Religious Liberty Or Neighborhood Insanity?

Pastor David Jones of San Diego County holds a Bible study in his home every Tuesday night for about fifteen people. This Bible study group has been grabbing national headlines over the past few days. Why? Because the County has informed him that the study constitutes an “unlawful assembly” that must either be properly licensed or discontinued. David and his wife Mary have been hosting the home based Bible group for about five years, but they recently received a visit from San Diego County officials who were responding to a complaint that his group was impeding traffic in the neighborhood and causing a fire hazard. According to Jones, the official asked some rather peculiar questions about the study group. A local news station relates the details of the interview as follows:

A county code enforcement officer visited the house and asked Jones' wife about the weekly Bible studies. “She said, `Do you say `Amen?" And my wife said, "Well, yes," Jones recalled. “And she said, `Do you say `Praise The Lord?’ She said, "Well, yes.’ What would that have to do with it?"

Chandra Wallar, the general manager of the County’s Land Use and Environment Group, was asked by the news station if these were really the kind of questions that County officials would ask. She responded that what the “officer was trying to do is establish what the use is so that we know what regulations to actually utilize.”* In other words, the County’s principle concern was that the Jones’s activity was drawing enough people to their home that it became a nuisance to one of the neighbors. The person who filed the complaint is anonymous so we have no idea whether he or she was motivated by general annoyance or by a more specific antipathy toward religion. Regardless of the complainant’s motivations, the County has proceeded to handle the situation in a clumsy way that has garnered nationwide attention. Based upon the evidence so far, this does not appear to be a case of government intentionally seeking to curb religious expression. Rather, it is an unfortunate example of our country’s increasing propensity to view personal conflict through the ridiculous prism of regulations and ordinances without any consideration of common sense principles of being a good neighbor. Wouldn’t it have been better for everyone involved if the person who had filed the complaint had been encouraged to simply talk with David Jones and let him know what the concerns were? If it was simply a matter of parking space, then surely the Pastor could have come to some compromise that would have satisfied everyone.

Instead an “investigator” was dispatched to the Jones’s house to see whether the assembly at their house could be described as an “unlawful use of land”. A citation was issued because the fact that Bible study participants said “amen” and “praise the Lord” obviously meant that a major violation of land use was occurring. Pastor Jones was subsequently informed that the whole mess could be cleared up if he would only apply for a “major use permit” that apparently makes it legal for him to “annoy” his neighbors with cars on the street. This nifty little permit would only cost the Pastor a few thousand dollars. Even if Jones came up with the cash for a permit, does San Diego County really believe that the person who made the complaint would be happy with the cars being parked on the street as long as he knew that the Joneses had paid a year’s salary to make it legal? I somehow doubt it.

As the case currently stands this is not at heart a religious liberties issue. (Although, if the ineptitude of County officials continues unabated it could soon become one.) Essentially, this is about neighbors who need to sit down and have a heart to heart chat about the Tuesday night parking situation and see if come mutually satisfying agreement can be reached. I doubt seriously whether the person who filed the complaint ever spoke to the Joneses about it, and it is unlikely that he ever will. Instead we are likely to see laws and litigation used where conversation and compromise should have been. Appealing to the authorities should be a method of final resort rather than the default method used to arbitrate disputes between neighbors. Only after personal contact and dialogue has been attempted and failed would it be time to seek redress in the courts and to appeal to the government. Let us pray that sanity will ultimately prevail in this situation and someone in the San Diego County government will become acquainted with this proverb: “If you and your neighbor have a difference of opinion, settle it between yourselves and do not reveal any secrets. Otherwise … you will never live down the shame.” (Proverbs 25.9-10 [TEV])

* http://www.10news.com/news/19595677/detail.html
* You can see an interview with the Joneses at this web address. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,522637,00.html

Hopes & Dreams For Gilead – Making "Necessary" Connections

In my last post I told you that I had been thinking a lot about the kinds of relational connections that God wants His children to be making. In particular, I mentioned the importance of making “new” connections and “necessary” connections. You could also think of this as growing broader and deeper in the relational patterns in our lives. Last time I went to some length to describe what new connections are and why they are so important in the life of a Christian fellowship, but now I want to consider the importance of growing necessary relationships. A necessary relationship is one which you feel is deep and important enough that losing it would make a significant impact on your life. New relationships are important, but they naturally come and go. You can make countless new connections in a week or over a period of months, but they are by their nature relatively shallow. If someone is only growing broader in connecting then he or she will be like butter on a slice of bread: tasty but not terribly filling; or like a large but shallow pool in which you can do little more than get your feet wet. God not only wants us to have big hearts but deep hearts as well.

