We Take Our Shoes Off at the Door
Our neighbors three houses down have one of the coziest homes I have visited. Walking in the front door, the smell of spice and vanilla matches the décor of rustic antiques and country accents. It’s as if Cracker Barrel and Martha Stewart teamed up to create the perfect Southern environment. But if you make it that far, you have already been greeted by the most important rule of the house.
“We take our shoes off at the door!”
A crafty sign with those words hangs over the doorbell. And if that doesn’t make it explicit enough, the fancy rug and basket immediately inside the front door, with neatly organized pairs of shoes, surely will. Whether you are a first-time guest or part of the family, that’s what you do when you are in that house.
Back at my house, my wife is an incredible decorator on a budget. We frequently laugh about when she first met me. I had recently purchased my first home, as a bachelor, and thought it was decorated brilliantly—a framed photo of apples next to the dining table and my college diploma hanging in the living room. That was it.
Fast forward 18 years, and our home looks like a page out of Southern Living (with a headline, “How to Look Fancy When You’re Broke”). Everything is clean, modern, and always immaculately organized (which I am not). I often joke that I need a spreadsheet to quickly search where the batteries, pizza cutter, or extra pair of scissors have been relocated in the latest reorganization.
Yet at our house, we don’t take our shoes off at the door. The kids do, and if we are home alone, the slippers come out. But if guests are visiting, there is no expectation of taking your shoes off.
Both homes are beautiful and inviting, but the cultures are different. One is rustic and country while the other is modern and bright. One expects no shoes to be worn in the house while the other does not.
Neither is right and neither is wrong. Just different.
The Missionary Church has some of its own “we take our shoes off at the door” signs hanging over the doorbell. These unique cultural differences don’t make us right and others wrong. They simply point to the history and current reality of how God has knitted our family of churches together.
Over the past three years of working with the Ministry Leadership Council and various groups of pastors and leaders, I have heard a phrase repeated often in some form or another:
“We choose tension rather than division and unity over uniformity.”
That isn’t a new idea.
In fact, the early church had to figure out what signs belonged over its front door.
Acts 15 records one of the most consequential disagreements in the history of the Church. The gospel was spreading among the Gentiles, and suddenly people who did not share the traditions, practices, and history of Jewish believers were becoming part of the family.
Some believers insisted, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses” (Acts 15:5). This wasn't a debate over carpet color or worship style. These were sincere believers wrestling with serious theological convictions rooted in their understanding of Scripture and faithfulness to God.
So the apostles and elders gathered in Jerusalem. After what Scripture describes as “much discussion,” Peter spoke. Paul and Barnabas told stories of what God was doing among the Gentiles. James turned their attention to Scripture. Eventually they reached a conclusion summarized in one remarkable sentence: “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19).
They established boundaries because there were things that mattered deeply. But they did not require every believer to become identical in order to belong to the same family. And that did not make all the tension disappear.
Keep reading the New Testament, and you will discover believers still wrestling with food, holy days, circumcision, cultural practices, and matters of conscience. Paul eventually writes an entire section of Romans explaining how Christians should live together when they sincerely disagree.
His solution is fascinating. He doesn't tell either side to stop having convictions. “Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind” (Romans 14:5).
Have convictions. Study Scripture. Obey your conscience. Be fully convinced.
But then Paul says something equally important. “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification” (Romans 14:19).
In other words, there are convictions worth holding tightly that do not require us to let go of one another.
That has been part of the Missionary Church story.
We are a denomination with real theological convictions. Our Articles of Faith and Practice establish the beliefs that define our family and around which we have chosen to unite. Those convictions are not negotiable. They give us the theological guardrails within which our shared life and mission take place.
Unity without theological boundaries eventually becomes unity around nothing at all. And those boundaries matter because they protect us from the proverbial “slippery slope.” Choosing tension on secondary matters does not mean loosening our grip on core convictions. In fact, clearly knowing where the guardrails are is precisely what allows us to extend freedom within them.
But our history also reveals something else.
We have not required agreement on every theological question in order to share the same mission. At various points, where Christians have drawn lines and organized themselves on one side or another, the Missionary Church has chosen to live with some theological tension rather than make every disagreement a matter of division.
On assurance and perseverance, we have affirmed both God’s keeping power and the believer’s responsibility to continue in faith, while recognizing that committed Christians reach different conclusions about whether a genuine believer can finally fall away.
On spiritual gifts, we affirm the continuing work and gifts of the Holy Spirit without requiring a particular gift as evidence of His fullness, leaving room for pastors and churches whose practices may look different from one another.
And when it comes to the end times, we unite around what we believe Scripture makes essential: Christ’s return, judgment, resurrection, eternal destinies, restoration, and the establishment of Christ’s kingdom and reign—without requiring uniformity on every detail of how those events unfold.
These aren't examples of theology not mattering.
Quite the opposite.
Theology matters enough that we have worked hard to identify what we must hold together without unnecessarily dividing over everything we may hold differently.
Not because truth doesn't matter. And certainly not because every answer is equally right.
But because we have recognized that faithful, Bible-believing people who share our foundational convictions can sometimes study the same Scriptures and arrive at different conclusions on secondary matters—and still pursue the same mission together.
But we also must be honest about what that means: it makes things messier.
In fact, uniformity would be easier. If everyone in the house is required to wear the same shoes—or take them off in exactly the same place—there aren't many arguments about footwear.
But a family can be united without being identical.
In fact, perhaps one of the great witnesses of the Church is not simply our ability to agree. It is our ability to remain brothers and sisters when we don't agree.
Jesus prayed that His followers “may be one” so that the world might believe the Father had sent Him (John 17:21). Paul urged believers to be “completely humble and gentle,” to bear with one another in love, and to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:2–3).
Notice the language: make every effort.
Unity requires effort. It requires humility and patience. And it requires the wisdom to distinguish between the convictions that define our fellowship and those we can hold while extending fellowship to someone who sees them differently.
Sometimes it even requires tension.
There will always be pressure to resolve tension by simply separating from those who disagree with us. Churches can do it. Denominations can do it. Individual Christians can do it.
But division isn't the only way to resolve disagreement.
Sometimes there is another option.
We stay at the table. We open our Bibles, speak truthfully, and listen carefully. We hold our convictions sincerely but refuse to caricature those who disagree with us. And then, where our shared biblical convictions allow it, we lock arms and get back to the mission Jesus gave us.
That doesn't mean every house has the same rules. It doesn't mean every church looks the same. And it doesn't mean every pastor in the Missionary Church will reach the same conclusion on every secondary theological question.
Maybe that's part of what makes this family what it is.
There are some signs hanging over our doorbell that say, “This is who we are.”
There are other things where we have intentionally left room for faithful brothers and sisters to disagree.
Knowing the difference matters.
Because the goal was never to build a denomination where everybody thinks exactly alike. The goal is to be a family of churches firmly anchored to the truth of God’s Word, united around our essential convictions and our relentless focus on the mission Jesus gave us.
In fact, one of the signs hanging over our doorbell when we joined this family is still there today: “We choose tension over division and unity over uniformity.”
So, yes, when you come into our house, there are some things we will ask of everyone.
But on some other things?
We might just have to get comfortable with somebody wearing shoes.
- By President Rodney Arnold
