Two of my friends have very differing takes on the importance of meetings. My one friend loves to have meetings and glories in the interaction of thought, plan, and personalities. My second friend maintains that it takes a really fantastic meeting to be better than no meeting at all. As you probably suspect, I am somewhere in between in my feelings about meetings. Some meetings do seem like just going through the motions, while other meetings give me a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. I have known tense meetings where feelings were high and conflict, obvious. At times, they were quite painful, especially when there was no good resolution. I have also experienced meetings that began with confusion and conflict, but ended with sweet mutual compromise.
The early church had such moments. There was a church conference which considered the question of what should be expected of Gentiles who became followers of Jesus. There were divergent points of view. Some thought they should be circumcised, while others thought that was not necessary or even helpful. Testimony from those who had worked with Gentile believers was given. Arguments were presented. Finally, the coming of the Holy Spirit on uncircumcised Gentile believers swayed the discussion. A simple set of rules was proposed and adopted by the group to make sure Jewish believers and Gentile believers could eat together in communion and common fellowship. Now that is what I would call a fantastic meeting!