This depth of heart comes through necessary relationships with people to whom we are intensely devoted and with whom we are increasingly honest. One of the best biblical examples of such a relationship was that between Jonathan and David. Samuel tells us that, “the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” (1 Samuel 18.1 [ESV]) Do you hear the depth of connection in this description? Jonathan and David felt that their friendship and brotherhood was necessary to them. Obviously, there will be few relationships in the life of a Christian that can be described in this way, but there should be some. My fear is that the majority of Christians have no brother or sister in their lives whose input and encouragement is necessary. Paul told Timothy, “I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.” (2 Timothy 1.3-4 [ESV]) In those words you can hear the affection and devotion that these brothers had one for another. They knew one another and prayed fervently for one another and God used them to do incredible things for His kingdom. The early Church grew because believers were going new places in order to make new connections with new people, but it also grew because believers were making necessary connections with people that they had known for some time. That same dynamic continues to be relevant to us today. I am thankful for the relationships that I see growing inside our fellowship through our small groups, because I know that the Lord is using them to make our Church stronger and more fruitful. Even so, I desire for us to grow more in this area.

I do not want our fellowship to be a mile wide and an inch deep. I want Gilead to be a family where people can find new relationships that God wants to use to broaden them, but I also want it to be a place where people find necessary relationships that God uses to deepen them. I realize that making this dream a reality will require us to be daring and deliberate in how we come together. That is why we will be engaging in a LIFE Group emphasis in August that will serve as a challenge to us to grow deeper in our fellowship with one another. I ask you to be in prayer for this emphasis. Pray that the Lord will help us as we seek to open our hearts more to Him and to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Hopes & Dreams For Gilead - Making "New" Connections

The idea of making connections has been on my mind a lot lately as I have thought about the mission that God has for our fellowship here at Gilead. My desire for us is to spend the rest of this year intentionally focused on making broader and deeper connections with other people. The life of God is experienced in community and in relationships, and as such it requires believers to be constantly living their faith in relation to other people. When God wants to do something in the life of a particular person or a particular congregation, He does it through the contacts that they make with others. We mustn’t forget that God uses human communication and contact to transfer the truth of the gospel from one person to another. “But before people can ask the Lord for help, they must believe in him; and before they can believe in him, they must hear about him; and for them to hear about the Lord, someone must tell them.” (Romans 10.14 [NCV]) This verse is simply the Bible’s way of saying that human connections are essential to the spread of the knowledge and love of God. Our connections need to grow in two directions: new and necessary. I'll talk about necessary connections next week but right now I want to think a little about "new" connections.

When we think about the spread of God’s truth we often think of it in the newness direction. We traditionally call this evangelism or reaching out to someone new and sharing the truth of the gospel that is “new” to them. These new connections are ones that God often uses to introduce people to Himself. They happen whenever a believer moves out in faith and makes him or herself available for new intersections in life. This often means placing yourself in new situations. As an example of this the Pastors of Gilead and some of our members have been assisting Creekside Elementary School with and after school homework help program. We have done this to make new connections and recently we received a note of thanks from the Director of the schools Family Resource Center:

'Brothers Sam, Michael, and Bryan,
Guys you are so appreciated! Thank you for all your time and love you gave to the children in the homework help program. You all are a blessing to the children. The boys especially need a positive male role model. I am excited that you will be able to stay in touch with some of the children over the summer.
God Bless You and the work you are doing in our community,
Debbie

I am glad to say that this is just one of the ways in which God is reaching out through the members of our fellowship and making new and meaningful connections. I will be challenging you over the next few months to reach out even more and be bold in putting yourself in new situations. We are going to be handing out free coffee to vendors and visitors during the Springfest, we are going to be doing a gas station service project in June and a free car wash in July. Our GO Team will be making another round of community contacts this summer to try and welcome people who are new to our area. We will be reaching out through VBS in July and going on a mission trip to Princeton in September. I don’t know what the Lord will do through all of these efforts, but I do know that it will bring us into contact with people that the Lord wants us to meet. When God has a work that He wants to do in someone’s life He sends someone into their life to provide the knowledge, insight, or conviction that they need in order to see that work. I am thankful that you are ready to be sent.