So this is the second part of a two-part series, so if you haven’t read the first part, click here to read it first. It’s important to what I have to say today.
So, in the interest of full disclosure, I want to let you know that I am a Millennial. I didn’t pick when I was born, nor did I pick the manner in which my parents raised me. None of us did. I want to have a discussion today, Millennial to Millennial. The rest of you are free to listen in.
Our worldview is unique. We grew up watching our parents struggle through the recession. We grew up in a world where Terrorism became common. We grew up watching political scandals play out time and time again. Most of us remember life before and after the internet.
Many (if not most) of us grew up being forced to go to church by our parents. We watched as the church mishandled key cultural issues. It seemed that, for every political scandal, there was a scandal within the church as well. We lived with our parents at home, then watched them become a completely different person for 2 hours on Sunday.
Some of us were wounded when the church mishandled those cultural issues. No one could answer our questions about evolution. No one made room for our doubts. We learned from an early age never to let anyone in the church know about our sin, or struggles, or addictions, because you’re supposed to be holy. Whenever we did open up about our failings, we weren’t shown grace. We were either shown judgement or the door.
So, we became jaded and cynical. We either rejected our faith, or we rejected the church.
No more would we allow the religious leaders of the world to string us along, begging for our money then using it to buy their mansions while we scrape by. No more would we subject ourselves to Sister Martha’s judgmental stares at our tattoos and piercings. No more would we listen to the same sermon again and again that the pastor stole from someone else anyways. No more would we have to fake-clap for a “testimony” that we knew was likely made up for the attention, or was just the product of coincidence. No more…well, you get the idea.
We were done.
Those of us that left the faith became the most vocal against it. Those of us that left the Church but retained our faith decided it would be better to figure things out on our own, and drifted into the shadows.
As the title suggests, I want to address that second group today. The first group? Don’t worry, your turn will come another day, but feel free to read on.
Whenever a Christian leaves the Church, the Church loses something. That isn’t a groundbreaking observation. However, whenever a Christian leaves the Church, the Christian loses something too. Ready for a wall of scripture? Don’t worry, there’s a TL;DR after it if you don’t feel like reading.
The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.
Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?
But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”
In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.
All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.
1 Corinthians 12:12-27 NLT
That’s a lot of scripture to read, so let me make it easy: if you are a Christian, you are a part of the body of Christ, whether you want to be or not. If you go out own your own, you’re like a severed finger: you are unable to fulfill your purpose, and you lose all the other benefits of the body you once belonged to, like sight, taste, and smell.
Christians were never designed to do Christianity alone. We need community, because though the Christian life is simple to understand, it is demanding to execute.
In order for us to flourish, we must be planted in a body of like-minded individuals. As we run our race, we need to have people who are further along than us to inspire and teach us, we need people along side us to relate to and fellowship with, and we need people behind us to challenge us to be an example.
Now, if you’re thinking I’m telling you that you have to go join a local church in order to be a Christian, the answer is no.
You do not have to be a member of a local church. The church isn’t a building, or a sanctuary. The church, as the scripture says, is people. You need to surround yourself with other believers who you can lean on in the hard times, who can correct you when you’re going out into left field, and who can help to grow your faith.
Here’s the thing though—your local church has all those built-in without you having to do any legwork. You don’t have to go searching for your group, you can just walk down the street and join a pre-made. Now before you close your browser in a rage, or write me a comment about how the church did this or that and now you can never go back, hear me out.
I get it, a lot of you have been wounded by the church. You’ve had a bad experience. You saw too much hypocrisy. I get it, and I hear you. I’m one of you. What happened to you should not have happened, and would not have happened if you were loved correctly by the Christians who claimed to be disciples. But, if you remember my last post, we learned that Christians are to love others as Christ loved us. I spoke of how the church has failed to love Millennials the way Christ loved us in that post.
However, that command cuts both ways.
Remember, while you were dead in your transgressions, Christ died for you and made you alive by his grace. Though you were enemies of God, Christ demonstrated his love for you on the cross. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. If this is the love that Christ showed us, that he was willing to suffer even unto death, this is the love we are to show to others, including those in the Church who have wronged us.
Your days of loving Jesus but hating Christians are over. You can’t have it both ways: they are incompatible with each other.
Those of you who were cheering through my last post when I called out the Church for their lack of love yet failed to look in the mirror are just as guilty as the Christians who wounded you. Remember that love is patient, and love is kind. It is not envious, or boastful, or proud. It does not dishonor others, and it is selfless. It is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. It doesn’t delight in evil, but rejoices in truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. These are the traits that Christ demands be on display if you are to be one of his disciples.
I know you have been wounded by the Church. I know you are cynical and distrustful of the religious leadership for a reason. I know you likely have a laundry list for why you left the Church for a reason. I am not minimizing your experience in any way, nor am I excusing the actions of those who harmed you.
But you are to forgive, just as Christ forgave you. This is what his love demands.
If you return to the church, you may be wounded again. You may find more reasons to distrust the leadership. You may be able to add to your laundry list. But, even still, you are, and will be, required to forgive, because you owe it to Christ to forgive others as you have been forgiven.
You may not be ready to rejoin a local church, and that’s fine. But your personal vendetta against the church and those Christians has to end. There are still healthy churches out there, and you do a disservice to your current brothers and sisters by holding them accountable for the wounds of the past.
You cannot fix a broken system from the outside, and the world so desperately needs the system to be fixed. You are the light of the world: you can’t hide your lamp under a bowl forever.
It’s easy to leave the Church the way it is. That way, you can always say, “See! Look at those Christians.” If you never go back, you can always feel justified that leaving the Church was the right call. By human standards, you’d be right. But, if you are a disciple, you don’t follow human standards. You follow the new commandment: love as Christ has loved you.
If you choose to go back, you may not be loved like Christ by other Christians, but you are to imitate Christ regardless. You pick up your cross, you entrust yourself to him who judges justly, and you give of yourself, even unto death. Then, one day, you can look at the Church, and know that you were one of those who gave your life so that those behind you can live.
It’s not fair that this burden should fall on our generation, but it wasn’t fair that a blameless man had to take upon himself the sin of the world.