Replace 'Church' with 'Me'

Okay Christian friends, here's a game-changer: next time you find yourself scoffing at some church leader being arrested for some crime, or if you see some church leader being broadcast on CNN either confessing or denying some wrong-doing to his congregation, or if you are in a conversation around the water cooler where it may be said that Christians are hypocrites, then please try this:

Replace the words 'church' and/or 'Christian' with the words 'me' or 'I'.

You can do it privately in your head, or out load and boldly...whatever you wish.

What's that? You don't think you are a hypocrite or part of a hypocrisy? You personally are a clean, washed follower of Christ, right? You don't have anything to do with the church? Your relationship with Jesus is just that: you and Jesus?

Guess what? If you are a person who believes in Jesus, it doesn't matter what you think, or if you go physically to a building on Sundays or not. If you believe in Jesus, YOU ARE the church.

If the public perception is that Christians are hypocrites and the church is irrelevant, it means YOU are a hypocrite and YOU are irrelevant. And I am right there with you.

It's going to be a long row to hoe to change the public perception about Christians and the Christian church - but it won't change without people like you and me who now find ourselves denying our identity in Christ by denying the relevance of the church. He is married to the church and would die for it. He was beaten, ridiculed, mocked, cheated, flogged, stripped, spit on, paraded, hung, pierced, and killed - for the CHURCH...for us. Don't deny the church...because it makes Jesus' work and sacrifice meaningless when you do that.

Be a part of the solution.

We all need to MAN-UP and participate in unity in order to keep it cleaned up and purged from sinfulness of leaders who idolize themselves over Christ. It won't happen without people like us who (right now) would rather not get messy. But there is no in between. If you we are not participating in the solution - we are participating in the problem.

We, in fact, are the problem with 'the church' - not the overt sinners who are actually working in the church. We, the people who sit on the outside, don't participate with OUR church, then deny it while desiring the full benefit of a relationship with Christ....WE ARE THE PROBLEM WITH CHRISTIANITY. We can't have a relationship 'on the side' outside of the church. It doesn't work like that. Jesus won't have an affair with you separate from His marriage to the church. He is married to you through the church.

We are the church. Stand up for US. Come out of the shadows. Get involved. Pull out a phone book, ask a friend for the address, but go to a Christian church of your choice...find a Christian community of believers and BE a part of it. Get involved.