Rebuilding Trust in the Church
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it — not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it — they will be blessed in what they do. 26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. [James 1:22–27– NIV]
“Recently, my wife, Jen, and I were having an all-too-familiar conversation with a young couple who had given up on church. Not a specific church, the church. While both of them had attended since birth and had even served a few years in ministry, they had become jaded and joined the ranks of those claiming, ‘Church — as we know it — is not for us.’
They had experienced a myriad of what they considered painful church experiences. Every time they gave it another try, church seemed to lose credibility, trust was broken, and relationships were abused. For years they desperately sought how to navigate the waters of their tension. Yet they had come to the conclusion that in their search for more, as the church remained the same, so did they.
When given a chance to share specifics on the thing that ‘what’s-his-name’ had said or what ‘so-and-so’ had done, the young wife exploded passionately with a single-themed indictment: ‘The church needs to care more about the poor! They need to fight injustice! They need to help the orphan and widow in their distress! They need to do what they say they’re about!’
Silence.
Surprising even herself, and with a slightly stunned look on her face, she calmly said as a tear rolled down her cheek, ‘Here’s the problem: I don’t do it either. I don’t know how. I don’t even know where to start.’
That was a big moment for me. It’s easy to cast stones. It’s easy to point out the problems in the existing church. And it’s just as easy to pretend we’re not a paet of the problem. But this was a refreshingly honest confession of ownership that I’ve come to find so many believers identifying with. They want to do something of more significance, but they don’t even know where to start.
We as church leaders tell our people to go. We tell them to be good news. And we assume they do. We assume they know how. While we’ve been charged to ‘equip the saints’ for works of service, the brutal truth is that most of us have reduced our expectations of ‘serving’ to once-a-month tour of duty as an usher or greeter. We’ve settled for serving ourselves and serving as an event rather than serving those in need and living a new way of life that Jesus has called us to.
There’s got to be more to church than this.” [Brandon Hatmaker, Barefoot Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 15–16]
What is the Church supposed to be? There are a lot of opinions of what the church is as well as what it is supposed to be. Most are based on personal experience or hearsay. Many outside of the church look upon it negatively because of personal pain experienced at the hands of church members. Others have watched or heard of loved ones being “abused” by “the Church.” Still others, while not having any personal experience with the Church, express negative opinions based upon how the media has framed the church as being neglectful, hypocritical, judgmental, prejudiced, and even hateful. The Church as an institution has lost most of its credibility in Society.
But, according to the Bible, we are the Church. As Christ-followers, we are the Body of Christ: His Church. Biblically, the Church is not a building or even an institution. The Church is the people who proclaim the name of Jesus as Lord and live in relationship with Him.
Yet again, what is the Church supposed to be? Most people answer that question by defining what the Church is supposed to do. In Micah 6:8, we are told, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” James fleshes that out in James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
Now, I hate the word “religion” because it has become as convoluted as Society’s view of the Church! When James speaks of “pure and faultless” religion, he is talking about how we live out our faith. Too many treat religion as a list of things we do to gain God’s approval and to appease our conscience. This is not what James meant and when we default to “religion” of this kind, we try to live in our own power and abilities. When we try to live in our own power and abilities, we tend to fall short of doing things right and, more importantly, being right in our relationships with both God and other people. When we default to this type of religion, that is when we, the Church, fail and become what others accuse us of being.
Being the Church, then, begins and ends not with our doing but with our abiding in Christ. It is our relationship with Christ, living in Him and with Him, that defines who we are. What we do is the evidence of who we are. What we do reflects the One in whom we are abiding and Who is abiding in us.
Has the Church — especially the American Church — failed to show the world Jesus? Has our lack of compassion and care for the poor, the widows and orphans caused the decline of our reputation? That debate could be endless and unfruitful. Better to ask ourselves: How am I reflecting Jesus in my life? What would Jesus have me do to represent Him and His Church well? Am I using my time wisely so that I can invest in the lives of others around me?
You cannot change the minds of everyone about the Church or even about our Lord. You can, however, change people’s beliefs and attitudes one person at a time through the way you live. And, each congregation of Believers can change how their community sees the Church by jointly living out the love of Christ in their own “Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria” (see Acts 1:8). Do your part. Be the Church within your church.