It’s easy for us to be critical of our churches. Maybe we didn’t like the music choices, or the speaker, or the coffee they served this week… but before we get judgmental, it’s good to remind ourselves that ‘Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.’ Every church is made up of imperfect people, people who Jesus loved so much, he gave up His life for them. And we can’t expect our churches to be perfect when they consist of people who get things wrong, struggle, misunderstand things, and so on. But Jesus still loves our churches, even though they’re not perfect. Have a think about this: if your church was absolutely perfect, how intimidating would that be to someone who’d never been there before? Someone who was broken, desperate, and struggling would probably feel unworthy to set foot inside such a faultless place. The truth is, we’re all unworthy to come into even the edges of God’s presence. But His grace and Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross means that He sees us as worthy. And even if our church isn’t perfect, God sees it as worthy too. Of course, our churches make mistakes sometimes, just like we can. One of the harshest things Jesus said was to Peter, the disciple who was destined to become a leader in the church: ‘Go away from me, Satan! You are not helping me! You don’t care about the things of God, but only about the things people think are important’ (Matthew 16:23 NLT). But the great thing is that when we mess up, the same grace that restored Peter will be there for us. And that same grace is available to our church too.

What Now?

What have you criticised your church for recently? If it was a genuine criticism (and not just because of your personal preferences), what could you do to improve the situation?