I will confess I got a little irritated the other day on social media. It’s not really all that unusual I guess, but this was different. A friend in ministry posted this meme from a noted missions expert telling us something that the church must embrace or continue to be the negative thing it’s becoming. Now my irritation was two-fold. First I can’t stand when people from within the church sling negativity at the church. For the record, no church is perfect. Not even the one I pastor and love so much. I’m fond of saying the church is like an airport. Everyone comes in dragging their baggage behind them. I’m further reminded of the late Groucho Marx who was very skeptical of any group that would have him as a member. The truth about the church is this: The church is made up of imperfect people and as such, it will be imperfect. That being said, the church is still God’s chosen instrument for bringing the Good News of Jesus to the ends of the earth. A big part of being the church is meeting each other where we are and working together to become more like our perfect Lord, Jesus.
Over and above that was my struggle with the message of the meme. It gave us something we were supposed to embrace. The problem is the thing we’re supposed to embrace is a word I have never heard. One of those fifty cent words that people throw around when, forgive me, they want to show others how intelligent they are. Now for the record, I am not anti-intellectual, and I believe firmly in the importance of being a lifelong learner but this was extreme. I dutifully looked the word up online, only to find that there were two words in the definition most people would have to look up in the dictionary. I found this extremely frustrating and counterproductive. You see, I believe the purpose of communication is to be understood. The size of my vocabulary is immaterial if the people before me do not understand what I am saying. Compound this with the fact that the author said were we not to embrace this thing, it would bring about dire consequences for the church we are supposed to love, and hopefully you’ll see why I was irritated.
The bottom line is we in the church have been entrusted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what we must embrace, first and foremost. It is the duty of the church to not only communicate it, but also to make sure everyone within our care can understand it. There’s a reason that the first song we teach children is “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.” The reason is, that is the most important thing everyone needs to know. It’s a simple truth with eternal significance. My prayer is that every time I step into the pulpit everyone learns something and is drawn deeper into their faith. I suppose if I tried, I could be really eloquent and say a whole bunch of things that sound impressive, but that is not the point of this. The biggest thing is that you leave here understanding what you heard, and that you are drawn closer to Jesus. If we can reach that goal, that’s enough!