This is something my husband wrote after the recent passing of his mom. Have you experienced friendly fires?
Friendly Fires in the Church
Friendly fire is a military term meaning accidental shooting or bombing of comrades in battle. There are many reasons for friendly fire. Bad information, inability to recognize friend or foe, the weather, darkness, logistics, and ignorance are but a few of those reasons.
Mark 10:13-14 says “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant.”
Let’s apply friendly fire to the church. Perhaps the church is on autopilot. It has programmed and charted out its destination or business as usual. It appears that everything is clicking like a well-oiled piece of machinery. It could be that the machinery has taken over the ministry.
My mother recently passed away on Mother’s Day 2011. She attended a megachurch in Hampton, Virginia where she and my father were faithful with their attendance and finances for many years.
Mother was very excited when my father became interested in church services and began attending and growing in faith. He enjoyed the music, the preaching, and studying the Word.
My father is a retired chief petty officer with over twenty years of service in the United States Navy and is a Vietnam Veteran. Growing up in the Catholicism, he thought that Mother and I were too emotional about church. As he began to visit services with my mom, he began to change his views and opinions and realized that more than just noise, there was a life-changing experience to be found.
When it became apparent that my mother’s passing was quickly upon us, my father and sister made an appointment to visit the church staff to make arrangements.
The ministry liaisons were very reluctant to commit, e.g., to many policies that no one wanted to cross. My father and sister were very hurt, knowing that Mother’s wish was to have a church service. I personally could not see the problem of a church of this magnitude having the issues that they did.
I am not anti-establishment. People fall through the cracks. But we control the machinery. The machinery should not control us.
When the ministers came to pay respects at the funeral home that my father chose after being shrugged off at church, he was so insulted that he asked them to leave the premises. We memorialized my mother at a funeral home in the city with our own family members conducting the services. My father has since considered returning to his roots of the Catholic Church.
Perhaps this was Friendly Fire……
Written By: Jon Moraga
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