A Letter to a Disagreeing Church

Religion class got me thinking today. It was question and answer time for the whole two hour class period and the teacher was being asked some pretty tough questions about Adventism. Almost all were directed at doctrines, structure or beliefs. That's a tough spot to be in; answering questions representing the whole of a religion. I started thinking... Why is it so important that we focus on a religions belief system?

Not once, did a question come up about how we as Adventists live out our beliefs. For example, loving people and being "the light of the world". I recognize that beliefs are the foundation, they represent where we are coming from and I love discussing ideas from a variety of backgrounds. But I feel like we are missing the biggest key ingredient. Jesus! I think we spend to much time disagreeing with each other and trying to say who's right and who's wrong; whether woman should be ordained, if this world was created in 7 days, one day, or billions of years, or even which day of the week is the "true" sabbath.

I think that one of the reasons young people are leaving the church is because we spend a huge amount of energy on doctrines and duties. This is what's being portrayed to the people around us. This will never give a valid representation of a group because we will never agree 100% with one another. Instead, it creates tension, bickering and judgment. Everyone will live and describe their religion in a certain way, To judge the religion as a whole, by how the individual acts and lives alone, will get us into trouble. The truth is, we are all broken. We can't give a perfect representation of our belief system because... we mess up. As a human, we look for the "right" religion or ideas. (because why would we want to be wrong?). So how do we make sense of all this mess? This is where God comes into the story. 

God works in our brokenness. He made us from dirt! Dirt isn't flattering. He could have made us from rainbows, moss, or flowers but, he wanted to make a point. God can make beauty from something as mundane as dirt. 

I believe God works through people and I believe he works through many different religions. Trying to prove one is right and another is wrong ignores the example that Jesus set when he lived on earth. His mission was to love. And not to love just the people that followed him and believed what he was saying, but also to the people who hated him, argued with him, and talked poorly against him. 

May we stop becoming worked up about what each other believes, but start embracing the beauty in differences. May we start living and being the love of God that this broken world so desperately needs.