One of the stock objections to the Christian faith is always the stumbling block of the church. You know the thing that I mean?
Why are churches rich when some folk are poor?
Why are church-goers always such hypocrites?
Why is the church always on the side of privilege and repression?

Now I am not going to bother to try to answer these statements which in the main contain a fragment of truth and a lot of lies, and I’m not going to try and defend it against critics, because normally the critics will tell you more about themselves than they will about the church. All I’m asking today is that we put aside those pictures of the church we’ve inherited from history and look at the church in the New Testament, and as it still is at its heart, today.

It’s PEOPLE. The Church is PEOPLE.
Sinful, needy people but who know that they are sinfu1, but yet, who, because they love and serve Christ, try to love and serve others no matter how imperfectly they do it.

Do you know that by the hundred thousand the supply of men and women who go into every corner of this earth now to look after the bodies, souls and minds of men, women and children, are the church’s gift?
They’re there because as people they were called by Christ and equipped by the church to go out and serve. They may be full of flaws and sins but that doesn’t stop Jesus using them because, if Christ is not ashamed to own us, why should we be ashamed of owning up that we belong to His church?

Discuss