This post by Tim Locke of Grace Community Church in Bridgewter NJ so captures the truth of a much needed lesson, I post it here below.

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Embracing the Broken Church!

“I don’t feel comfortable inviting people to our church,” he said. “Why not?” I asked. “Our music isn’t upbeat enough, our people don’t sing out and the whole thing falls flat. Our people aren’t friendly. We don’t have a dynamic kid’s program. We aren’t very community-oriented.” He didn’t say all this but he and others have shared these concerns with me and other pastors that I hang with.

More and more people are leaving their small, limited churches to attend large, super-sized, mega-churches. And if they don’t leave, they spend their time comparing their church with others and complaining about what they want but don’t have.

Sometimes a parishioner gets a dash of spirituality and pushes the church to change. Maybe they fight to see the worship changed, maybe get a new minister, maybe a new program. Eventually they’ll probably end up leaving, but at least they can take the spiritual high ground and say things like, “Well I tried to get the church to change but they just weren’t interested.” So they leave after writing “Ichabod” over the door posts of the church (1 Samuel 4.21).

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