The Poor Image of the Church and Our Responsibility for It

From time-to-time people have shared with me the reasons that they value their particular church community and why they support it through their prayers, attendance, offerings, and various kinds of service. I always encourage them not to stop with me but to tell others about why their church matters to them. For reasons I can’t understand people are more willing to tell a stranger about their recent surgery and even show them the scar, if they would dare to look, than they are to talk about their faith. That’s really too bad because when you speak openly about your faith it shows people that it is meaningful and important to you; it also shows that you care enough about them, stranger or not, to want then to know the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Likewise, speaking openly and favorably about your church shows people that Christian churches are in general open and inviting to everyone, and lets them know that you value your faith community. How you represent your church can make all the difference in the world, and not only for your church’s attendance but more importantly for the mission Christ has given to His church.

Too many people today are certain that Christian churches are all teetering on financial collapse and the only reason that a congregation would go out of its way to attract people would be to make an inroad into their pocketbook. I guess we really can’t blame them as the image of the Christian church over the last several decades has been tarnished in the minds of the general public. While I have lamented the treatment the church has gotten in the media over the years and have laid a lot of the blame at their doorstep for the church’s image problem in my heart-of-hearts I know we Christians are just as much to blame. All too often if we have had anything at all to say within or outside the church doors it has been about its problems and challenges. We seldom tell people about what our church communities, both at the local and international level, are doing to make the world a better place to live. We seldom mention the thousands of lives being changed every day for the better as people hear the Gospel and receive it to their salvation and their having joy and happiness now in this present world; or that people are being loved and cared for in countless ways by Christians particularly the most vulnerable among us; or that individuals in many places in the world who are open about their Christian faith do so at great risk to their own well-being and yet remain faithful to the mission of Christ. This is the true story of the Christian church and it is our story to tell! Yet we have most often left the telling to others who have not had the church’s best interest at heart. Some have only been concerned about what they could personally gain from associating themselves or their organization with the church; still others were only interested in reporting on the failings of individual Christians so as to profit from those in the general public who are entertained by stories of seemly good people behaving badly; others whose goal was only to promote their own denomination and all too often at the expenses of the rest of Christ’s church. Is it any wonder that the Christian Church has an image problem?

Today it has become popular in my denomination to ask “what if” and then add something that describes a possible mission project. Let me offer a few of my own “what ifs.” What if in our everyday personal conversations we Christians were always looking for the opportunity to say something good about our local church and/or Christianity itself? What if we challenged people when they misrepresent Christianity? What if Christians from all the various denominations of the church stopped criticizing each other and worked together at accomplishing the mission given the church by Christ? What if the many Christianswhoare disappointed in their church and/or its leadership started taking personal responsibility for their faith community and got involved to help it become a place about which they would have something good to say?

What if through our everyday conversations we would turn half as many people on to the church as we have turned off over the years with our negative comments? Those are the kinds of what ifs that if were to become realities I believe would do a lot in correcting the false image the Christian Church has been given in both the secular and Christian media and could only enhance the church’s success in reaching a world darken by sin with the Light of the Gospel.