I had another one of those disappointing conversations with someone who used to go to church. I have had many of them over 25 years of leading churches. However, in the last few years, my conversations like this have become more frequent. I have also found that I have run out of answers or excuses for these very personal, heart-wrenching stories.

The experiences are as widely varied as the reasons for giving up on church as organized religion. Sometimes there was true spiritual abuse that scarred the individual. Other times there was gross mismanagement of funds or responsibilities from the leadership. Of course, the stories of petty in-fighting and ugly behavior come up too. All of these things have not led the individuals to give up on God or their belief in the salvific work of Christ. No. They just cannot bring themselves to try church again.

Granted, there are those individuals who have caused their own problems. They brought trouble to the house of worship and left in a cloud of trouble. They reaped what they sowed and left an unfortunate mess of weeds behind for others to clean up in God’s vineyard. I am not addressing those individuals. I am with the Apostle Paul when it comes to these individuals: “Let them go.” I like the Apostle John‘s attitude, “They were from among us but were really not one of us so they went out from us.” That is as it should be, I think.

No. I am addressing those poor souls who really gave “church” a try; even multiple times. Perhaps they had just a run of bad luck in picking churches or they had anomalous experiences in otherwise great churches. Not every church can bat 1.000 or even .333 for that matter. No organization of people can. We are all prone to make mistakes and miss opportunities.

Still, my conversation with this young man left me wondering. Are most churches just “off task”? You know what I mean. It is the same term a teacher uses for the student who is present but not doing what they are supposed to be doing. They are “off task” and therefore are not getting their work done and turned in on time. This usually results in a lot of extra homework and heartache for the parent.

In one blog article I wrote last year, I addressed the issue of the church needing to be “On Mission” – or “on task.” If we are not “on task” – fulfilling our mission as the body of Christ on earth – then we must be “off task” – present but not doing what we are supposed to be doing. Like a poor performing student, this not only invites potential failure but a lot of heartache as well. Thus the stories I run into time and again.

A young family in our apartment complex had been struggling financially with this economic downturn. The husband had lost his job and could not find another. The wife had a part-time job with very few hours that barely kept food on the table. Soon, the bills started piling up. Then their car was repossessed, making it that much harder to get and keep a job. Finally, they were getting eviction notices from the apartment managers.

This young family attended the largest church in our community; a church of a couple thousand. This growing congregation had recently finished building a new multi-million dollar facility and had just launched another campaign to build a 1.5 million dollar gymnasium. It has all the marks of outward success.

Humbly, the young man approached the church for some kind of help. He figured they had been attending a number of years, had given financially to the church to support its ministries and had been actively involved in a few of them. When he finally was able to talk to someone about his family’s needs, he was informed that the church had no resources to help them. He was informed that one of the reasons was because the financial rough times had also hit the church and they were doing all they could just to keep the gymnasium construction going.

He went home desperate and broken. The one place he expected to be able to receive some kind of help and encouragement was gone. There was no follow-up visit or phone call to offer helping the family connect with community resources. They were on their own. Well, not exactly.

The people of the apartment complex heard about this family’s needs. Some of them, complete strangers who did not know even their apartment number, chipped in to help catch up on rent. One of the apartment complex repairmen, the young man I alluded to at the beginning of the blog, donated one of his cars to the family. The family at this time is not interested in going to any church. And it may be some time before they do. I cannot blame them.

There is also an apartment with two women living in it. It has an elderly daughter taking care of her elderly mother. Her mother has numerous health issues and suffers from the onset of Alzheimer’s. They both looked forward to visiting church on Sundays because it was the one place they thought they could go, get out of their apartment and the about the only place the mother felt safe in a growing unfamiliar environment. However, one Sunday they were pulled aside by the pastor who asked the daughter not to bring her mother to church anymore because her hearing-aides kept squeaking and disturbing the other parishioners around them. Now they sit at home. The daughter tending wounds from a church she and her mother had attended most of her life.

As a former church leader, I understand that church experiences can be a mixed bag of good and bad experiences. I get that it is full of faulty humans who do not always behave in ways that are consistent with their beliefs. I know all too well my own missed opportunities and bumbling mistakes that hurt others. I also recognize those as times when I – when we – have lost sight of why we exist at all as the body of Christ: do his work and speak his words to reconcile the world to the Heavenly Father.

When the church gets off task, it becomes the worst of civil organizations. It would be better to become an Elks Club, Rotary Club, Kiwanis Club or some other club members. We are the worst because we so violate the high ideals to which we profess and call one another. In the world of business, companies that get off task and away from the main product that made them successful in the first place go bankrupt.

When church becomes more about our buildings, positions of leadership, preferences and comfort, then we have gotten off task. When so much is expended to keep so few at ease and comfortable, then we are off task. When our message is made irrelevant because of the life we model, we are off task. When the life we model for others no longer reflects the mission of our founder, we are off task.

How do we know when we are “on task”? When our life and words express sacrificial love for God and for neighbor. This is, after all, “the first and greatest commandment.” It is the mark by which we will be identified by the rest of the world (“they will know you by your love for one another“). It is the test everyone must pass to show they truly love (“greater love has no one than this, that s/he lay down his life for a friend“).

The exercises and lessons of this life’s classroom all have to do with teaching us how to love God and others sacrificially. It is the example and standard that Jesus set for us. It is the command that we are given. It is the test we must all pass, especially as the body of Christ.

Too many things can take us off task. They are too numerous to count. It is perhaps one of the main weapons the enemy of our souls uses to distract us from our original task as a follower of Jesus. However, at the end of the day, whether we were “on task” or “off task” will not be determined by sizable budgets, comfortable buildings or the number of butts in the seat on a Sunday morning. No. I think we will be asked only one question on our final test: “How well did you love me and others?”

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

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