Welcome to the podcast of For the Love of the Church. This is season one, episode two. The church is beautiful. life is beautiful it just isn't always pretty and i think that's a reality of man there's a lot of junk that we deal with in life but the whole of life the totality of life all of the different things within life are beautiful. There really is a beauty to life. And I think within the church, we could say the same exact thing. Church is beautiful. It just isn't always pretty. And not just talking about the negativity. We referenced in episode one about the fact that 61% or 63% of people have no trust and don't think that the leadership is honest. there's a definite disconnect between the leadership and the congregation and even within the leadership. And so not just talking about that, but even just talking about some of the practical things within church that's not always pretty. We forget things, the technology doesn't work, just things go awry, people don't show up for children's church and there's no workers there and now we're scrambling to figure out what to do. Even outside of the really serious negative things that is definitely out there, you've just got the general trying to pull off church, if you will, making sure everything's coordinated, making sure that everything's actually working. I remember one time I was pastoring in Michigan and we lost power to our water pump and we had to cancel church because you didn't have any restrooms. We couldn't use the restrooms. We had to call it a day because apparently that was a necessity. You think about what little things could trip us up, and sometimes it's just those simple little things. Even beyond the big, serious, negative things that we think about, there are the challenges of church life. There really are. I also, too, have had stuff not work. We've had furnaces go out. Can't have it. There was one time our chimney, when I was in Idaho, part of the pastor's job was to feed the wood stove. The entire church was heated by a wood stove, like the pioneer days. and that was my job, and the chimney got, a bird built a nest on the top of the chimney where we couldn't reach it, and so all the smoke came back inside of the church, so we had to cancel. But as you were talking about the church is beautiful, the church is absolutely beautiful, even though it is a little messy, and all of the New Testament books really, you know, all the epistles, really are dealing with problems in the Church. So, the Apostle Paul had to deal with problems. So, it's not like way back when the Church was great and now we modern people really messed it up. No, that's kind of the nature of the church. The church has always been beautiful and has always been messy. And, you know, what the big problem church, at least for me looking in the ancient world, was Corinth. They had some stuff. They had some stuff. And that would be one of those churches that you and I would walk away going, look, if this place burns down tomorrow, I don't know if I would miss it. But the Apostle Paul really does care for them, even in the midst of, oh, they had some stuff. Well, yeah, I mean, he describes himself and his relationship with the different churches as like a nursing mother who cares for their children. And I think those people who would say, oh, the church is too messy, or the church is too challenging, or the church is too difficult, or the church has so many problems, I would say you either have not read, like you mentioned, the epistles to say, actually this was first century church and this is 21st century church. Not much has changed. We're still full of people and it's a mess. And like a nursing mother who deals with a baby who's messing in his diapers and doing all sorts of spit up and throw up and nasty stuff, We still love it, we still care for it, we still try to work through those challenges. And Satan, of course, I think sometimes we have to pull up to a 30,000 foot level to say, actually, there's somebody out there who's trying to destroy the image and the view of the church and the local church, the universal church, because he is the one who is against the savior of the church. I think sometimes we tend to not think about that. We come in with a critical eye, or we come in with a critical spirit, and we can think about all the negative things, all the things that went wrong, and I'm sure if we took a poll and had people write, they would say some crazy stuff that they've seen and experienced in church, just how dysfunctional it can be. But yet at the same time, we know that Satan is trying to destroy our view of church, and he's trying to distort how we think about it, and how we look at it, and how we view it. And I think that's important reality for us to think about. Not only does Satan want to do that, but I also can come into church very selfish as well. There's been several times where I've been upset with somebody at church because they did something, but then when I look back, it was really, I was upset because I'm selfish. You know, they didn't properly thank me for something that happened. Or, you know, that happens with somebody else. So there's like a feud that you don't really know about this feud, and there really hasn't been forgiveness, and you just step into it. But, you know, as you were talking, just thinking of that church in Corinth, you know, you have the letter of First Corinthians, and the Apostle Paul goes pretty hard into the paint with them, deals with a lot of pride issues. And I think with him, in 1 Corinthians, he says get your eyes back on Christ, get your eyes on the things that are really important, stop being so arrogant. Then you have then 2 Corinthians, where you see these false teachers coming in, and They're acting as if they're like disowning Paul, right? The apostle Paul, they're disowning him. And man, that would hurt. That would really, really hurt. You've given all this time, all this energy, you're praying for him, you're staying up all night, you really do care that they grow. And then they turn around and go, we don't even know you. Like, you know, acting that way and acting in such great sin, yeah, and that can cause all of the stuff, as you've alluded, that causes a lot of mistrust, a lot of hurt, a lot of bitterness