An end and a beginning

I think I can safely say before I've started that this will be the hardest blip journal entry I've ever had to write, and I hope will have to write. This afternoon I handed in my resignation as a member of the church I have been a part of for half my life. Over the last few months my blip entries have often been sketchy to say the least, as I didn't want to share what was happening. I hoped that it would all be sorted out. Sadly this has not been possible, and for theological reasons I am not going to go into in detail here, my church is in the painful process of splitting. A significant group is leaving, some have already left and settled in new churches, but the majority of us are setting up a new church, which met 'officially' for the first time in the function suite at the Redhurst Hotel this afternoon. As of next week we will be meeting in Clarkston Hall for much of October while we make important decisions about where we want to meet long term, where we can best serve the local community, about the different roles and responsibilities we will all take on and start to sort out practical issues like a constitution, bank account and OSCR (Scottish equivalent of the Charities' Commission). Our priority is to focus not on what we have come from, but on where God is leading us, and what he wants us to do for him in the future.

Of course these issues are never entirely black and white, there are shades of grey in many areas, but those us who are leaving would, I think, all agree that there are some basic and fundamental truths about Christianity about which we must all agree. Things like the historical reliability of the Bible and its authority in our lives, about the rich and wonderful character of God as described in the whole Bible, the nature of sin and hell and what that means about salvation and Jesus' death on the cross. There are plenty of issues where I am happy to disagree with other Christians, but I don't think that these can be among them.

I have never been involved in a church split before, and pray that I never will be again. The pain and confusion on all sides, the damaged friendships, the suspicion and rumours which do the rounds. It is absolutely horrible. I have great friends on all sides, and many of those who are staying would share my theological views, but feel that they should stay, which I very much respect, but cannot do myself. I hope that when the dust settles we will all remain friends. Walking out of the church for the last time was incredibly painful, and many tears have been shed today. I will always have a big bit of my heart in that church, and with the people who make it up, but I have to move onwards. The Bible verse to which I have been clinging over the last few months is Philippians 3:10, a verse which was a memory verse on the first Christian Union conference I went to just a week or two after I first went to the church, after doing the usual 'church search' as a Christian student arriving in a new town. "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Through this awful time, knowing Christ is all that I can hold on to.