What Matters Is – How We Do It
Anywhere there is more than one person there is going to be conflict. This goes back as far as Cain and Abel. Cain had a disagreement with God and took it out on Abel.
Too often we act out our disagreements on people who had nothing to do with it.
We are humans we are not perfect. The Church is no different than any other organization in this. The difference is that as Christians we’re supposed to handle disagreement differently. Too often as the Church we forget this.
We have forgotten how to be in relationships with other people. We expect everyone to see everything “the same way I do”. We have become separated and distant. This isn’t going to change if we don’t do something about it.
In Matthew 18:15-20, we are given an example of how to deal with disagreements. Disagreement isn’t to ignore. Disagreement isn’t to be mean. Part of a healthy relationship is civil disagreement.
We’ve forgotten how to disagree.
Harvard has done a 75-year study showing the importance of relationships. This study shows that a healthy relationship increases your chance of survival by 50%.
“Social relationships, or the relative lack thereof, constitute a major risk factor for health — rivaling the effect of well established health risk factors such as cigarette smoking, blood pressure, blood lipids, obesity and physical activity”
A healthy relationship requires participation from everyone that is beneficial to everyone. The more separated we are the less likely we are to improve relationships. A virtual relationship is nice but not a complete relationship.
If we have a relationship with God first, all of our other relationships will improve.