Years ago, one of the finest Christians I have known, and one of the least typical, once made a suggestion at a Deacon's meeting guaranteed to make our next Church Meeting problematic. "Why don't we allow the Church Meeting to decide on the colour scheme for the church redecoration?", he asked. The reasons why not were not slow in coming. But he persisted with that sweet reasonableness and reassuring smile that was his known modus operandi.
So it was that at the next church meeting a range of sample colour schemes were presented to the gathered community, and all heaven broke loose! By which I mean, getting agreement in a church that prided itself in not isolating people by imposing a vote on matters of significance, proved to be harder than herding cats, or getting a camel through the eye of a needle, for that matter.
The best outcome of the evening was that the meeting ended with everyone still friends, no decision made, and the matter remitted to the Fabric Committee! But. That first bit is important – everyone was still friends. Opinions were inevitably varied, in some cases polarised, and how could they not be? Colour is a deeply subjective form of perception. How do we know what we see is what we think we see? One person's pink is another person's lilac; and those who love green are a puzzle to those who think blue is God's colour – forgetting that grass is green and there's quite a lot of it, and the sky is blue and there's even more of that!
Pivotal in the original constitution of Crown Terrace Baptist Church, agreed in 1839, are words which were once described by a legal and historical expert on Scottish ecclesiastical documents, as uniquely lovely in their Christian spirit. Here is the Fourth and concluding clause that raised her legal and ecclesial eyebrows:
IV
That it cannot be expected but that differences of opinion will arise upon some particular Church questions that require to be decided in some definite way, it is hereby understood that after an opportunity has been given for objections being stated, the minority shall peacefully yield to the majority, if the endeavours that may be made to procure unanimity shall prove unsuccessful.
Those sentiments were tested often enough in the history of this congregation, sometimes to the limit. The night of the paint sample charts was a further example of the Christian common sense and generosity of fellowship that enables a church to work through differences of far more moment than the colour of the paint.
It's remarkable how much time the Apostle Paul spent on "endeavours that may be made to procure unanimity", to conserve, or create, or rebuild, or restore community. His letter to the Philippians is one long appeal and argument for "being of one mind, having the same love, being of one spirit…" 2 Corinthians is a distillation of Paul's fractious and sometimes fractured relationship with the Corinthians, laced with sarcasm, anger, regrets, defensiveness, grievance on both sides, and all of this in the same letter that says "we are ambassadors of Christ…", and insists that his ministry is one of reconciliation.
What I learned from that early Victorian draft of a church constitution, is that the unity of a church fellowship is too essential to the Gospel for anything less important than the Gospel to threaten it. The credibility of any Christian community begins with how well they look after each other, how far the agenda is supported by the love of God poured into hearts by the Holy Spirit, and how open and generous they are to others in the name of Christ and as conduits of the love of God. That's how it begins – and it ends abruptly when a community defaults into division, selfishness, power games and unforgivingness.
Choosing colours is a matter of taste, and decisions all agree on happily don't have to be made. Choosing how we will be to each other, and to the neighbourhood within which God has placed us as a community of Christ-followers – that's on a different level of importance. For that too Paul has a Christological imperative – "Have this mind-set amongst you, which was also in Christ Jesus…"
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