People are imperfect and messy – always have been, always will be; even the Bible tells us that we all fall short. Thus, by extension, anything that people do or become involved with will be messy and imperfect: relationships, jobs, organizations, wild life, family, and even churches. There is no way around it, not in the world as we know it. Sure the heads of churches can implement things to eliminate some of the messiness- having boards of directors, accountability, boundaries and the like; however, it is still a messy imperfect person holding another messy imperfect person accountable. You see what I mean? There’s no end to the cycle.
Now, there are churches that are more open about their messiness and imperfections; personally I think that says volumes to their character. When any organization is open about their mess and imperfections it is likely that they will actually be less messy, though still imperfect. Why? Because when your mess is in front of everyone you are more likely to clean it up instead of hiding it; which as history and life shows us causes a bigger mess. The Bible talks about this too, to bring the darkness into the light. The darkness and the mess will never go away, not in this life. So ya, churches are going to be messy- some to the point of corruption and some with just a few broken lamps.
And what will your response be to the mess? Will you cast yet another judgment their way: to the entire church? Will you focus on the mess and not be able to see past it? Will you hold it against the church for the rest of your life? Will you go? Will you love the people and embrace the mess? Will you just pretend it doesn’t exist? Will you just substitute your own reality? Your response to another’s mess affects your mess and speaks to your character as well.
Now there are some churches whose messes have violated ethical and legal boundaries; that is a whole nother can of worms. However, that still does not give anyone the right to cast judgment at them. There will always be consequences for our actions; and regardless of what they are everyone still needs to be respected.
I realize the possible implications of what I just said, but I stand by them nonetheless. For a long time I wanted to work with people in prison who had done jacked up things to other people. Why? Because they are broken people- just like the rest of us. I don’t think that anyone is broken beyond repair, if you will. I think that some of us are broken and don’t want repair, are afraid of repair, don’t think we are worth repair, don’t realize we can have repair, and such. I’m not saying it wouldn’t take a long time, years or even decades. But I believe that everyone deserves to know that they have the ability to be less broken and change; should they choose to pursue that is another story entirely. After all, who are we to create a hierarchy of sin or wrongness? Stealing and rape are both wrong, that’s the bottom line.
All of that to say that it is easy to visit a church, or hear about a church, and cast judgment upon them. To pick the church apart because of one thing or another and cast them aside because they weren’t perfect. To say that a church is hypocritical and never want anything to do with churches. There will never be a perfect church, that gets everything right all the time, that is everything we want and expect a church to be. There will always be something, someone or some incident that will be a blemish; but that doesn’t necessarily mean that entire church is worthless, nor does it mean that all churches are worthless. It is very similar to loving people – to love them regardless!
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