A few years ago I decided to stop going to church for a while. Although I had been attending church my whole life up until then, I decided that it wasn’t worth going anymore. It was strange for a while because Sundays had always been so automatic…wake up, have breakfast, brush teeth, take shower, attend church, eat lunch, and watch football, or whatever sport was in season on the tube. In a rather abrupt course of events, I decided to pull the plug on the process and get away for a while.
The reason I had decided to disengage the church culture was because I was fed up with it. I was irritated with pastors who seemed insincere and ambitious about building their own kingdoms on earth. I was tired of the country club mentality of comfortable Christians holed up in Christian subculture. I was weary of getting handed another business card by those who see the church as a networking opportunity and I was still smarting over the fake smiles from cleverly deceptive people who had infiltrated the ranks in sheep’s clothing.
I came to a point in my life where I actually started to believe the cliches about the church, that she is corrupt from leadership on down, that she is full of judgmental, self-righteous finger-pointing pharisees, that she is no different than any other consumer driven business in offering felt needs goods and services in exchange for “free-will” offerings, and that she is fundamentally hypocritical because her underbelly is as dark as her face is light.
I basically concluded that the church was a hopelessly misguided institution that had somehow moved across the ocean from where it had started. As I studied the book of Acts and saw how the church once was, how it was organized, how it was governed and how it was connected, I realized that the American church was starkly different. What once seemed to be a supernaturally pure, relationally honest body of believers now looked disappointingly flawed and hopelessly disconnected from its origins. So, I decided that I would find a way to thrive as a Christian without the church. I figured that perhaps people were right about their assertions that we do not need to go to church to live the Christian life.
However, my experience during my time away proved otherwise. It seemed that the moment that I chose to fundamentally change my Sunday schedule by substituting sleep or a brunch or even the lake for corporate worship that my spiritual life immediately began to take a tumble. After only a few weeks away from the church I grew more pessimistic and cynical toward God’s people. I began to dwell on all the inherent problems that had precipitated my departure and began to resent the church more for pushing me away. I started to blame my feelings of spiritual isolation on the church by holding her responsible for my difficult choice to stay away.
But, the longer I stayed away the more I realized that the church was not going to change and that it was just going to move on without me. Though I still resented her faults I began to figure that my staying away was not going to make those faults go away. And then one day I concluded that I could either spend my life criticizing all that is seemingly wrong with the church or I could help to remedy those problems. In other words, either I could lament all that the church was not or I could consider all that the church could be.
After plumbing the depths of my heart and mind during that difficult season, I noticed that my heart began to soften. As I began to ponder what I wanted the church to be, I actually began to miss her. Strangely, I began to miss the off-center sermons from insecure pastors, the pitchy and sometimes stale worship, the plastic smiles from sinfully challenged people, and I even missed the weird and often isolated Christian subculture with all its religious consumables. Even though I could still see and even dislike all these obvious flaws in the church, I began to see how even her flaws could be lovable.
What I began to understand for the very first time is that Jesus knows all his bride’s faults, her imperfections and oddities. He knew when he died for her what she would become, even in 21st century America, and He loved her all the same. I guess we would call that unconditional love…the capacity to love something or someone in spite of obvious and latent flaws. The truth is that Jesus loves the church the way she is. Even though I am quite sure that He wants to make her pure, I am also resolved that He will love her even if she isn’t.
For me, this was the epiphany. I realized finally that if Jesus could love the church the way she is, then certainly I could too. I don’t think that my expectations are any higher for her than his are, so I have no justified reason to hold anything against her anymore. This monumental revelation gave me the heart to try to love the church all over again, warts and all. And, I not only returned to her imperfect gatherings but now even pastor one as well.
The reason I share this story with you is because I believe that many of you have taken the same path but you may not have yet returned. Perhaps you have not yet learned to love the church the way that Jesus does and to love her simply because Jesus does. If she is his bride, then she is precious to him and ought to be to us. To love the husband but hate his bride is quite frankly a betrayal of monumental proportions. If you think that staying away from the church because of her imperfections is a viable option for you, then you are wrong. You are also wrong if you think that you will be able to sufficiently feed your own soul without the guidance, accountability and relationship found in and only within the local church. I can tell you from personal experience that staying away from her will only shrink your soul and harden your heart. And, if you stay away too long, you will simply wither away altogether.
Chances are, there is an imperfect church near you that you can attend. And, it is entirely possible that it is full of insecure, self-righteous and sinful consumers, but perhaps you can learn to love flawed people all the same because it is likely that you are flawed too. I now know that I am.
