The Church

Recently, I was asked this question by someone from the church I pastor.

'What passages would you use to encourage someone to attend a church, someone who is a believer but has been "turned off" of organized religion/modern services?'

Here is what I wrote back, neatened up a bit.

There are two thoughts that I would try to present. The way that I write these here is not how I would actually say these things. People are unique and we need to interact with them according to who they are and what they are dealing with. So, what follows is a statement of principles not a method of communicating them.

My first thought is simply this. Jesus loves the Church. And a good NT passage for this is in Ephesians 5. ‘Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her…’ Some dispute this by saying that ‘Church’ here means ‘the real Christians’ not the whole group that shows up on Sundays. But the verse doesn’t say that. The NT word for ‘Church’ always refers to a group of people that you can see and touch and count. It’s that very visible group, the ‘members of the Church’. It never refers to some invisible, intangible group. So, for one example, in this verse from Acts 7, ‘This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers’, the word ‘congregation’, which refers to all the people of Israel, is actually the word commonly translated as ‘church’. This word is not about some select group within a group. It’s about all the people in the group.

So, Jesus loves the Church – and so should we. One aspect of loving the Church is being a part of it [the commitment of membership!] so that we can work for the same goal that Jesus is working toward: ‘that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.’ The Church is not ‘holy and without blemish’. It needs to be sanctified. Jesus is busy doing that through the members of the Church because He loves the Church. Anyone who loves Jesus will want to be used by Him for the goals that He has chosen. Again, this is not how I would say it, but this is what I would try to communicate.

My second thought is this. Of all the NT letters written to Churches, how many didn’t have something to say about some problem or other going on in that Church? Even Paul’s letter to the Philippians, a letter mostly about joy in Jesus, includes some comments about two women who were at each other. There is no ‘golden age’ of the Church when everything was working perfectly. And no wonder! The Church has always been a group of sinners who know how to sin well. But, and this is the point, even in the worst situations – think Corinth! – you never hear any of the Apostles writing, ‘Well, I guess it’s time for you faithful to leave this Church and start another.’ It’s always, ‘Okay, let’s deal with this. There are resources in the Gospel to deal even with this sin, and we need to pursue this until it does get it straightened out.’ So, when our churchless friend tells me about how terrible it was in his last church, I need to sympathize and help heal some wounds, but then I need to get him back into the fray. ‘The Church is a mess. It’s always a mess. But because Jesus loves the Church you need to also.’

Now, all of this is just an outline. I’m sure that if I were talking with someone who has been hurt by the Church and has given up, there would be lots of questions and need for clarification and all of the normal stuff that makes up teaching the Bible.