snapshot or movie church

I used to think that the church I was the pastor of was either good or bad.

But then I grew up and realized that wasn’t fair. Nor accurate. That was taking a snapshot view of the church rather than a movie version. The movie version is preferable.

Like the last church where I was the pastor: at times it was awesome and at times it was terrible. Most of the time it just was.

There were seasons of mundane existence. It just was.

There were times when it showed signs of being very unhealthy and dysfunctional, when it was truly selfish, guarded, paranoid, narrow, cruel, shallow and unjust.

Then there were times when it showed signs of incredible health, grace, love and justice, when it was very liberated and liberating, deep, wise, tender and compassionate.

So whenever anyone said, “If I lived there I would definitely come to your church. It sounds awesome!” with fear I would warn them that it was only sometimes. Or if someone criticized my church for whatever reason, saying something like, “Your church sucks!“, I would defend it by saying that it was only like that once in a while. In both cases I would say that they had to watch the movie. Not just a snapshot of one scene.

This is probably true, in my opinion, of almost any group that calls itself a church.

If you haven’t bought my book of cartoons, you simply must. It addresses concerns such as this. “Nakedpastor101: Cartoons by David Hayward“, from amazon.com, amazon.ca, amazon.de. Great for laughs and serious discussion!