Does it bother you, as it bothers me, when people criticize the church?
To take one example, how many times have you heard, “The church is the only army in the world that shoots its wounded”?
That’s nonsense. Most congregations I know care for people through disease, divorce, and sexual sin. And even if the accusation is partly true, is the church the only army to shoot its wounded? People who say that must have no contact with business “restructurings,” family feuds, lawsuits, and coaches of losing sports teams. In every arena of life people shoot the wounded. The church stands out as one place that doesn’t do it as often.
Sometimes people lob shots at individual congregations-usually a megachurch or a church in town of a different theology. Theological differences are worth discussing, but let’s have the courage to express our position face to face or in a signed letter, not behind another pastor’s back.
Once I was studying Ephesians 5, which compares the relationship between a husband and wife to the relationship between Christ and the church. Paul’s metaphor struck me: the church is a bride with feelings, and she has a devoted, powerful, and watchful husband. I wrote in my journal, “May I always speak reverently and tenderly of her.”
I’ve sometimes slipped with unkind words about churches. But I’m trying to imitate Jonathan Edwards, America’s greatest theologian, who made this resolution: Whenever he heard of another person’s sins, he immediately examined himself, repented of similar sins in his life, and prayed for the person. What if, when we heard people criticize a church, we repented of similar ways we have fallen short?
Some people can’t help but see areas for correction, because they possess the gift of discernment. But that gift needs to be trained. Oswald Chambers wrote that God gives us discernment about others not so that we will criticize them, but so that we will pray for them.
A pastor I know dreads her church’s staff meetings, because each week the senior pastor criticizes people in the congregation-sometimes to the point of railing. So tempting, but so dangerous. Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned, “A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.”
Since its beginning, Leadership has stood committed to being pro-church and pro-pastor. At times, our love for the church and for pastors has meant publishing hard truths-for example, that 22.8 percent of pastors have been fired or forced to resign at least once during their ministry. But we always accompany such truth-telling with realistic and practical proposals for reform.
We live in a time when smearing people is sport. May we lead the charge the other way, speaking chastely and constructively about the congregations we encounter. As Leadership adviser Fred Smith reminds our staff, “No one ever erected a statue to a critic.”
Kevin A. Miller is editor of Leadership
1997 by Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.
