In this Q&A, Pastor Bill Johnson shares strategies for maintaining relationships even when beliefs are conflicting. It is important to celebrate what God is doing in a person while focusing on the tenants of faith that are essential.

how do you reconcile relationships in

your life and ministry

when uh you have very conflicting

doctrines and

it might be a personal conflict going on

here but also might be

we tend to walk with ministries we don’t

have complete you know

yeah agreement with our doctrines i

actually intentionally bring people in

to speak as you know yes i remember

those days yesterday

bring people in that that we don’t agree

with but they’re good people they’re

people are prayer

they’re abandoned to the lord and it

just doesn’t hurt us to be exposed to

other segments of the body

to where we learn how to eat meat

throughout bones we learn how to

celebrate who people are

and it comes down to you know they have

a specific thing in mind usually when

that question’s asked but it’s a general

question

so i can miss it all together but if

it’s an essential thing

you know like the blood of jesus you

know they deny the effect of the blood

of jesus or the virgin birth or whatever

it might be

that’s different then you you have to

draw relational boundaries yeah and

you’re not going to

you haven’t had those folks into our uh

our congregation i have not

yes all the majors we agree on it’s the

minors yeah yeah exactly it’s the you

know the role of angels or

yeah you’re baptized in the spirit you

speak in tongues when you get it or

later or not at all and

end times and devastation is you know

those things

you know there’s opinions that are very

diverse and we have our

convictions what we feel are right that

we live by

but i’m not going to exclude people that

think differently

and they’re just you just have to get to

a place where you can celebrate

who people are without stumbling over

who they’re not that’s what we

that’s kind of the one the mantra of the

the

culture of honors is to really celebrate

what god is doing in a person you know

wesley and whitfield is

i think is a great example they were so

diverse and they were at

odds for a season as i understand it i

wasn’t there but i hear

they’re at odds for a season and one of

whitfield’s

associates or friends said yeah i don’t

think we’ll see wesley in heaven

and whitfield responded yeah yeah i

think you’re right

he’ll be so much closer to the throne

than we are that it’ll be hard to see

him from where we are

and he was responding obviously in honor

wanting to honor

one that he had really grown in

affection for so

you know part of it just comes down to

that if it’s an essential

area if it’s a family member that’s one

thing with family

it doesn’t matter what anybody believes

you’re together yeah you just you know i

just

i’m not going to touch on touchy

subjects there’s enough other things to

talk about in life without offending or

hurting people

you know if it’s a board member or a

staff member or

a church member or a pastor down the

road you know there’s all there’s

different degrees of relationships and

you just learn what wisdom is

you know when when do you bring the

subject up do you at all

is is it an essential part of life um

you know i need to we need wisdom for

that because it’s it’s so easy to

you know to to lose a lose a war and win

a battle so to speak you know to

well i won that argument but i lost a

friend forever well that’s

that’s that’s not right that’s not

healthy and the value of people is

is huge and even even if they’re wrong

because all of us you know my

approach is that every one of us

believes something that’s not right yeah

and we’re convinced we’re right you know

we are we’re just we’re all in process

and um so we we just need to give each

other that whole

gracing show mercy because you’re going

to want it later yeah

yeah we have that phrases on one of our

visitor

documents and in the you know majors

unity and the

the minors liberty yeah and and uh but

in all things love

yeah excellent yeah that’s right and

that came out of one of those guys that

right after luther passed and calvin

passed they were all just trying to kill

each other over getting doctrine right

yeah you know they were just lots and

lots of separations

and church splits and theological

schools

and finally this guy rupert something or

other he came up with that phrase and

we’ve seen that just in our lives as a

congregation in our lives

even on our own team we have we have

some different understandings of

certain doctrines or end times that sort

of deal people are often surprised by

that like there’s no standard

they’re like what’s this bethel standard

you know viewpoint here i’m like i’m not

sure there is one

i know bill’s got one chris has one i

have one yeah

and um we just enjoy each other and you

know uh

draw the strength from each other and

and uh you know oftentimes

learn something new from each other yeah

absolutely absolutely yeah

it’s i think it’s a huge part of life i

think that’s what we’re supposed to

learn to do

you know because it’s in associating

with people of diverse

gifts and diverse views that we get

healthier

you know we don’t become ingrown and

that happens so much by only hanging out

with people with the same opinion yeah

you just you become fortified in opinion

but not necessarily in maturity yes

we were working on the doctrinal

statement you know of the church and

partly by design it was a big tent it

was lots of folks could find comfort and

go

i agree with that yeah yeah you know in

the way that we did that and

and so many times that in denominations

we’ve just they’ve parsed things so

clearly that um as far as end times or

guess the spirit that they’re just their

their belief statement actually

separates and divides

um maybe too much yeah yeah

i think the thing that chris has been

really started

pronouncing here several years ago is

that

when you come together based on

agreement then you have to divide when

there’s disagreement yeah

but when you come together around

fathers around mothers and it’s it’s

you know in a family thanksgiving meal

you can have a republican daughter and a

you know democratic son and a

libertarian cousin yeah

you can have all and you’re all together

and thankful and yeah and if they value

each other they’re going to treat each

other exactly with grace and stability

and respect exactly

you