What do you think of your church?

Perhaps it is partly the influence of the culture of today but I feel many Christians tread a very dangerous line in how they behave and speak about their churches. These people never seem to have anything positive to say about their churches. They are acutely aware of everything that is wrong with it and don't hesitate to run it down.  They criticise and grumble about it just as they might about the firm that they work for or the repair garage they use. In fact, they are scarcely less contemptuous of the church than the world is.

I know because I have been that person myself. We need to realise that we grieve God greatly when we behave like this because the church is his most precious possession, the apple of his eye. (Zechariah 2:8) This is how Samuel Stone captures the bond between Christ and his church in his great hymn 'The Church's one foundation':-

'The Church's one foundation

Is Jesus Christ her Lord.

She is his new creation

By water and the word.

From heaven he came and sought her

To be his holy bride

With his own blood he bought her

And for her life he died'

Have you got that? Your church is the beloved bride of Christ. You don't insult someone's bride-to-be unless you're prepared to get a punch on the nose, and yet we have no compunction about criticising the bride of Christ. Yes, your church may be flawed, exasperating, hurtful and even downright sinful at times, but we should still be absolutely passionate about her because God himself is passionate about her! God knows about all her faults and failings (far better than we do) but his response was not contempt but to die a sacrificial death to make her what she ought to be. Too many Christians nowadays walk away from churches at the first sign of problems and, instead of striving to sort things out and make the church better, they leave and join somewhere that subscribes better to their idea of a 'good church'.

I think the example of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians is very instructive here. Not many of us have had to contend with brawls between members, flagrant incest, liaisons with prostitutes or drunkeness at the Lord's table in our congregations but this was all going on in Corinth - and yet Paul still did not feel this was cause to walk away. Instead, his passion for them and his desire to see them turned around leap out of the pages. Paul's undying commitment to the church at Corinth in all its difficulties, and his passionate desire for their secure salvation and sanctification is great example in what our attitude ought to be to our local church.

Houghton's hymn views all the troubles and failings of the church in this way:-

'Though with a scornful wonder

Men see her sore oppressed

By schisms rent assunder

By heresies oppressed

Yet saints their watch are keeping

Their cry goes up, 'How long?'

And soon the night of weeping

Shall be the morn of song.'

 

Believe me when I say that I know how difficult this attitude is to cultivate and how costly and painful it can be, but cultivate it we must because it is so easy for a cynical, bitter mentality to sink in. A number of years ago we made a wall hanging for the front of our church with the verse 'Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.' (Eph 5:25)  It was me that chose the verse, and I chose it because I knew myself that I needed to be reminded every time I walked through the doors of our church just how much my fellow members meant to the Lord Jesus Christ and what a glorious thing the church of Christ is. Might you need - metaphorically perhaps - to write the same thing above the door of your church?

 

'"Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb!'

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high

and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

It shone with the glory of God...' (Revelation 21:10)