Ever read through the book of Acts and just find yourself amazed at the miracles, love and power of the early church? I know, if I’m not careful I can make unfair comparisons of that church with my church—Southbrook Church.
To me, Southbrook is the best church on the planet. It has the warmest, friendlies, most servant-hearted people I’ve ever seen at a church…
- We preach the Word of God without apology
- We have the most rocking, heart-felt worship anywhere!
- We are making a local impact for Christ
- We are making a global impact for Christ.
- We seek to fulfill the same mission and purposes as Christ Jesus (You can find them listed here.)
- We are ‘Outreach’ focussed instead of inward (‘Us four and no more’) focussed.
But one thing we are not is, ‘perfect.’
I mess that one up personally.
- Flawed pastor
- Flawed, ordinary people
- Flawed systems
- Flawed parking (seriously, I wish we had more)
- Flawed smoke detector (Likes to go off during worship)
- Flawed relationships (sometimes we actually have conflict and people have to work things out—imagine that!)
- Flawed jokes (It’s painful when one of these falls flat — Happened a few times in the 11:00 am service yesterday. Thought I heard crickets a few times)
- Basically, we’re not perfect. We have flaws.
The church in the book of Acts grew rapidly and they experienced miracles and the teaching of the apostles. It can’t get any better than that!
But guess what?
They had flaws.
- They might have looked perfect but they really weren’t.They had liars (check these two out, here)
- They had Charlatans.
- They played favorites and neglected those in real need at times. Click here.
- They had it rough with persecution, imprisonment and even death as constant threats.
- Poor churches gave more generously than rich ones.
See, they weren’t perfect. And they certainly didn’t have it easy. Nevertheless, it’s easy to read about all the excitement and wish that our church was more like that one. In reality (as any honest, straight-forward reading of the text will show), the early church was riddled with problems just like the church today. No church has ever been or ever will be perfect until Christ makes it so when He returns.
If your church has shortcomings or problems—flaws and warts…ask yourself the following:
Would a ‘perfect’ church allow you to be a member?
I don’t need to answer that for you do I?
Then do what you can to make your church family better. A church family does not have to be perfect to get it done for Christ. But, if you ever stumble upon the perfect church—leave quickly, or you will mess it up!
Just a thought…or two.