{"id":92770,"date":"2025-12-23T17:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T23:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=92770"},"modified":"2025-12-23T17:10:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T23:10:12","slug":"when-would-i-split-a-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-would-i-split-a-church\/","title":{"rendered":"When Would I Split a Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\tby Floyd Chappelear<br \/>\nvia\u00a0<em>Sentry Magazine<\/em>, Vol. 19 No. 1, March 1993\n<p>There are a few things that God hates. One of them is &#8220;<em>he that soweth discord among the brethren<\/em>&#8221; (Proverbs 6:19). That should be a sobering thought. Being responsible for a division is a terrible thing.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, what God desires for his children is to seek peace and unity actively. To accomplish this is no easy task, to be sure. In fact, the Lord says that we must be willing to &#8220;<em>endeavour<\/em>\u00a0<em>to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace<\/em>&#8221; (Ephesians 4:3). Harmony within a church may be difficult to achieve, but it is possible where men and women love the Lord and His church.<\/p>\n<p>In view of the thoughts of the first two paragraphs, one is made to wonder what &#8220;issues&#8221; one would be willing to split a church over. From my perspective, there aren&#8217;t very many.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I would never split a church over a matter of opinion (or one that I perceive as such).<\/li>\n<li>I would never split one over that which I regard as &#8220;semantics.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>I would never split one to keep a preaching job.<\/li>\n<li>I would never split one over a matter of faith that does not require me to violate my conscience.<\/li>\n<li>I would never split His people because of &#8220;respect of persons.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When faithful saints truly love God&#8217;s work and His people, they will do all they can to avoid splitting a church. What, then, does this say about those who have few qualms about splitting a church? &#8216;Nuff said.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Floyd Chappelear via\u00a0Sentry Magazine, Vol. 19 No. 1, March 1993 There are a few things that God hates. One of them is &#8220;he that soweth discord among the brethren&#8221; (Proverbs 6:19). That should be a sobering thought. Being responsible for a division is a terrible thing. On the other hand, what God desires for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[448,1200,231],"class_list":["post-92770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-church","tag-disagreements","tag-strife"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":92920,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/splitting-a-church-or-working-out-your-salvation\/","url_meta":{"origin":92770,"position":0},"title":"Splitting a Church or Working Out Your Salvation","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 29, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jim Ruff via\u00a0Sentry Magazine, Vol. 19 No. 3, September 1993 It is a serious matter to be a party to \"splitting a church.\" Christ demands unity and peace (I Corinthians 1:10; Ephesians 4:3). Our salvation is also a serious matter (Matthew 16:26), and we are each responsible for working\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61724,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/a-call-to-unity\/","url_meta":{"origin":92770,"position":1},"title":"A Call to Unity","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 7, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Matthew W. Bassford I watched a recorded worship service the other day. During it, I was invited to sing a verse of \"Onward, Christian Soldiers\" that I had never sung before. It reads: Like a mighty army Moves the church of God; Brothers, we are treading Where the saints\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37368,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-are-you-doing-for-the-lords-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":92770,"position":2},"title":"What Are You Doing for the Lord&#8217;s Church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 24, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton It is not what the church is doing for you, but rather, what are you doing for the Lord's church? Jesus died and spilled His blood for the church. She is His bride, and she is special, purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28). He expects\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33463,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/there-must-needs-be-heresies\/","url_meta":{"origin":92770,"position":3},"title":"There Must Needs be Heresies","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by David Edwin Harrell, Jr. Vanguard, Volume 1, #1 January 1975, pp. 21-22 After a few weeks of study at St. John's University and Abbey, I am impressed by the perceptive Roman Catholic analysis of the weaknesses of Protestantism. They insist that Protestants are pressed between two unacceptable extremes. One\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5035,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-do-you-think-about-the-divisions-among-the-churches\/","url_meta":{"origin":92770,"position":4},"title":"What do you think about the divisions among the churches?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I wanted to ask you a question about Romans 16:17 and I Corinthians 1:10 about there being divisions in the church.\u00a0 I have been a member of the church since 1960, at the age of 13, and led singing most of the years since.\u00a0 My dad preached over twenty\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41690,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/we-have-a-new-preacher-teaching-unity-in-a-diversity-of-beliefs\/","url_meta":{"origin":92770,"position":5},"title":"We have a new preacher teaching unity in a diversity of beliefs","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Our congregation recently has a new preacher. He is related to half the church members and is well-known in the community. But he is very liberal and has admitted to me that he wants to change things at our congregation. He told me, \"he is about a relationship with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}