Most summers find me working one week at Camp Manatawny, a Christian camp out in Douglassville, PA. On one evening devotional this past summer our speaker asked us to turn to the person to our right and say one good think about our church. We did. He spoke a little longer and then asked us to turn to the person on the left and say one bad thing about our church. As we turned to the left and took a breath to express the bad and the ugly, our speaker loudly commanded, “Stop!” and then said “Who gave you the right to criticize the bride of Christ?” It was a beautiful piece of rhetoric with a fantastic slap.
For a couple of seconds, I wondered what I would have heard if we were able to go on, but only for a couple because I already know what I would have heard – I’ve heard it before. “Our church is too….” “Our leadership doesn’t….” “Our singing is….” “Our preacher is….” Our services are….” “We don’t have….” It’s all there.
We think we’re justified. After all, most of the letters in the Bible are addressing problems and Revelation chapters two and three have plenty of criticism. But the one doing the criticizing in Revelation is Christ Himself. And Paul is doing something a bit different and it strikes me – that difference is in what we too often do by bringing the church down on the one hand instead of placing ourselves squarely within the church and working on the church’s improvement on the other. If we are the bride of Christ, it makes sense to collectively look at ourselves in the mirror and fix what needs fixing. Christ’s warnings in Revelation are instructive, as are Paul’s admonitions.
But we must set ourselves solidly in the church. We must see our brothers and sisters in the church as part of our own body. And it seems to me if I focus and work on the plenty in me that needs fixing instead of something else I may have very little control over, I’m going a long way towards making the bride of Christ that much more beautiful.
Let me finish on a slightly different track. Over the past couple of years, a lot of people have left the church. Some have tried to come back and have been discouraged by the change in their own church’s makeup and dynamic. Others have tired of the vigorous interaction with other parts of the body that mold and shape us into Christ’s likeness. Still others have swapped the transforming power of the church for activities. Despite all this, the church is still the bride of Christ. She is still the most beautiful thing on earth, teaching us love, humility, righteousness, holiness, service and…well, every good thing God intends for us. And she is totally worth our attention. After all, Christ gives her all of His.