Our Broken Church.

Don’t tell me how broken your church is. I have heard enough of it. There’s nothing new here.

Who doesn’t know that your church is far from perfect? Who doesn't know that you have pastors who are quietly hoping for others to fail in their ministry so that they can get ahead? 

Or, that you have programs that are more worldly than godly, seeking only to impress and wow, with music and pyrotechnics working on the emotions while leaving the hearts unmoved.

Charles Colson once said: “As has been said, the church of Jesus Christ would be like Noah’s ark; the stench inside would be unbearable if it weren’t for the storm outside.”

True, some churches reek; if not all of them to some extent. Their leadership is divided. There are two, three or even five warring fractions within with each tribal fraction fighting for the attention of its founding-pastor. And in turn, the discerning members are disillusioned, with some going with the flow, and others thinking of calling it quits. 

But wherever you go, you will be deceiving yourself if you think you can escape from the same stench that plagues other churches too. 

Unless you get rid of the human population, or separate the whole body from Christ as her head, you will not see the end of this toxic human drama when you offer your time and services to this invariably fragmented body of Christ.

Over time, the flaws and bruising ego will show. The disappointments will surface. The fault-lines will emerge. 

Mind you, the raw reality is not a dreamy one. It may look good on paper or charts, but ground zero is not going to be as appealing. And I doubt you will ever be surprised when you find the human environment in another church differs little from the one you’d left. 

In the end, the decision to settle down in a church is nothing like your experience of booking a holiday abroad where you check out their reviews or star ratings for the best accommodation and service.

While there may be a dream holiday package tailored just for you at the right price, you can’t expect the same dreamy community in a church where the diverse elements of needs, attention, socioeconomic status and personalities often clash. 

That is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “Anyone who loves the dream of community more than the Christian community itself (warts and all) becomes a destroyer of the latter even though the devotion to the former is faultless and the intention may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial.”

Before the perfect comes, we will just have to contend with both the occasional dreams and nightmares expected in the Christian community; yes, warts and all - lest we destroy ourselves and our faith in our insatiable, deluded appetite to embrace the ideal and scorn its reality.

Needless to say, the experiences this side of heaven is substantially different from the other side when we will one day cross over. 

On this side, we are called to die to self, to overcome, to love one another, to show compassion, to walk the narrow road, to count the cost, to bear the cross, and to follow in His footsteps. They are all the formative steps of our sanctification process, that is, we are a church on the way, a soul still work in progress. 

Truly, how many of us struggle with all the above? Admittedly, even the best of us or the best in us fails to live up. Transformation indeed takes time; sometimes, a lifetime. 

What then is amiss? 

Well, according to Edmund Chan (author of the book "A Certain Kind - Intentional disciple making that redefines success in ministry"), he wrote: - 

“Chronic spiritual infancy is the ecclesiastical norm. Superficiality, immaturity and carnality characterise many Christians. Many church members don’t grow towards spiritual maturity, much less reproduce spirituality. The focus of the Church has shifted from making disciples to merely making converts.”

That is why many of us still struggle with the price and pathway of discipleship. The church, or any church, is thus a melting pot (or frying pan) of all these imperfections looking for a resolute outlet or struggling to overcome the indecision to take that long obedience in one direction. 

It is said that if you find a perfect church, don’t step into it lest you contaminate it. Well, I propose that you see it another way. 

When you do find such a church, step into it if you must, but trust me, you will feel really out of place. You will be ill-suited for it. 

With all your flaws and ego, you will feel inadequate, lonely and isolated. You will be struggling with yourself, wondering how do you even match up. And if your conscience is still intact, you will be tormented by your own guilt, your own carnality. 

After a while, you may even wish to go back to your own less-than-perfect church, which you once can’t wait to escape from. 

Alas, home for you may just be a place of fellowship among broken souls on the path to healing, reconciliation and hope rather than a place of the gathering of already perfect saints; should one even exist in the first place. You can then turn that "destroyer" mindset that Bonhoeffer talked about into a "healing" mindset by doing something about the brokenness instead of complaining about it, endlessly.

After all’s said, on this side of heaven, you will always be work in progress. And whether you admit it or not, you still fall short in your thoughts and actions. 

But the difference is that you are set apart post-Calvary wherever you are placed to do good works, to be peacemakers, to stand in the gap, to show mercy, compassion and love to those in need, those in pain and those in quiet carnal desperation, lost in the struggle between an emotional betrayal and a marital oath, or between a lie to get ahead and the integrity of his faith.

So, unless your calling is to serve in another church, you are placed in your current church for a purpose, or for a season. Your church may not be perfect, if not far from it, but that’s why you are there. You are there to bridge the gap and make a difference, starting with your own life, and from there, the lives of others. 

Pastor Peter Scazzero, author of “The Emotionally Healthy Church”, once wrote: “Everyone is broken, damaged, cracked, and imperfect. It is the common thread of all humanity - even for those who deny its reality in their life.”

But in our brokenness, in the bruised reed and smouldering wick, we will find our total dependency in God. We will find a vulnerability that is covered by His stripes, restored by His love, and uplifted by His joy. 

Let me end with an extract of a letter written by a father to his son, and the full letter can be found at p. 199 of the book “Why we love the church” authored by senior pastor Kevin De Young and Ted Kluck. Here goes.

"Church isn't a magic pill that you take, that punches your ticket for heaven. Nor is it a glorified social/country club you attend to be around people who talk/think/look/act like you do. It’s a place to go each week to hear the Word of God spoken, taught, and affirmed. It’s a place to sing songs to our God, even if those songs do sometimes feel a bit awkward. It’s a place to serve others. It’s a place to be challenged. Sometimes you’ll feel uncomfortable with those challenges, because sometimes your life will need to change… It’s about more than fund-raising, or networking, or meeting a girl, or even great things like serving the poor and reaching out to the community. I hope you’ll always know that the Christian life isn’t about what you can do for God, but rather about what God did for you on the cross. If this message isn’t central in your church, again, you may need to find a new one.” Amen.