amongst people. And I think it goes both ways. I think, you know, so I've now been able to be both a congregant and a pastor, and I mean, I was a congregant growing up, but I don't think until, like, I don't think growing up 18, 19, I was not engaged in the concept of church. Church was a thing I did. I just went with my parents and I did my thing. And then I went off to college and, you know, entered into full-time ministry. And so a lot of the time, like, you know, 20 years, I was engaged as a pastor. And then the last three and a half years, I've been a congregant. And I'm like, I think I wish I would have known as a pastor what it was like to be a congregant, where I think sometimes congregants can look at things and say, well, the leadership hurt me and I'm the only one who's hurt and I'm the one who's destroyed and all this stuff, but the number of pastors, shepherds, elders, teachers that are hurt is almost the same as the number of congregants. The hurt, the negativity, the messiness goes both ways. It's not like you're gonna meet a lot of people that come out of this, whether they've been a pastor, or been in leadership, or been a deacon, or they're just the average congregant that doesn't have some negative concept or negative view. And I think the challenge for us as believers, those of us that are believers, is to say, when I think about church, I've got to think about things the way Christ looks at them. Not how I want to look at them, or not how Satan is reminding me to look at them, but I've got to look at things the way Christ is wanting me to look at them. And that's a difficult thing to do because the mess is so abundant and overwhelming and challenging and present every Sunday, every week, every day, it's there. And so I think that's an important perspective for us to keep in this process. Amen. You know, one of the other things I was thinking about as you were saying that, I totally agree with everything you said. One other thing too is, you know, there's some times where Some of the messiness doesn't even come because people are downright evil, right? Like, I mean, that does happen. And yeah, okay, the PowerPoint isn't working. We just had it fixed. You know, the PA has this weird 60 cycle hum, what's going on? But sometimes it just comes from personality conflicts, right? You just meet somebody and you don't get along with them, no matter how hard you try. Or philosophy differences. I mean, how many times has that happened? I mean, you could probably speak to this in great detail as you go into churches and help coach them, and you have one elder who has one philosophy, you have another elder who has another philosophy, they're not coming together. Or sometimes it's just a failure of communication. I remember one time I was at a meeting, a board meeting, and the one guy said, you know, when I call the camp, it was a board for a camp, I want to talk to a human, so I think we need a new phone line. And another guy says, I completely disagree. I think we need a new phone line so that when we call, we talk to people. And there was a huge debate over that, and it was just semantics. They're saying the same thing. They were saying the same thing. Yeah, they're not actively listening to each other. That's right, that's right. And so there's that as well. And so there's this cacophony of things that get brought in. One other thing I was thinking about was also too, right now we're doing a whole bunch of remodeling here at the church, and there's a lot of messiness in that remodeling. and it's not a finished product yet. And while it's going through this, there's, you know, you put mud on the sheet rock, and then you gotta shave off some of that excess. And then you're putting this, and you gotta cut, and you gotta nail, and there's stuff that you put up temporarily, and then you gotta take down. And Christ is building his church. And so, of course, it's not built yet. So, of course, it's gonna be messy, and there's things that God's doing. So, yeah, totally messy. I like your thing. Life is beautiful. It's not always pretty. I like that. I'm going to put that on a t-shirt. There you go. The church is beautiful, it's just not always pretty. Definitely not always pretty. Yeah, and I think for those that are, whether they're congregants or leaders or whoever you may be within the context of a church, you're going to be able to think through and process through a whole lot of challenges that you've seen and that you've experienced. I remember when I was in Michigan, we brought on a group of deacons, and they were seasoned, older guys, and they're probably in their 60s, all four of them, I think we were bringing on at one point, and they had all been involved in church, typically more larger megachurch types of places, and I remember telling them, I said, you're going to see, coming into leadership, you're going to see a whole different side, the underbelly, if you will, of church. that you just need to be prepared for. And you've got to figure out how to worship with people that you know a whole lot more about next week than you did this week. And I remember one of them told me, I've been in church a long time. I don't think that's going to be true. And I said, OK, I mean, that's fine. And then about, I don't know, three months, four months later, he came back and he was like, hey, you remember that conversation that we had? He's like, yeah. He goes, I see it. I get it. I realize that, man, there is a lot of mess just behind the scenes of church. So even for those people who you walk into a well-polished, well-oiled season, Maybe we think of the mega church that's got it all together, quote unquote. I guarantee you all of the same problems, if not probably more, are there. It's just in a large church, it's easier to hide. And in a small church, it's more exposed. And so people walk into a church like Lewis and Clark that may be a little bit smaller and go, oh my word, this place has problems. I'm gonna go down the road to that church of 5,000. They don't have any problems. They got it all together. Well, dude, I guarantee you they got 5,000 more problems down the road. And so I think that, again, that's helpful for people to be processing through and thinking through to say, you know, I got to figure out how to just stick in the middle of the mess and help process through it and help us all work towards becoming what Christ wants us to become. 