), I preached a couple of times a month for a year and a half at Little Des Plaines. I helped teach and work with the youth group at Cardinal Drive. In both cases, I’m sure, because of the history Laura’s family had in both places. Both churches nourished and encouraged us. A few years later, our son even went to preschool at Cardinal Drive.
That’s my experience. I wasn’t part of the tough decisions, but was blessed by both churches.
In the Book of Acts, chapter 15, we get a look at some of the controversy that most people would rather think doesn’t and shouldn’t exist in the church. Paul and Barnabas, partners in a very successful mission trip, are planning to go back on the road. Barnabas wants to bring along a young man named John Mark, who had started off with them on their previous trip but had left them to go back home. Paul is adamant that he not go along. Barnabas is just as adamant that he should. (Maybe because John Mark was his cousin?)
The result is that they go their own ways. The team breaks up, seemingly for good. That must have been hard; Barnabas had vouched for Paul when no one else in the church would trust him. He must have felt hurt that the partnership could end so easily. Paul must have felt the same.
But, notice this: they both go to share the gospel and encourage Christians. Neither of them stay home sulking. Paul picks another partner, Silas. Barnabas takes John Mark. Off they go, two missions, not one.
That’s how it works sometimes.
We don’t always know what’s best, none of us. Sometimes there will be disagreements in the church. Sometimes serious ones. The only way there won’t be is if part of the church is suppressing their sense of mission. Or someone else’s.
Because when you have a sense of mission, when you’re convinced that God is up to something that you want to be part of, you won’t be talked out of it. So when missions conflict, then maybe the best thing to do is not argue until someone gives in. Maybe, at least sometimes, the best thing to do is for both sides to follow what they think God is telling them.
Too often, churches suppress their sense of mission because influential members don’t want to do that.
Sometimes, church leaders give in on important things so they don’t upset members or “cause division.”
Sometimes, churches find it easier to stifle the creativity and passion of members who see God’s possibilities for new paths. Or dismiss the conviction of members who want to stay on the old ones.
There doesn’t always have to be a right and a wrong. Sometimes even “sharp disagreements” can serve the Lord’s purposes. One path becomes two. One church becomes two. One mission becomes two.
All through Acts, we see Paul’s and Silas’ partnership thrive as they preach the gospel in Turkey, Greece, and Italy. We don’t hear much about Barnabas and Mark. But we have this, in one of Paul’s letters, a decade or two after he and Barnabas had their falling-out. Paul writes to Timothy: “Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. “ He’s in prison and feeling alone, and he asks for Mark to come. Mark — who he barely remembers left him on that first trip. Mark, who is helpful.
We see what people are now, if that. Not what they can become. When we make tough decisions, let’s do our best not to demonize those who disagree. Let’s recognize that sometimes disagreement is exactly what God will use to do his work in the world.
By the way: both Cardinal Drive and “Little Des Plaines” still exist, doing God’s work in their neighborhoods.
Are you even the slightest bit surprised?
