Gary Sciascia wrote an interesting article posted on the Groton-New London International Church of Christ website that I thought was worth mentioning. You can read it here.

At first read, I thought that this was yet another defense of maintaining the status quo. I know a thing or two about overreacting, but in my experience, few have actually done so. There is this uniform urging of ‘caution’ from all the so-called teachers for fear of overreacting. That is understandable, and under normal circumstances, probably the best approach. However, outside of Henry’s original letter and a few subsequent letters, there really has been little action at all. Who is doing all this overreacting that so many are frightened of?

**DIGRESSION ALERT: PLEASE PROCEED TO THE END OF THE MARKED SECTION FOR COHERENCY – YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**
Instead, I see a few people speaking out in various places and either being silenced or marginalized. The most popular reaction seems to be “Let’s not go overboard! We don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater!” Seems that some people think that babies can be washed in a teaspoon of water.

Outside of that, my friends in other cities don’t see much change, if at all. If anything, we’ve just decided to be really nice to each other, not disagree too strongly, and basically take an “I’m OK, You’re OK approach”. I’m not saying that this is true everywhere. I don’t want to overgeneralize. But when I ask myself honestly, “What has changed?” I see a lot of change in how churches deal with each other, but I see little change in an individual member’s life. Many places still have church appointed Bible Talks, still have so-called discipling partners, still have top-down leadership. On paper, there may be no one-over-another relationships, but without a serious effort to reverse so many years of practice, it’s not going to change that much. What has changed for the average member? From what I see, little more than nicer sermons and staff members actually saying ‘hey’ to others that aren’t in leadership. Again, this isn’t everywhere, but it seems to be the common situation.
***END DIGRESSION. WE BRING YOU BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED COLUMN, ALREADY IN PROGRESS ***

But after a good digression, I came upon the last paragraph:

The debate should not be over “should we be old school or new school?”, but simply, “what is most biblical?” Shortcuts to building our ministries must be abandoned for the most biblical ways to build, regardless of how long it may take. Oftentimes, the most biblical ways of doing things may take longer or do not produce the kinds of quick results we have become accustomed to.

And I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that trying to introduce artificial boundaries will only cause division. It’s not about old school vs. new school, it’s about biblical practice and doctrine. Of course, this means different things to different people, but it is a principle that I do not consider ‘bathwater’. If we can discuss the Bible and practical solutions, we will go a long way to change. It is not important to me if someone considers me new school or old school, what matters is faith expressing itself in love.

The effects of real change will take time. If you read the digression, you may think that I am impatient for results, but that is not entirely true. What I rant about is the fact that there are few that make public statements about change, fewer still that publicly make those changes, and only two chruches (to my knowledge) that have sought outside help. Read icocinfo.org or disciples.today.com and there is little sign of anything really changing. I don’t blame the respective websites, they just report on events and articles that they can access or are submitted to them. It just saddens me that for all this talk of ‘change’, that there is little record or mention of it.

If anyone out there knows, please fill me in on the secret.

In any case, Gary wrote a good article and I wanted to make mention of it.