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Visit our website at www.cndchurchsupplies.com Please note, C&D is a fictional company and potluck pants do not exist. They were created for satire purposes. We encourage you to share what you have with your local church. So yeah, as we're talking about the church's beautiful and thinking through the beauty of the church, I think it's important, like we talked about, to say, well, how does Christ view the church, this thing, if you will, this living, breathing organism? that he is working to make into his bride and the beauty of that. And there's obviously passages in scripture that communicate some of those thoughts. For instance, Ephesians chapter two, verse 10 reminds us of that. It says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Just that concept of the fact that we are the workmanship that Christ is creating and Christ is working on and Christ is building, we're part of that. That's an amazing thing. to say, yeah, we're part of that. And it's not perfect yet. It won't be until we reach glory. But in the mess, here is something that is kind of rising up out of all the mess is this beautiful image that Christ is building and making and creating. Yeah, and I think that's an incredible text. Cause he's writing to believers about this is who you are. And then even later on, he talks about how there's this unity that we have, how we're members together. And then later on, he talks about how we're a building being built together. And I agree with you. That's what we are right now. We are His workmanship, and we are being created to be more and more like Christ, and that implies sin, forgiveness, repentance. And so, anybody that goes into a church and expects a perfect church and says it can only be beautiful if it's perfect. It's not a realistic expectation of even what the apostle is writing here about the church. Yeah, that's what we are. We're his workmanship, and he has a lot of vested interest in us. Right, he does. Yeah, and I think when we think about the practicality of this for the congregant who is thinking about church and going to church, and maybe there's somebody who's been you know, part of a small church and says, I'm just going to go to a mega church and they, you know, they don't have any problems. You know, you can slip in and slip out of church pretty easily and not get exposed to any issues. And you can intentionally or maybe it's unintentional, but you can intentionally stay ignorant. to the mess and the creation that is at work within the church. But the reality is, like we said, all churches are going through this because all believers are going through this. This is part of our sanctification process as we are each being sanctified and made into the image of Jesus Christ. That's going to be a process of being created as the workmanship of Christ. God is doing an amazing thing and he's making a beautiful thing out of us. We can think about Ephesians chapter 5 even. We often use that whenever we do marriage ceremonies where we're comparing and contrasting the the marriage with the church and where Paul is communicating there about Christ's love for the church and his purification of the church and he's setting it apart and this is a work in progress, but it's a beautiful thing that we need to be thinking about and we need to be dwelling on as we think through that. As you think about this, what are, What are some ways in which maybe you would say, if I were to describe the beauty of the church, what are some things maybe from a pastor that you would say, you know what, this is beautiful? Because as a pastor, you get to see all of the crud. As a congregant, I might see some of it, but I'm not necessarily going to see all of it. And ignorance is bliss, and I can go and worship on Sunday morning probably a whole lot easier than the pastor can because I'm a little bit more ignorant. But as a pastor, seeing it all, knowing it all, hearing it all, what are some ways that you would say, this, you know what, when I think of the beauty of the church, this is what I think about? Yeah, so first, it is found here in Ephesians 5. that whole passage where he's talking about that you just referenced where the relationship between the husband and the wife and talking about that intimacy and then he then uses that as a picture of Christ in the church. I would go down to verse 32 and he says, this mystery is profound. So, to me, that's the idea of beauty, isn't it? It's the idea of something that's amazing, that's breathtaking, that you look at and you think is attractive and beneficial and you just sit back in awe. And so, just the just the raw, cold theology of Jesus is working on the Church, just that by itself just excites me. It excites me, and I see He's redeeming the Church, and the people that I'm amongst are those who are redeemed, and so this intimacy between Jesus and the Church and the living out of the gospel, that is one of the things that I gotta remind myself, and when I remind myself, I go, oh no, this is cool. This is cool that I get to be a part of this. On a more practical level, from what I see, yeah, you see a lot of crud, and you see a lot of stuff. You get a lot of threats, you get all that. But man, when somebody repents and somebody starts living for Jesus, I don't know of anything better. I don't know, yeah, you preach a sermon, you don't think anybody listens, and then like five years later, somebody comes by and says, you remember that one sermon that you preached on such and such a text? And you go, no, I don't remember. And they said, you said this, and now this is what's happening as a part of what I'm doing. Those things, you're willing to absorb some of that lashing out, and you're willing to go, you know what, for the sake of their spiritual life, to see them grow, man, I'm willing to take a little bit. I'm willing to be punched a little bit. I could take some of that abuse, knowing the outcome of what will happen. maybe the congregants don't see this as well. Yeah, I see a lot of people's stuff, and I know a lot about a lot of people, and that might make a lot of