I’ve been hearing a growing number of my Christian friends adopting a “no need for church” spirituality. When I stop to listen to their stories, I can easily understand why people feel like this is a justified way of Christian living: it’s safer to live outside of a community that may cause us pain. The Church is supposed to pour soothing balm on our already-fragile spirits, but the sad truth is it’s often the Church herself who wounds us. The people who call themselves Christian (yes, including me and you) live hypocritical lives or inflict harsh judgment on others. The Church sometimes does more harm than good, and many Christians are saying, “I’m better off without Her.”
If you have been a victim of the Church (any church) and her unredeemed actions, please, Friend, receive my sincerest apology on Her behalf. I am sorry if someone has spoken untruths about you or uttered ill-will against another. I am sorry if your service has ever gone unappreciated or your talents untapped. I am sorry if anything I’ve said or done in haste has caused you pain. Please forgive me, and please forgive the Church.
You see, we are all in the process of being saved (I Corinthians 1:18), but the full sanctification of our fallen humanity has not yet been realized. The process of sanctification is about becoming holy, allowing the image of Christ to be formed within us and being motivated by Christian love. We cannot learn to love if we are not living in community, letting people see us for who we really are and allowing them to love us anyways.
I must admit, sometimes the Church seems to be farther from the goal of Christian love than ever, and I can attest to how difficult it is to be part of something which causes us pain. But I exhort you, Friend, to make corporate weekly worship part of your Christian spiritual discipline. The Church is dysfunctional, yes, but it is the physical representation of Jesus Christ on earth. Corporate worship is about being the Body of Christ. (The Latin root “corpus” means “body.”) We need one another in order to do the unifying work of worship together and we need to be present to participate in God’s ministry of reconciliation.
So thank you, friends, for showing up on Sunday mornings…even when you’d prefer a few extra hours of sleep or when you don’t particularly care for the music or when you hear mediocre sermons. Thank you for choosing to push past the minor irritation with that guy who chomps his gum or the girl who seems to give you the stink eye. I pray God ministers his great healing among us as we continue to climb over the invisible fences we’ve erected to protect our fragile hearts.
Hi, Mel!
I hope you’re okay with me pushing you just a bit on this. I love the heart with which you write it, but it doesn’t quite go far enough. A true apology needs 3 elements: an acknowledgment of the fault and resulting harm, the words “I’m sorry,” and a plan or otherwise believable promise to not let the same thing happen in the future. You have the middle piece here, but #1 is incomplete and #3 is lacking.
Although you start by acknowledging that sometimes Christians live hypocritical lives and/or judge others harshly, and you mention gossip, maybe, and, perhaps, marginalization, in your apology paragraph, by the end, these wrongs seem to be minimized as “minor irritations” or the need for more sleep. That leaves me a bit confused about who you are speaking to: members of your church who have trouble making it to church every Sunday for minor reasons, or Christians who have been seriously wounded by Church leaders’ abuse, but are valiantly still showing up at your (or another) church. I’m not sure you can speak to both groups in the same post.
And then, what are you doing to make sure that power is not abused in your church? What are you doing to teach members to love one another? Laying out your efforts in those areas (I know you have them!!) and inviting critique would, I think, also be an important piece in an apology.
Now, I’m not actually sure that one church can apologize for the sins of others–so that complicates the post a bit. But as one who has been wounded, and who hears others’ stories of woundedness as well, I appreciate the effort and wanted to offer a lovingly-meant response.