The Church

I can get pretty passionate sometimes about certain issues (and certain stupid things - i.e. Buffy, puppy chow, High School Musical), I just have a really excited personality and I easily get worked up about things I care about. Anyway, when my girls bible study from high school came over to my house for our yearly Christmas get-together, I brought up this topic of the church and how I am just fed up with it right now. You all know how sincerely I love Jesus and that my goal is to focus my life in the direction of Christ. But the church has just let me down in the last few years. We are all imperfect and the church is made up of imperfect people, but it still is no less upsetting when this happens.

Sara, our girls bible study leader, sent me this email today and I wanted to share some of it with you. I was encouraged by what she had to say and I think maybe you will be too!!

I read a book "The Language of God" by Francis Collins, one of the key scientists in the Human Genome Project, that deals with reconciling scientific belief with faith--very fascinating, and one of his most profound statements (for me) was this: imagine that the Truth, the Word of God, is pure, clean water; but this water is then filtered through rusty, contaminated containers--US!! sinful, fallen people. That doesn't mean that the Truth is inherently changed. In its original state, it is perfect and true. But we mess it up. And that is just humanity, the state of our world, the state of our churches. We do screw it up. But that doesn't make it any less True. And it is our responsibility to proclaim that truth.

(She also mentioned a verse in Isaiah that talks about how God calls his followers to be - bold, but also gentle, loving.)
1-4 "Take a good look at my servant.
I'm backing him to the hilt.
He's the one I chose,
and I couldn't be more pleased with him.
I've bathed him with my Spirit, my life.
He'll set everything right among the nations.
He won't call attention to what he does
with loud speeches or gaudy parades.
He won't brush aside the bruised and the hurt
and he won't disregard the small and insignificant,
but he'll steadily and firmly set things right.
He won't tire out and quit. He won't be stopped
until he's finished his work—to set things right on earth.
Far-flung ocean islands
wait expectantly for his teaching."
-Isaiah 42: 1-4 (The Message version)

(And she ended with this...)
We as Christians need to point out those stop signs, to stand for the Truth, to walk in both gentleness and boldness and speak to the world of a loving God. This is my prayer for you---that you will not compromise your beliefs, what you know to be True, in order to love people. Love them with boldness and gentleness. That is how Jesus loved people. As Jesus said to the woman who was caught in adultery, No one is fit to judge and condemn you. But "go and sin no more." And don't give up on the church. It has survived and sometimes thrived for 2,000 years despite the people who call themselves Christians, yet forget to love in Christ's name. Be part of the body that has the wisdom to walk in gentleness and the courage to walk in boldness.




I think that I need to take my focus off of how upset I am with the church as a whole and how upset I am with those Christians who just butcher the name of Christ and instead focus my attention on just being who I'm supposed to be. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I remember those.