people recoil, but then I see them acting Christ-like in the way that they're giving. So you watch, I'll give an example. We have a widow in our church. She and her husband were very poor. they didn't have a lot of stuff. And the way that the church rallied around her and provided for her, you just sit back and just go, wow. And a lot of it wasn't even advertised. So that would be the other thing. Yeah, I see a lot of the bad, but you also see a lot of the good that doesn't get talked about. And you don't talk about the good because they're not doing it for that. But I'm here all the time and I see, and I'm kind of coordinating some of this stuff. And you just see how you see the people as they're struggling through the bad, they don't want the bad, and then you see them step up and do what's right and holy, and you just walk away with this more of a complete picture of the person. And so when the good happens, you can praise the Lord for it. There's a host of other things, but those would be the main things. I don't know, what about you? Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, very similar to what you are mentioning, walking with somebody in the journey of salvation. is a remarkable, that's a remarkable process. And sometimes we get to journey a while, and sometimes it's just very quick. In our church in Michigan, I journeyed for about a year with a young lady, and watching her just discover Christ, and come to salvation, that's an amazing, amazing thing to watch. That's a beautiful thing to watch. I think another beautiful thing is the common bond we share in Christ. Two people who don't know each other from Adam can walk into church and have an instantaneous bond because of Christ. That's remarkable. I see that especially when we're on the foreign mission field, when you've got cultural and language and all sorts of dynamics at play. The common bond that we have in Christ that makes you go, whoa, there's something there that's pretty remarkable. I think, like you said, just the trust in Christ to watch him provide and the faith that people have to watch him provide and him being so faithful, in that provision and watching that day in and day out, watching the discipleship of somebody growing in Christ likeness over the period of time where you can look back and go, man, when I met you eight years ago, you were kind of crusty. But look at how God is refining you and look at what God is doing and look at what change is happening. That's an amazing truth. And then this may sound weird or morbid or whatever, I don't know. It is. It is. It is. Holding the hand of a believer and watching them die as they enter the presence of Christ, that is a beautiful thing. I fully understand, and if you've recently lost a loved one, this is maybe fresh in your mind. I fully understand the loss component and the earthly goodbye. I get all of that, but I am telling you, there is something amazing about watching somebody birthed into the physical presence of Christ. And even though it's death, and even though it's rough, and even though it's miserable, and even though it's bad, there is something remarkable about holding the hand of a saint who is about ready to enter the presence of his Savior, and to be able to rejoice, even in the hardship with that family. So that is, to me, if you were to say, man, I could go on for hours why the church is nasty, and not beautiful, and not pretty, and yeah, we've all got those examples. But like you, you know, where you start watching some of these dynamics and you start looking and you have to say there's something significant there. Yeah, I agree, and I don't think that's morbid at all. There is something about funerals and something about death that, I don't know, it kind of just cuts through everything, doesn't it? I mean, it's just kind of, yeah. You know, there's one other thing that I think about when I think about the beauty of the church, because I don't know, I also, too, have been a congregant, and then I've also been a pastor. I would like to go back and be a congregant, and then go back and be a pastor. Maybe that might be helpful. I just look at my life through the churches that God has brought me through, and I realize that God is using this group of believers for whatever to make me more like Him. So, not only do I get to help others, but man, they help me. They sharpen me. And there are times where, yeah, I get things wrong. I have a bad perspective. I have a bad attitude. powerpoint's not working that seems to always be and the copiers not working and i come out a little a little upset a little irritated i'm a little curt with people just because things aren't working right and they'll come up and they'll say something really encouraging and i walk away just going man here it is this mutual encouragement of believers And so, yeah, it's beautiful because what Christ is doing through us as a collective body, even in a local church, I would say even in a broken church where there's a lot of hurt, there's a lot of beauty that comes out of that, right? It's like a flower that grows in the middle of the city. Yeah, my mom's favorite poem was The Weaver. And if you've never heard The Weaver, you can go Google it, look it up. But it compares it to a cross stitch where you look on the backside of a cross stitch and it's chaos and it's crazy. but you turn and look at the front of it, and it's this beautiful, you know, embroidery picture, cross-stitch picture, and it talks about that. My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me. And, you know, He is doing all of these things that, man, Satan is trying to, he is trying to force us to look at the backside of it, to say, look at all the nasty. And it's there. You can't deny it. It's there. But Christ is weaving and painting and molding and shaping an image on the front side of it that is beautiful. And for all of us, whenever we're tempted to look at the church in all of its nastiness, We also have to look at the church in all of its beauty. It is only right to look at both sides. It is natural for us to look at the nasty, and Satan reminds us of the nasty, but we have to flip that painting around, flip that cross stitch around, and say, look at what Christ is doing in my life and in our lives collectively.