As I have frequently said on this site. I love the church. I am with Bill Hybels when I says the local church in the hope for the world. I feel blessed as I love my church. So that the concept goes beyond a spiritual requirement as I experience in the reality of my life. The local church is not perfect. How could it be as I am part of it? However, I am not complacent about being a part of a community where seeing people coming to faith is the norm, there is profound, excellent preaching and the worship is at turns intimate and joyful. I guess the thing that defines a Sunday to me is that I know that I will encounter God. Hallelujah.

Over the last year I have realised that when people criticise the church, I get defensive. Interestingly it is always people who are part of it and often people who have first hand experience of the benefit of being part of this body. Perhaps they became Christians there, had visits in the hospital from the pastoral team or have had their gifts encouraged by the leadership. Never the less they have felt a need to criticise. The purpose of this blog is not to berate them. For all I know they may have very good reason to feel the way that they do. Rather it is to reflect on why it hurts me! I am not part of the core leadership team, I am not on staff and of course I do not earn my living from the local church. True, some of the pastoral team I count as close and trusted friends but I have come to realise that the hurt is more fundamental than that and actually more significant.

I think in recent years God has being teaching me what it is to be part of the body (Romans 12: 4-8). I have come to believe that the criticism of the church is akin to the criticism of my own body! No one likes to be called ugly, old or worthless. Indeed none of us likes to be called fat (even if we are carrying an extra few pounds!). If we loved someone and we thought that extra weight was risking their health or even spoiling their generally beautiful asthetic lines, we should want to deal with them in a way that is gentle, cajoling and encouraging. Therefore, if we see a problem with the church perhaps this is the way to approach it.
However, the criticism that causes the biggest pain is not highlighting a problem, it is just moaning. This is akin to someone just sticking a blade in the body. It cannot serve a useful purpose, it is just painful and damaging and it just hurts like hell.

What do you think?