Loving the Bride

I walk out of church disgruntled with something almost every week. It's usually either a fakeness that I perceive in people, or it's that I think there is something they ought to be doing differently, or I'm disappointed in the commitment of the people to the church community. There is a church back in California, near where I went to college, that I so wish I could still be a part of.

Then there's the capital-C-Church. How many times per week (per day, sometimes) do I come across another person throwing around the name of Christ, while looking little or nothing like Him? Yikes. It can be intensely frustrating. For years, I have hesitated to use the term "Christian" to refer to myself, simply because it has so many un-Christ-like connotations in our culture.

So it's not that I don't understand what frustrated disciples of Jesus are feeling. I do!

But do you know what I have become convinced of?

True, I believe that God grieves over churches and Christians that reflect Him poorly. But I have become convinced that believers who harbor resentment and negative attitudes toward the church grieve him all the more. The Church, in all her confusion, is His bride. He LOVES the Church. Yes, He loves you and me individually, but we, collectively, are his chosen and precious bride. The Church is that close to His heart. We must find a positive way to deal with our cynicism about the Church.

Brothers and sisters who follow Jesus with me, I pray that a special place for this messy Church (and the local church) will take root in our hearts. I pray that we may grow to love the Church as Christ loves her - sacrificially, even in the midst of her obvious failings.

After all, if those of us who have eyes to see her faults pull out of the Christian community, who will lead her? Who will help her to grow in faith, hope, peace, joy and love? Who will cast a vision for her that more closely resembles what the early Church exemplified in the book of Acts? We each have a part to play in making this bride ready for her Bridegroom. God forbid we abandon His bride.

As St. Augustine once said, "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother." (Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, page 354).

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P.S. If you could use a little encouragement with regard to the church, check out Philip Yancey's Church: Why Bother?