In a job like mine, you hear stories about the church. A student serving in their first church explains to me the conflict threatening to split his church. Of course, none of this was disclosed during the search and candidate process. A consultant with a state convention explains a toxic and competitive relationship that developed between two nearby churches in a small town. A missionary explains the thorny issues of a newly forming church with a small congregation of people all trying to walk away from Islam but still mired in sins and blind spots from their former worldview. Yet another missionary shares frustrations and feelings of bitterness toward their sending church. When they left, the church seemed so excited, but now no one responds to the emails. Have they been forgotten? I could go on, but you get the point.
It is easy to love the church that ought to be.
The church presented to us in the Scriptures, at least the ideal, is breathtaking. It’s a community of redeemed sinners, covenanted together in love through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This church truly loves one another (Jn. 13:34), they serve one another (Gal. 5:13), they bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2), they edify one another (1 Thess. 5:11), they admonish one another with song (Col. 3:16), they forgive one another (Col. 3:13), and they exhort one another daily (Heb. 3:13). This is the church that ought to be. It is committed to the Word, bold in its witness, and pure in its doctrine. It loves its community, it cares for the least of these, and models purity to a watching world.
In seminary, our students spend their entire degree learning what the church that ought to be looks like. They fall in love with this church, and rightly so, because she is beautiful. Some decide to pastor this church, others desire to plant this church here or among the unreached around the world. There’s only one problem: this church that ought to be is a mirage. To be clear, it is the right mirage. The church that ought to be is the aspiration and goal of the church. Yet, it is a mirage nonetheless.
Here is my point: when we love the church that ought to be instead of the one that is, we fall in love with ideals and aspirations— we do not fall in love with people. And if we are not careful, we fix our gaze on the ideal church and overlook the one we are given to serve. The church that is is not the church that ought to be. In the time between the times, as we wait on our King to finally and fully bring His church to its complete and perfect purity, we are left only with the church that is.
The church that is can also be found in Scripture. The church in Corinth was known for its internal divisions (1 Cor. 1:11-12). It also had a problem with sexual immorality so bad it wasn’t tolerated even among the worst unbelievers (1 Cor. 5:1-2). Oh, and they were also suing each other (1 Cor. 6:1-6). Lest we assume the Corinthians were just the bad apples, recall the heresy that plagued the Galatian church (Gal. 1:6-7) and the biting conflict that resulted (Gal. 5:15). There was personal rivalry occurring in Philippi (4:2), more heresy in Colossae (Col. 2:18-23), and busybodies in Thessalonica (2 Thess. 3:11-12). Do not forget the seven churches in Revelation. Collectively, Christ reprimands these churches for apathy, compromise, tolerating evil, being lukewarm, and even spiritual death. Each church seems to have its particular vice.
Pastor, you don’t get to shepherd the church that ought to be, you pastor the church that is. Missionary, you don’t plant the church that ought to be, you plant the one that is.
If we are not careful, we overlook or sideline the church that is because it is not the one that ought to be. Perhaps we get bitter and only want to attend or serve in the church that ought to be. We fool ourselves by searching for the perfect church with which to covenant or to pastor. On the mission field, we want to wait until the church that is becomes the church that ought to be before we let it stand on its own. This is the mirage. That hallway only gets longer the further you run down it. We must also realize that Paul writes to churches in the New Testament as churches, congregations that have stood up in the midst of their problems and sin.
In fact, Paul’s counsel to these churches provides the proper attitude. Paul loves the church that is, not the church that ought to be. Yet, his love for the church that is calls it to be what it ought. He knows the church he serves, and he loves that church; he lets that church stand even though it is not all it should be. Then he instructs, counsels, and corrects toward the biblical ideal of church.
As my children grow, I’m learning the importance of granting permission to fail, of giving them chances to perform on their own. I do not want to be a helicopter parent because I realize that my children learn how to do the hard thing by having to do the hard thing. Yet, when they fail, I cannot become embittered, frustrated, or distant as though they let me down. Likewise, we strive to help the church that is become the church that ought to be, knowing that it does not arrive until Christ’s return.