Instead of understanding myself to be a part of the corporate Temple of God, I saw each of us as our own little dwelling of the Spirit, responsible to keep our own act clean.
Have You Prayed For The Church?
Early on in my own college-aged angst over the frustrations of church life, I got a piece of sage advice from an older Christian mentor. I think I had been complaining about all the ways my church, or the church, didn’t “get it,” or something like that, when they asked me, “Yes, that’s probably all very true, but have you been praying for it?”
Had I been praying for it?
To be honest, I don’t think I had. I thought the church was there to pray for me, not really the other way around.
Still, I found myself gently challenged in that question, so I started to pray for the church. Not perfectly, of course, but regularly. And actually, I not only prayed for it, I decided to commit myself to it and serve it more diligently.
And you know what? It made it worse in a lot of ways.
By praying for it and serving it, I began to love it like I never really had before. Instead of viewing it through the noncommittal, arm’s distance, American, semi-apathy I had settled into, I saw its weaknesses and failures in the stark, glaring light of love.
The thing about that love, though, is that it didn’t drive me away but drew me deeper in. I came to the point where walking away from it wasn’t even an option.
Even more, in light of prayer and time spent serving her, I began to realize that, in fact, some of my earlier frustrations with her were more to do with my youth and haste than her flaws. She turned out to be more holy and beautiful than I gave her credit for. I began to see all of the wonderful works Jesus was working in His Bride that I’d simply been too jaded and frustrated to notice before.
It’s not so much that I found out that she didn’t really have any flaws; it’s that I found out I had some too.
RELATED: 5 Things Millenials Need From Church
I saw all the ways I could be loved and give love, know and be known, receive and give myself away in imitation of my Savior. In spite of it all, I became conscious of my deep need for the church.
In fact, following Jesus without her didn’t really make any sense. If I had walked away, it wouldn’t have been just her problem but mine as well. It wasn’t an issue of the church getting better to fit my wants, needs and expectations, but realizing how skewed and myopic some of my wants and judgments really were (and still are).
And this brings me to my “plea” to fellow millennials leaving the church.
A lot of us are leaving the church. For some of us, this is simply finding out we never really had anything more than a superficial “faith” in the first place. Others of us really love Jesus, but are fed up and frustrated with the church we grew up with.
Questions for Millennials Leaving the Church
My question for you is: Have you prayed for her? Have you really served her? Do you love her? Have you struggled to see her the way Christ sees her, as the bride He was willing to lay Himself down for, even to the point of death to cover her sins and make her whole?
If you haven’t, try it.
Pray for the church. Pray for her health, her life, her forgiveness, her sanctification and mission in the world.
Then, find a half-way decent church that preaches the Bible, prays and tries to be neighborly, and commit yourself to it. Risk being wrong about the church in the best way possible. Continue to show up, be present, graciously challenging, as well as submitting, enough to have an actual voice in your community.
Whatever you do, don’t simply leave.
If you do, you’ll rob yourself of the chance to see what Jesus is doing in that community He’s covenanted Himself to. Instead, commit yourself and risk a bit of hope. Generations before us have found that God comes through on His promises to preserve the church He obtained with His own blood (Acts 20:28).
Dare to believe that Jesus is still sanctifying His Bride until that day when she is presented to Him in glory. I know for myself, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
