Sinners Anonymous

When it comes to church…I’d rather have a hospital for sinners like me who are taking the long grace-filled road of recovery that will be filled with messiness, pain, truth, and tears, but- as the journey goes forth- will produce freedom, love, acceptance, wholeness. I’d rather have that than a sanitised museum of saints who are caught up in pre-tense, deep down fear, and on-the-surface judgementalism coated in nice smiles of each other, and the deep down brokenness they have but are too sacred to share because they think people will judge them the same way they judge others. The first is messy but freeing in the long-run, the second is sanitised but will harden the heart until it can’t be broken and repaired.

Unfortunately, a lot fo churches opt for option 2. I mean who wouldn’t? It’s so easy! But you are robbed of the deep richness of both being known and loved. You see, a lot of us ‘love’ people, and by love, I mean that they love what they see- care free, easy going, nice person. But what if they saw the rest of you? Or worse: what if a whole community saw all of you? Your insecurities, your hurts, your addictions, your mess. That’s called being known. And people fear being known but not loved. But what truly liberates us, what truly sets us free, is being known and loved. It’s free us from pre-tense, humbles us out of cockiness and allows us grow from the dirt up. Now, imagined if a whole community knew and loved you, like truly? Liberation!

Now there is no such thing as the perfect church, I know that. But boy wouldn’t it be wonderful to be in an imperfect church full of people who know they are imperfect? As opposed to the second type of imperfect church, the ‘sanitised’  ones? What are your thoughts?