Crossroads: Who is church for?

For example, I play up too much, drink too much, swear too much, get angry too often.

With the assertion being, because of that, it would cause the holiness of the church to cave in on me.

Which begs the question: How did we get here?

The honest answer is that ‘we’, the church, have had a big hand in it.

We, ‘the church’, have pointed fingers at people, rather than opening our arms to them.

We've been quick to name other people’s mess and faults while staying suspiciously quiet about our own gossip, greed and judgment.

In other words, without ever meaning to, we have made unspoken rules about who’s in and who’s out.

Rules we’re happy to live by, and to which everyone else has to measure up.

No wonder so many people assume they’d bring the roof down.

Here’s the thing.

This question of who belongs isn’t new.

The very first churches argued about it.

In the book of Acts, some early believers insisted outsiders had to keep a long list of religious rules before they could truly belong.

The debate got heated.

Then Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends, stood up and asked a brilliant question: “Why are we loading people down with rules that crushed us too? Aren’t we all saved the same way, by the sheer grace of Jesus?”

When Peter said that, you can imagine how the room would have gone completely silent.

None of them were perfect.

None of them had done everything right, but still they were convinced they had God’s attention.

Not because they were perfect, but because of the scandalous grace of Jesus.

So, after some debate about what rules constitute in or out, the leaders landed on this: “We should not make it difficult for those who are turning to God.”

I love that.

That doesn’t mean they were saying the mess people find themselves in is fine and acceptable. Rather, it means mess doesn’t disqualify you from belonging to church, to a relationship with God.

Which I love. Because the truth is this: every one of us either was a mess, is a mess, or is one bad decision away from being a mess.

When you’re in the middle of your mess, you don’t need someone pointing out what’s wrong. You already know.

What you do need is someone who will embrace and make it easy to find your way to God.

That’s exactly what Jesus did. He was constantly criticised for eating with the very people the religious crowd avoided.

So, who is church for?

Not people who have it all together. People with mess.

And here’s the best part. Despite the mess, the building’s still standing.

Rob Wiltshire

Epicentre Church