Navigating church questions.

• Should our church “go green?”
• Is it ok for people to speak in tongues in our service? In our groups?
• Can our staff and leaders use alcohol?
• Can we have church in a bar?
• What is our responsibility to ending poverty in our community?
• Should we have women elders?
  
• Will we perform the weddings for people who’ve been divorced multiple times?
• How much debt should our church take on?
• Can gay people attend our church? Be in groups? Be a member? Serve?
• post-modern? emerging? denominational? seeker-sensitive? reformed?
  
• Should we circumcise all new Christ-followers? [ok, that one was just for fun]

Church leaders are hit with decisions every day – some big-time theological questions, some philosophical, some just mundane programming.

I’ve observed something – the younger the church and the leaders, the greater the questions about theology and philosophy. The older the church, the greater the questions about practice and programming. Why? Older churches tend to have already settled what they believe. They’ve locked in their answers somewhere back there.

But young churches – church plants? They get the rush, the wild ride of having to decide EVERYTHING for themselves. There’s no history, they’re at the top of the hill, virgin snow before them.

To navigate this addictive challenge, we’ve opened our browser to these 5 windows over the years. These are 5 questions we ask when tackling a new question, issue, or direction in our church:

text? history? body? community? church

text. What does the scripture teach or imply about this issue? If you had never seen a church or had heard someone’s opinion, and if you just sat down to read the new testament, how would you answer this question? [acts 17:11]

history. What have God’s people practiced through church history concerning this issue? What has the Holy Spirit guided His people to do about this topic?

body. What is the Holy Spirit doing today in the body of Christ? What has He inspired and taught other churches in other places to do about this topic? [acts 15]

community. What would be the best practice in this issue to reach the context and culture of our immediate community? [1 corinthians 9]

church. What is God leading our church to do concerning this issue?