In the last few weeks, I heard news stories indicating that two well known and highly visible Christian figures have announced that they have in some measure walked away from their faith in Christ.

That anyone would walk away saddens me and has caused me to think about a proper response. For what it’s worth, my train of thought is outlined below.

These defections highlight the need for the church to be honest and open about the difficulties in applying Scripture to the world around us. There are things that we struggle to understand. But, in some segments of the church, raising honest and valid questions is discouraged.

Two categories of such questions come to mind.

The first category contains questions that are inherently difficult because we are finite creatures trying to comprehend the infinite. The question, “how can a loving and all powerful God allow evil in the world?” is a question that falls into this category. The question can be answered, but not simply. And we need to acknowledge the difficulties surrounding it. The questions in this category are difficult because the answers are nuanced and hard to understand.

The second category of questions are those that are difficult because they are counter cultural and offend our sensibilities. An example of a question in this category could be, “How can we accept Biblical teaching on marriage and the family in light of the way western culture is moving?” This question is not difficult because what the Bible says is hard to understand, it is difficult because it is hard to accept.

It should not surprise us that prominent people struggle in their faith. And in our everything-in-the-open social media culture, word gets out very quickly when popular people announce their struggles.

So how should the church respond to those who walk, or are walking, away?

First, keep in mind that the story is not over. Looking at many of the heroes of the Bible, we might question their hero status based on a snapshot taken during one of their periods of failure. God has not stopped working and prodigals are welcome to return.

Second, in light of the potential return of the prodigal, it would be wise to continue praying for those who seem to have walked, or are walking, away.

Third, Jesus warned us that there would be tares among the wheat so we should not be surprised if some (even in leadership) declare themselves to no longer orthodox in their belief.

I mention the third thought reluctantly because too often someone who expresses doubt is written off as not ever having been in the faith. Caution is required because only God and the person know if he is in the faith.

Honesty demands that we admit our struggles to work out our own faith. Real faith is at times a gritty mess and we all face difficulties in our beliefs. My experience is that God remains faithful even when we are faithless, as Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 2:13.

Feeling doubt and even expressing doubt does not automatically disqualify someone from being relationship with God. If it did, the number of believers would be really, really small.

What do you think? I’d love to have you express your thoughts in the comment form below.

I have recently begun to understand that there have been times in my life when I pretended that I was displaying grace, but it was not grace. It was cowardice masquerading as grace.

There are times when the lone, contrary voice needed to be heard and mine was silent. There are times when it would have been right to confront and I failed to do so.

As a poor excuse, I would point to the fact that I don’t understand group dynamics very well, and a properly worded response often comes to me several minutes too late to be helpful. Moses’ response to God in Exodus 4:10 resonates with me, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to our servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.”

The point is that I cannot let fear of saying the wrong thing force me to be silent when something needs to be said. Nor can I allow either the fear of rejection, or even the certainty of rejection, to prevent me from speaking out.

The fact that ten spies chose badly did not prevent Caleb and Joshua from saying what Israel needed to hear. They spoke out and were commended by God for doing it.

I have noticed that there are times in church leadership where unity and uniformity get confused. It is possible to have unity even when not everyone in the group shares the exact same view on an issue. Bringing unity out of diversity is a difficult and sometimes lengthy process. It takes a secure leader or leaders to allow differing opinions to be heard and considered.

But even when there is pressure to conform, the contrarian voice sometimes needs to be heard. Perhaps, in the future, by God’s grace and if he so leads, cowardice will be overcome and that voice will be mine.

One thing we learn from Scripture is that we are not defined by our failures.

What do you think? I’d love to have you express your thoughts in the comment form below.

The first time I heard the word “woke” used with regard to racial and political issues was in the Eric Mason book, Woke Church. As an encouragement to be mindful of racial and economic tensions within the church and address them, I found the book quite helpful.

But if the idea of being woke is to shift the church’s primary focus onto racial or social issues, I have a problem.

My concern is that the church is not called to focus on the hot button social issue of the day. We are called to preach the gospel along with all the ramifications of what it looks like when we live out the gospel.

Those in the church who call us to be “woke” seem to see themselves as modern day prophets calling the church to reform. But the prophets of old did not call Israel to follow a new message, they called them to live out the message they had already received.

The problem with jumping on social issue bandwagons is that most of the people driving the wagons over simplify the problem and don’t address the core issue. As Christians, we know that core issue is sin. Social issues result from a broken relationship with God and the sin that results from that break.

Christians must keep in mind that the gospel speaks to the disease behind the social issues. The gospel addresses the evil that resides in your breast and mine.

Jesus taught us that the two great commands are to love God with our entire being and love our neighbor as good or better than we love ourselves (see Matthew 22:34-40). I argue that we can not fulfill either of these commands apart from the work of God in our hearts that begins when we come into relationship with Jesus. Jesus himself said, “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

The Gospel is the message that Christ died to break the curse of sin that has us in bondage. The meaning of the Cross is that we can all (regardless of gender, race or economic status) find peace with God through the work of Jesus.

As church leaders, can we truly partner with social justice warriors that have a very different motivation for their activism? Will those warriors allow us to address the core issue of sin? Or, will they only allow us to march along in silence?

We are called to make disciples (see Matthew 28:19-20). We know from Jesus’ example that part of the disciple making process is to address real needs, both physical and spiritual. God wants us to look after those who are helpless and in need of support.

Looking after those who need help does not prove how good we are. Looking good is not a proper motivation. But when we love our neighbors, that love can remove barriers which prevent us from sharing the gospel. Again, we are called to make disciples, that is our mission.

I get weary of the call to be woke because in the end, it doesn’t matter how woke we are. It doesn’t matter whether we are liked and accepted by the social warriors of the day. It only matters if we fulfill our mission to make disciples.

That is how we will be judged by the one who gave us that mission.

This morning I read the last few chapters in Isaiah and these words stood out from them:

“But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

Isaiah 66:2b, ESV

When I look at the church growth experts and review their strategies for building megachurches, I don’t see a lot of humility and contrition. Instead, I see a lot of words about “vision casting”, marketing plans, branding and worship service dynamics. We have pastors that act more like CEO’s rather than shepherds of their people. We have church leaders who frame a vision and then build a team of like-minded supporters rather than allowing disparate gifts to operate for the good of the church body.

Too much of what is written about building and managing a church could be equally relevant for managing any publicly traded company. Just scrub out the nominal references to God and the Bible and substitute more politically correct jargon and you’re good to go for a press release or employee pep rally.

I have served in leadership at a couple of large churches and we never began a meeting with prayers of repentance nor did we spend time pleading with God to provide wisdom and leading for the congregation. Usually the meeting proceeded with the nuts and bolts of following the growth plan after a nominal prayer asking God’s blessing and perhaps a short devotional. I am saddened by this and repent of my passivity in participating in it.

Perhaps I am becoming a curmudgeon. But I wonder if we have made the American church into something that God does not intend it to be. Do we cause God to weep when he sees the gap between what we are and what we should be? I’m pretty sure that God is not impressed by the big buildings, multiple campuses and large budgets.

I don’t think that we can place too much stress on Jesus’ statement about the responsibility for building the church. It is his; he claimed the responsibility and the resurrection proves that he has the power to do it.

If Jesus will build it and if Jesus has the power to do it, maybe we should spending more time in prayer asking him how he wants us to participate in that building than we do in creating our own strategies.

We might get to a better destination if we let him steer.