I am a big fan of my church. \u00a0Its not perfect mind you, no local expression of Christ\u2019s bride will be this side of eternity, but I love it. \u00a0God uses it regularly to encourage, convict, and stir me. \u00a0I just wanted to say that my church is a wonderful gift from God, a gift by which God promises to mature me. \u00a0I thank God for my church.<\/p>\n
I felt the need to say that because I want to be an empathetic Christian, and thus I make a regular practice of reading blogs by Christians and following Christians on Twitter who I don\u2019t quite see eye to eye with. \u00a0I do this for a number of reasons\u2013I want to know how people feel about the church and be open to hearing from people who differ from me. \u00a0In this endeavor, I read blogs, articles, excerpts from books regularly by people who for various reasons, slam the churches they grew up in. \u00a0It is very popular to criticize the church\u2019s failures and perhaps equally unpopular to sing its praises. \u00a0The stories of churches who do silly and hurtful things are myriad. \u00a0But who is telling the story of the imperfect but striving-to-be-faithful church? Perhaps some churches deserving slamming, but its worth saying that a particular local church whose carelessness compromises its testimony doesn\u2019t mean the church is worthless or that there are not faithful churches out there.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know exactly how faithful my church is but I know the members of my church care for me, I know they support me and point me to Christ. \u00a0I am not declaring that my church is one of the faithful few, but I do want to say that being a part of my church is absolutely indispensible to my walk with Christ. \u00a0I love it and I wouldn\u2019t trade it for the world.<\/p>\n
Perhaps you have had a bad experience in a particular church or maybe you don\u2019t really like the local church you are going to. \u00a0Whatever your experience\u2013if you treasure Christ, you really ought to consider what His Word has to say about the church. \u00a0Your church probably isn\u2019t as terrible as you think it is. \u00a0Remember the people who make up your church deserve the same empathy you feel your not getting from them. \u00a0By yourself you cannot change your church, but sitting on the sidelines complaining helps no one and only serves to make your church suffer more.<\/p>\n
I am not unsympathetic to those who have been burned by a church in the past and I don\u2019t know your particular situation but I do know that there are faithful churches out there just waiting for people who love Jesus to come and be faithful members of them. \u00a0Certainly there are probably parts of the country where a \u201cgood\u201d church is incredibly hard to find, but on the whole, my guess is that those who hate the church aren\u2019t trying hard enough. \u00a0Before you throw stones, either try to find a faithful church that will challenge and encourage you or start making efforts to help the church you have given up on be more faithful to Christ and to people.<\/p>\n
Maybe I am wearing rose-colored glasses because I think my particular church situation has been largely encouraging, but given the regularity of the \u201cI got burned by my church\u201d story, I just think the story of one guy who has been a part of a few great churches is worth telling.<\/p>\n