A house divided will not stand.
– Abraham Lincoln

I’m already hearing the rumbling. Many within the church are not happy with the results of the election. I’ve heard things like:

“God has taken his hand off of the US”
“McCain was God’s choice and we didn’t listen”
“Evil will reign”

What’s your response going to be? Before you answer…a few reminders:

1. Obama won in a big way. Both in electoral and popular vote. That means that many within your church body voted for Obama.
2. Those outside the church are still watching. When we curse the election results, what does that say?
3. When you called McCain “God’s choice” and then he loses…you make God much smaller than he really is.

and most importantly…

4. God is still in control. HE is our king.

I am going to suggest that we follow Michael Hyatt’s example and make the right response.

1. I will pray for him and our country.

2. I will assume his motives are good, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

3. I will not speak ill of him, even if I don’t always agree with him.

4. I will cast off the spirit of cynicism, and be a positive force for good.

and you might add a fifth:

5. I will remember that not everyone sees things the way I do. I will remember that many voted for Obama and are happy about the results.

I also encourage many of you to address this on Sunday morning. I’m not a fan of supporting candidates from the pulpit, though I’m certain many pastors did in the last few months (even if you pretended not to.) Great communicators will continue that conversation, don’t leave it hanging.

You encouraged those in the church, your friends, your family to pray and then vote…now you need to trust that God hears ALL your prayers and answers every single one…even if it’s not the answer you’re looking for.

Don’t allow for bitterness or despair to creep into your church body…it will destroy it. Instead proclaim God’s victory in all things. Set the tone.

And folks, let’s face it…something did need to be done. And none of our options were so great…and to put our faith in a politician…well come on, we know better than that.

Oh, and more thing…he really did have a killer logo, especially for politics.

Tags: election, obama, politics

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Sunday morning, communicating . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.