January/February 2002
Give Church Another Chance
by J. Michael Feazell
| In its weakness, every local Christian church is a declaration that God has sent his Son to save sinners like you and me. |
Church can be a real pain. In fact, all human relationships can be. Jesus' command that we "love one another" (John 13:34-35) would not be much of a command if there were no good reasons not to love another. When we love one another in spite of how unloveable we are at times, we are loving others the way Jesus loves us. He loves us even though we are sinners, that is, even though we betray his love.
We tend to expect the church to be close to perfect, even though, if we think about it, we realize that the church is made up of people just like ourselves-quite imperfect. The truth is, no church is just what it ought to be. Every church has its problems. Despite problems, however, there are good reasons to belong to a church.
Jesus said that his followers would be known by their love for one another. We demonstrate our love for one another in the context of committed fellowship. If we avoid such a commitment, we are shunning our personal participation in the very love Jesus wants us to experience.
But there is also another way. In Romans 12:5, Paul wrote, "In Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." All Christians are called into the one body of Christ, and therefore we all have fellowship with one another because we are all in union with Christ.
Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 4:16: "From him [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work." Jesus expects each of us to do our part to build up his body in love. It is meaningless to say that Jesus is our friend, or that we love him, if we refuse to have anything to do with the others he calls his friends.
North Americans tend to be rather individualistic. We like to think we can do things on our own, and we don't like to feel dependent on others. But the body of Christ, the church, is far bigger than any one of us. To be part of Christ's body is to belong to the fellowship of the saints. And the fellowship of the saints is the fellowship we all share with Jesus Christ, in whom we are made one with God as God's own children.
My, or your, local church is probably not ideal, but at some level it is a collection of believers-admittedly, each with his or her unique set of baggage, problems, quirks and sins. Despite our inadequacies, however, because we are believers, each of our local churches forms a visible sign in the world of the invisible reality of the kingdom of God. In its weakness, every local Christian church is a declaration that God has sent his Son to save sinners-like you and me.
More Than Meets the Eye
Regardless of the puniness of our local church, our often off-key hymns of praise are made one, in perfect harmony, with no less than the joyful assembly of "thousands upon thousands of angels" and the "church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven" (Hebrews 12:22-23).
Whether you are looking for a church or whether you have found one, your church attendance is always more than meets the eye. It may feel like mere duty, or a chore or a burden. But it is one of those otherwise mundane activities that our merciful Savior has chosen to enlist into his service so that we might, as individual members of his own Body, learn to experience the richness of vital union, renewal, peace and power with him in the midst of our mutual trials, challenges, pains, fears and joys.
So why not give church, and yourself, another chance? Maybe this time you could expect things not to be just right. Maybe this time you could feel the freedom just to take your rightful place in our mutual journey of grace.
-J. Michael Feazell