Creating failures in the church …

When the police arrived on scene, they questioned the employee at the location about why the silent panic alarm had been activated. The alarm company had responded by calling the location in an effort to find out what the problem was, but no one had answered the phone. So the police were dispatched to discover what had gone wrong.

What was the problem? Where was the emergency?

There wasn’t any. The employee had accidentally hit the alarm button, but had never heard the phone ringing or the police arriving because the music blaring through his ear buds was too loud!

Americans love their music, as is all too easy to see by the familiar site of ear buds and headphone cords attached to electronic devices. When I lived in Hawaii, it was common to see someone pull out a ukelele and start strumming a song, even while on the job!

Whether in the shower, in the car during a commute, around a camp fire, or in a worship service, people love harmonizing with a catchy melody.

In the church, we often miss that simple lesson from music. When we miss taking the melody of sound doctrine and harmonizing to it how we actually live, we create failures in the church.

We do so in a couple ways. There is the church that focuses on getting doctrine right, but misses teaching how to live right. And there’s the church that focuses so heavily on living “right” they get their doctrine wrong.

Both kinds of fellowships create failures in the church.

The Apostle Paul was concerned about this kind of leadership and this kind of outcome in the church. He addressed the issue succinctly in his letter to Titus:

“As for you, Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching,” Titus (2:1 NLT). The New International Version phrases Paul’s instruction this way, “You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine.”

Paul emphasizes we not only need to teach sound doctrine, but also how to live in such a way that the substance of our lives harmonizes with it. What we believe is important, we need to get our doctrine right. But if how we live fails to be in harmony with what we profess to believe, we ultimately sound the sour note of failure.

Is how you live your life in harmony with sound doctrine? Or is one, or both, off key?

Scotty