More about how to handle controversies:
How do you handle the news of attacks and controversy when you see smoke but no fire and accusations are abounding about your church?
Here is some practical advice. When there are lies flying about mixed with enough truths that everything gets so confusing, always go back to what you do know. What do you know? That the bedrock of Scripture never changes and addresses everything that concerns us including this. Stand there. What else do you know? God is who He says He is and He does what He says He will do. Stand on those promises.
That is the bedrock, but what else is helpful when all is murky? Stand on what you already know consistently over time, of the characters and ways of the ones being attacked. You may not know the attackers or their lives, but you at least know what manner of men are here before you. If they have proven themselves over and over again, that they stand on the principles of God’s Word, and if something is not right that involves them, they will want to do everything they can to make it right. So, remember the character of the people involved and remember the Biblical way of viewing things, that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
Once you are standing on the character of a person, then stand on what they are saying about the situation. You know them, and their evidence, so rest there. If you have questions, ask the leaders who have the correct information. They will know what is of the truth, and what not, what they can say and what is confidential. You don’t know the attackers, or what is driving them, so be skeptical. Even if you do know some of the attackers, you need to always ask yourself what is driving them, in their lives, underneath, where no one can see, with this ungodly reaction. People are more than their words.
Where else should our bedrock be? Stand on grace and only grace with love as your resultant action. This grace and love is to surround and identify all our actions and reactions. Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve, His salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ, out of a deep love for us. And we should walk in that grace in everything we do and are. Also take 1 Corinthians 13 as a statement on what we are to concentrate on. “And now abide faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” I Cor. 13:13.
If love truly is the highest thing we can do to please the Lord, and if some action is not done with this sacrificial love at its foundation, even the most well meaning attempts at good works will not register with God. They will be as nothing. “…and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” I Cor. 13:2.
When you are operating with God’s love at the core, how would this look? Look at love according to I Cor.13:4-8. It suffers long and is kind. It does not envy, it does not parade itself, it is not puffed up. It does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
Stand on that bedrock and realize that there are a lot of things that are said and done in the name of love that are ‘anything but’. When you are walking in the light as He is in the light, the result is that you will be able to see more light.
“For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.” Psalm 36:9.
When you see more light, you will be able to process things around you more clearly and not let your emotions cloud over your judgment. When people choose not to walk in the light and let bitterness take control, this causes them to lose their ability to interpret correctly. This puts them in a murky field where their interpretation of reality gets skewed because they can no longer see well. After this interpretation of reality gets skewed enough, they end up living in a false reality that is believed by their mind to be true, even when it is not. They have lost their anchor and are drifting. We need God to keep our perspective pure and on course. We need Him every day and that is why we can’t afford to put a cloud between us and God through the sin of bitterness and anger.
This leads me to my next point. Don’t trust your emotions. They are a poor indicator of reality. Just because your emotions say that something is so, doesn’t mean it is. The bedrock is always God and His Word, and you align your emotions to that anchor, nothing else, and certainly not to a mere passing feeling which got there through something you read on the internet. God sees ‘all’ clearly, so walk right behind Him, knowing He knows the way through all murky waters. Follow in His footsteps. Keep things in their proper order, where God is very big and man very small. Keep the goal of loving God and your neighbor central to all you do and think.
In general, the things that smack of the enemy, are things that are in murky, hazy waters filled with emotion that can be easily swayed if not anchored. Remember, if it is vague, if it is antithetical to grace, where the other party can never climb out of the pit created for them, if it tears down, breaks up and smacks of pride and self, even if done in so called ‘love’ for good purposes, it is being influenced by the enemy. Even attempting a good thing the wrong way will not work. Bitterness can not accomplish God’s purposes. God is clear, He tells us things in peace and the result is a building up in love, a bringing together. He tells us things through His Word and they are not difficult to understand even if they are hard to do. Stand there.
“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” James 3:17,18.