When Color Divides…

During my times of visitation, I ran into a former church member who said that he would never set foot in that church again.  There were too many problems and he said that he would never go back.  After gaining an understanding about why he left the church, it reminded me that division is so harmful to the church as well as to humans.

A single-celled cancer is harmless until it starts dividing.  When it begins to divide, it invades healthy cells and makes a healthy cell part of the problem.  Division within a church is just as deadly as cancer.  It spreads…it divides and eventually, it can destroy the whole body.  The church is called the Body of Christ and when one member starts to divide the rest of the body, it becomes less effective…the Body is not as healthy and it can cause other otherwise healthy members to begin to attack and divide the other parts of the Body.  This is why Jesus prayed for unity and why Paul saw divisions in the church as so destructive (John 17:11).

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Why did the former member get so upset?  At a church board meeting, the members could not agree upon one item of old business.  The members became upset that one of the members would not accept what the board had voted for and so this one angry church member quit the church altogether and set other members of the church against other members.  What was the issue?  It was over the color of the new carpet that the sanctuary needed.  The choice of the color of carpet divided the whole congregation.  I was amazed that something as trivial as the color of a carpet could divide the church and cause some to leave.  How grieved Jesus must have been over something as small as the color of carpet.

“I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought”  – 1 Cor 1:10