View From Here

The modern American church is a place where:

You can have little to no emotional intelligence or wisdom, but teach and counsel countless others in deep, real need, simply by having a seminary degree and a penis;

You can be lacking profoundly in the heart, compassion, and understanding of Jesus, yet collecting a paycheck to operate in His name;

You can demonstrate clear (or subtle) predatory, abusive, and/or oppressive attitudes, language and behavior that is missed entirely. 

Missed entirely.

Because neither leaders nor members are taught to recognize symptoms thereof. Neither are seminaries teaching fundamental, psychological characteristics of healthy relationship, or mental/emotional wellness/maturity. On the contrary, pervasive books and materials circulate that perpetuate wrongness under the guise of rightness with little to no biblical foundation;

You can have little spiritual or basic maturity, but lead/host (read:sanction) a ‘life group’ in your home by having grown up in a legacy family of the church;

You can have little talent and less skill but lead music on a stage, hands raised, hiding a pet ego under false humility and pretense;

You can gossip under the guise of care and concern;

You can be convinced you should do unbiblical things based on some sermon that misinterprets an ancient text;

You can use that misinterpretation to hate and ‘should’ yourself, as well as people closest to you and everyone else from afar.

Gross. The fruit is gross. But it’s so common, so normative, few can tell.

Church leadership by-in-large has gotten so far from the mission to get low, to love and serve. It’s unrecognizable. And the collateral damage is devastating. 

To me, the church is scarier than the world because there is a level of pious rightness that blankets what is essentially the same corrupt human condition as the culture it claims to defy. 

We could be so much more. This precious world and every human in it needs LOVE lived out in grace, humility, peace, support, justice. 

Those few in so many churches who truly exhibit the love and compassion of Jesus… they are doing incredible good in their small corners of the world. They are affecting the world in humble, precious, authentically altruistic ways. 

But they are too often in the margins – a hard-working, hard-loving, sacrificial, under-supported minority. 

View from here.