If you are discouraged about church . . .

Posted on October 13, 2016 Written by Mark McIntyre 2 Comments

If you are discouraged about church, it may be that your expectations are too high.

Church is not a gathering of the mature. Church is not a gathering of the wise. Church is not a gathering of the beautiful.

Church is a gathering of those who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ.

A long while back (it was the 70’s, I think), there was a popular phrase going around in churches that said, “Please be patient with me, God is not finished with me yet.” The point was to remind us that we are all works in progress.

Not only are those who attend church works in progress, but so are the leaders. The question is not whether the leaders are flawed. The question what are they doing about those flaws? Or more correctly, what are they allowing God to do about those flaws?

Does the leader of your church allow others to speak into his blind spots? Do the elders encourage members and visitors to provide feedback? Does the pastor give a sense that God is actively working in his life to transform his understanding and his behavior?

At all times, we have to keep in mind that the way we want church to be is not necessarily what God wants for us. God is less interested in our comfort than he is in our growth in relationship to him.

Also, our background and gifting may see things in the church that should be changed, but the church may not be ready for those changes. Do you trust God enough to bring about those changes in his time? Will you be content to pray for those changes until he does bring them about?

There is a caveat that I should bring up. The understanding that we are a work in progress does not give us an excuse for spiritual or intellectual laziness. The fact that there are so many commands in the New Testament (verbs in the imperative mood) is an indication that effort on our part is required to achieve progress in the Christian life.

We come to church and find imperfection and by being there we add to the pile.

But that is OK. God is powerful enough to use our imperfection to accomplish his plan.

The point of church is not to parade our perfections, but to solicit the help of others as we navigate our own imperfections. We help and encourage our brothers and sisters along the way.

About Mark McIntyre

A follower of Jesus Christ who shares observations about how Scripture should impact the church and the world. Mark is the original author and editor of Attempts at Honesty.

Toward being a peacemaker

John Lennon called us to give peace a chance. Jesus calls us to be peacemakers. How do we accomplish this? What does a peacemaker look like?

On megachurch pastors and failure

The problem I see in society is that we have a celebrity culture which ascribes superhuman status to the lucky (or unlucky depending on your perspective) few who have been deemed celebrities. Celebrities can do no wrong and they always seem to get the benefit of the doubt.

The rejection of a made-up God

Too often, it is a caricature of Christianity that is rejected. I suspect that this is the case as I react to an article in the Huffington Post Religion section. This is a call to make an informed choice.

On the singing of old hymns

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I have to say that sometimes I miss the old hymns in our worship. I do not miss how the hymns were executed, but I do miss the lyrics.

When to use the delete key

Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other communication tools enhance the speed of disseminating thoughts and information. The question I ask myself this morning is how do I determine what is worth communicating? Is there a test which determines when the delete key should be used? I believe that Paul gives us such a test in 1 […]

Learning as I go . . .

This is an apology to many of you who get posts from Attempts at Honesty by email. I made a mistake and I’m sorry for it. WordPress (the platform I use to manage the blog) uses plugins to add functionality. I had been using one plugin that provided many functions that I didn’t use so I […]