I love the Church. And I believe in the Church. I believe in the authority of Scripture, and so I believe what it says about the Church. I believe that the Church will always exist and that the Church will survive despite the many obstacles it faces in today’s culture. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, I believe that it is the primary vehicle in which God desires to reveal His glory to the world.
I also believe, however, that the Church is wrongly defined and extraordinarily misunderstood by many. I believe that all too often we’ve defined the Church to be a physical building of bricks and mortar as opposed to the body of believers that gathers there. These people are what make me love the Church. They, not our buildings and programs, are what make it worth loving.
I also believe that most non-Christians stand on the outside of our faith communities with inaccurate perceptions as to what the Church is and wonder why on earth they would have any need for it. Oh sure, most people, regardless of whether they’re Christians or not, want something “spiritual” in their lives, but they’re far more likely to turn to Oprah, inside themselves, or Hollywood than darken the doors of a church. They like Jesus but not the church.
It’s true that people’s rejection of the church is partly a result of various “x-factors” like poor experiences in the past, exposure to false teachings, and the broad impact of mainstream media. But, I also believe that much of the blame for this misunderstanding can be placed firmly on the shoulders of Christians themselves. It’s our fault they want Jesus but not the church. It’s no big secret as we gaze across the landscape of “churchdom” that there’s a lot going wrong.
There’s no shortage of material pointing out what’s wrong. What’s interesting to me is that the problems we have in the church aren’t exactly new. We struggle to have an authentically deep relationship with the Lord where we truly love Him rather than just perform perfunctory religious duties. We struggle to take care of those around us because we’re consumed with our own desires getting met. We struggle to bring our best to the Lord rather than what is left over. And we struggle to articulate our faith and stand for truth in the midst of a culture that frowns on anything claming to be “absolute.”
So did our parents. So did their parents. So did their parents before them and so on, all the way back into Old Testament. Before there were church buildings or programs, before there were denominations or factions, there was the chosen people of God struggling with many of the same things the Church is dealing with today.
And there was also the prophet ready to hand down a rebuke—a ringing condemnation—from heaven. There was Malachi.
