Church: Monstrous or Misunderstood? (Part 1)

            Last weekend, I learned something new from one of our youth leaders.  I learned that “sucker” is a really bad word on the east coast of the United States.  A word that instantly brings images of sugary candy on a stick to my mind elicits a very different response from this woman who moved to Nebraska from Vermont.  She told me about the appalled shock that she and her children experienced the first time a Nebraska bank teller asked them if they wanted a sucker.  I knew English words could have different meanings from what I was used to in places like Australia, England, and Ireland, but I didn’t realize that there could be such a significant discrepancy even within the different regions of the U.S.

            Similarly, another word that produces a wide range of reactions is “church.”  The fact that one word can evoke so many different emotions and images in the hearts and minds of its hearers is mind-boggling to me.  Some of those images may include:

A large room filled with holier-than-thou, judgmental stares that make you feel worthless and hopeless.

A quaint little white building with a steeple, rows of wooden pews (perhaps padded with an awful shade of forest green or nude pink), a pulpit, and a proud, old upright piano, in desperate need of a good tuning, that seems to have become integral to the very structure of the building.

A repair shop for when things go wrong in your life. 

A place to meet people. 

A horrible gathering of fakers and hypocrites, all more concerned with their appearance than with the reality of their hearts.         

A boring thing your parents made you do with all sorts of rituals and traditions that you didn’t really understand or think were necessary.

A place where you go to stock up on enough spirituality to last you all week long. 

A good thing that you don’t really want to do, but you do it so it will make up for all of the things you did this week that you knew you shouldn’t do. 

A residence for an antiquated mode of thinking that is no longer relevant or needed since science has given us all the important answers.

I could go on for a while, and I’m sure you can think of more examples.  With so many different experientially-based views about church, it’s no wonder why so many people are walking away from it completely, disillusioned by legitimate hurts and unmet expectations.  It doesn’t help that church has gotten a bad rap lately, particularly from we Christians ourselves.  Yeah, I’ve been guilty of it too.  How on earth are seeking people supposed to be attracted to church, or to the Head of the church for that matter, when Christians talk about it so derisively?  While I don’t disagree that serious problems can and do arise within the church, I think that much of the general frustration and hatred towards church that is so common amongst my generation stems from a misunderstanding of what the church is and what it is supposed to do.  

My heart breaks when I see wounded and lonely people keeping far away from church because of fear, bitterness, or a simple lack of understanding of what they are really giving up.  Being in full-time ministry and having grown up in a family that was heavily involved in the church, I am well aware of the things that go on that leave people so cautious and skeptical.  I have been burned, and many people I love have been burned; yet, I still can’t imagine life apart from the church.  Church is God’s idea, and to toss it aside is to miss out on His beautiful design for this age and on the many blessings that go along with that design.  For that reason, I want to take the next few posts to dig through the truth about church (not too extensively – there is a whole subcategory of theology dedicated to the subject!) and decide whether it really is as monstrous as it is sometimes made out to be or whether it is greatly misunderstood.