The Effective Use of a Compass
Recently one of my co-workers joined the Search and Rescue team for the greater area here in the Northwest. As part of his training he had a course test that required him to plot a corse through the wilderness on a straight line and arive at a certain location. The overall distance he had to traverse was less than three miles. As he relayed his story to me, he described how several people failed the course because they had failed to constantly check their course using a compass. He shared with me that if you are 1 degree off, for every mile that you travel you get 92 feet further off course! In search and rescue that can be a significant issue in a densely pack forest! He said you can be off course and not realize it because you are headed in the right direction, just slightly edging out.
I began to think about that yesterday as Jason, the pastor of the Downtown Church in Bellevue began a new series on Doctrine. I pondered the great mysteries of the faith and considered the events that I have experienced over the last year where I personally witnessed the Senior Pastor and the Children’s Pastor of the church I previously attended spiritually crash in moral failure. I thought about how, both people who had over the years demonstrated what appeared to be solid faith and practice of Christianity, came crashing down and violated so many of the core values and beliefs that they had once held and practiced.
As I thought about what my co-worker shared about 1 degree off and then what I knew of these two people, I was challenged within myself. How often do we let little things slide? A comprimise here, an adjustment there? Everything rolls along fine until one day we find ourselves way off course. We don’t have to be in moral failure to be off course. Sometimes it is a little thing like allowing a false word to go unchallenged, to fail to check what is being taught from the pulpit to what it says in God’s word, to see someone declining and think, “oh they will get it straight”, or to simply do nothing.
I thought about all these things and considered Doctrine. Most of us quickly want to run from the bog of heady theological study and discourse, but we must see it as a compass. Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or “a body 
of teachings” or “instructions”, taught principles or positions. For Christians it is our beliefs based on Theology, or literally God’s (Theos) Word (Logos). I was personally challenged to take a spiritual inventory of my beliefs, to reconsider my doctrines and examine to God’s Word and make sure I am on course. Ninety Two feet is not a great distance when you have a short journey, but when you look at a lifetime, you can end up off course, and I mean way off course. So check your compass, find your way back on course!
