What's Wrong with the Church?
1 Thessalonians 5:13b-15:
“Live in peace with each other. 14And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.”
Paul wrote these things to explain specifically how members of the body of Christ should behave toward one another. We in church are all supposed to be living Christ’s Way, so these directions should be easy to follow. But there’s a reason why many non-Christian and/or non-churched people look at church as a den of hypocrites. It’s often full of unkind words (most often said behind backs), impatience, idleness in God’s work (ironically), and an unwillingness to address these very problems.
I can’t write these things off as the diseases of “organized religion” as I would have 10 years ago. These are my diseases. The church is us. Its problems stem from our unwillingness to follow the teachings of Christ even in His house of worship. We are responsible for the body of Christ — every single one of us.
Every time I am impatient and unkind, I am the problem. Every time I fail to address the gossiping that’s going on around me, I am the problem. Every time I begin to think I have a right to criticize another person, I am the problem.
If I do not love the Lord my God enough to love His children and His church through its faults, as He loves me, I have a big problem, and that problem is me.