When we hear the word “church” – well, so often we load it with a whole lot of baggage – our ideas, perceptions, experiences. “Church” – it’s almost become a four–letter word. But my hunch is – it wasn’t meant to be so.   Church – A Four Letter Word I’ve often thought – if I were a marketing consultant, and I won a tender to run a marketing campaign to give the term “church” a positive position in the contemporary mindset – the secular psyche if I can use those words – I wonder whether I would actually want the job. I mean – this word “church” has almost become a four letter word in society today. Scandal after scandal. So many people see large parts of the church as being anachronistic – outdated, irrelevant. The vestiges of old style religion appear to be alive and well. For me – the greatest indictment of church in my living memory has been the whole issue of child sexual abuse. It seems to spread across so many of the denominations – and so I just don’t want to single any of them out. Only it’s not so much an issue – but a string, countless thousands of cases of the most appalling abuse of position and trust that is imaginable. People who claim to be God’s emissaries sexually abusing children – and not just children, but adults too. And then, if that isn’t terrible enough – the cover–ups by major denominations. I was reading a government report into this issue in one major denomination, in one particular country and the report concluded that the senior levels of this church denomination had – and I quote – “obsessively and systematically covered up” the widespread sexual abuse of children by its clergy for decades. And this has happened over and over and over again. You Google church sexual abuse on the Internet, and aside from the fact that you get over 4 million hits – 4 million – you discover church essays, positions, enquiries, policy papers, white papers on this whole subject. Now – you may well ask – why is it that Berni’s rabbiting on about this? Why’s he being so critical about this? Well, simply to demonstrate why the “church” has an image problem. The easiest thing in the world is for those of us who live inside this thing called “church” to completely lose sight of how people on the outside, see and think about this thing we call … church. Has the whole church gone bad? Of course not. But there’s enough mud flying around for it to stick. And then – there are so many other issues. The church seems to be anti–so many things. Anti–abortion. Anti–homosexual. Anti this and anti that. And please right now I’m not making any comment or judgement about the validity of those positions one way or the other. As it turns out I have very strong views on some of these issues. But it’s not the views and the beliefs that I’m talking about right now. It’s the perceptions of society as a whole, that this thing called the “church” can hold itself out to proclaim judgements on such issues when – I mean, look at the whole issue of child abuse. Is it any wonder that people look at the church and think – what a bunch of hypocrites. Then there’s the church not far from me – the denomination – that lost $160 million on some bad stock market investments recently. And the other small local church sitting on well over $20 million worth of real estate, with less than a dozen members showing up every Sunday morning. These days there are so many Bible believing Christians having been burnt by this thing called church, that they’re leaving it in droves whilst still hanging on to their faith in Jesus – that the academics are writing text books about this group. Perhaps some of that is treading on some sensitive even painful ground for someone listening today. And the last thing that I’m about is dragging down the church. But if you belong to God’s church – whatever denomination, whatever shape of form that takes – do you see the image problem that the Church has? Church – these days – is very definitely a four letter word out there in contemporary society! Hmm. The sad thing is that so many good things are happening amongst this group of people we call “church” around the world as well. It’s not all bad – far from it – but we live in a world today – where people both inside and outside the church are struggling so deeply with what church means, what it is, what it’s supposed to be, what it achieves – so many people are struggling so deeply and in many cases painfully with this issues – that I believe we have to talk about it on the program. So that’s what we’re going to be doing over the next couple of weeks. And as you may have noticed – I’m not going to pussy–foot around. Let’s call a spade a spade, let’s see things for what they are – and there’s a good reason for that. Because like it or not, whatever you think of this thing called “church” it is part of God’s plan and it is something that lies at the core of God’s plan for this world – for humanity. Have a listen to what Jesus said to Peter the Apostle: And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18) Jesus said He would build his church and make her strong. God also refers to the church as His bride: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25–27) And His body: For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:12) And as individualistic as we’ve become in contemporary society here in the 21st century after the time when Jesus walked this earth – as much as we’re focussed on ourselves, God’s plan, God’s plan is for His children to be a family. It’s a powerful plan. And it’s a good plan. To be sure – sometimes being a church hurts. Sometimes it disappoints. Sometimes it falls such a long way short of what we expect these people of God to be and how we expect them to love us – but it is God’s plan nevertheless. Saw a sign outside a local church recently that said “Don’t let Christians put you off Jesus”. As bad a piece of marketing as I think that is – leading with the chin like that – this sign somewhat clumsily and insensitively puts its finger on the problem we’ve been talking about today. That “church” is a four letter word. So the thing we’re going to look at today and over these coming weeks is this – despite so much doom and gloom and obvious failures of this thing called “church” – how do we make sense of God’s plan? How do you and I – if we hunger after God – grow and thrive in the body of Christ – the church – despite all the things in this world that scream at us that we should run a mile? How?   People are a Pain You know the biggest problem I find with Churches? The one that is absolutely, without any shadow of doubt number 1 on my list of problems with church – is other people. As sure as God made little green apples, you get a bunch of people together, and some of them are going to be a pain. They’re going to rub us up...

Released on 3 Oct 2021