Friday, July 20, 2007

The perfect church

An article I have read recently and a conversation with a friend has made me reflect on the idea of the perfect church. The author of the article detailed how she had seen people (particularly leaders) fail to live up to Biblical standards. Often this affected her and the whole church.

I too have had to face the fact that my church is not perfect. I sometime despair because I do not like conflict, and I do not like to deal with other people's conflict. Unfortunately, the members and attenders of my church are not perfect yet (including me), so we run into each other and that hurts.

So what can I do? Is there a perfect church out there waiting to be found where I don't have to deal with all the imperfections of people around me? If there was then it would become imperfect the moment I joined it. So again I am left with the question what are we to do?

Well the answer from the woman who wrote the article was essentially that we need to see that God is still God, and He still uses His church in spite of the imperfections. My strength needs to come from God, and because of this I can learn to trust and forgive people even though they are not perfect. Furthermore, because I do not have to build myself up, I am learning that I can be vulnerable enough to confess my own sins (where appropriate), because I know that my value does not come from my own behavior, but from a God who loves me.

This leads me to the conclusion that instead of trying to find the perfect church, we need to examine where God calls us be content in Him. When counseling people who are dating or looking for a mate, I tell them to stop looking for the perfect person, and instead concentrate on their own character. The perfect church does not exist, and even if you love your church, if you stay long enough and look deep enough you will see its flaws.

The question is not, "Is this church perfect?" but rather "Has God called me an imperfect person to this church to grow closer to Him with these other imperfect people?"

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Originial Purpose Statement

I am setting up this blog for the purpose having a place to share what the Lord has been teaching me. Many of these thoughts will also be shared in church or with people in my church, but I am putting them down here so I will be able to review them later. Of course this is all in preparation for writing a book that will of course redefine modern church and sell millions of copies :).