Removing the Dirt in the Church

Introduction

Most people don’t like to hear bad news, but sometimes hearing bad news is necessary. It’s reminiscent of news on TV. While there are many great things going on in the world, we hear mostly negative things on the news. Sometimes hearing the unpleasant things can be protective. If a hurricane is coming, we can take the appropriate action to secure our property and get to safety. We never wake up with the desire to find out a hurricane is coming our way. But if one is coming, we’d rather know in time to prepare than to be caught completely off guard. Removing the Dirt in the Church sounds the alarm that there are storms brewing in the church.

Importance of Calling Sin … Sin

“Dirt” in the title of this book stands for sin. Sin is not a popular word in today’s postmodern world. Relativism has made it inappropriate to call anyone’s actions wrong. I mean, who am I to say that something is wrong? People have a right to do what they want as long as it isn’t against the law, right? And if what one wants to do is against the law, and a lot of other people want to do it too, if they lobby hard enough, they can start a movement and change the law, right? In this democratic society, a lot of positive change has happened in the past because of this process. However, this book will examine sin, not from a relative or democratic point of view, but from God’s perspective as written in his Word, the Bible. Specifically, we will address sin in the Christian church. Sin is any thought, word, attitude, or action that displeases God. We want to remove the dirt in the church because the church is meant to be salt and light, which reflects the holiness of God to the world.

“Church” in the title does not refer to the building where Christians meet to have worship services. The church is the universal collective group of people who have believed the gospel of Jesus Christ and have trusted in Christ as their Savior from sin, i.e., Christians. Individual Christians are to represent Christ in and to the world. It’s not that Christians must do everything exactly right in order to be followers of Christ, but they have an observable lifestyle of faith and holiness lived in humble devotion to Christ and his teachings. Among the church are people who profess to be Christ followers, but their lives do not bear the fruit that demonstrates their union with Christ. These may be immature or carnal, or they may be counterfeit (i.e., fake—not Christians at all). There is hope for both.

Why

Many people have come to the church for solace and shelter from the storms of life only to find that the church is not exempt from devastating storms. We (God through me) will give hope to those who have been caught in a church storm. We will encourage the wounded to find a safe church fellowship where they can heal, grow, and contribute to the overall health of the church. We will speak to the individual who is in the church, but the church is not in them. We will encourage the reader to have realistic expectations of the local church and to explore how they can be used by God to make it better.

I am writing this book to encourage the church to accurately represent Christ. As someone who has been in the church all my life, I have seen many things! I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. I believe I’ve seen mostly God-honoring things. This book is not about those good, God-honoring things. It’s about some things that need to change. I do not presume that I am the one who sets the standards. I do not. God’s Word gives us the standard. This book will show some areas where we, as God’s church, can do better. This is not a church-bashing book. It’s a church-loving book for both the individual and the corporate level.

There are individuals in the church that give the church a bad name. These individuals live lifestyles that say anything but “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). We all can afford to do better. This book will encourage us all to do just that. We will observe some of the failures of biblical characters and demonstrate that we are in good company. If there was hope for them, there is hope for us today. But I have bad news. There are big systemic problems. This book addresses the sad, and albeit recurrent systemic, problems of clergy sexual and financial abuse, hypocrisy, and partiality in the church.

Finally, I will share my survivor story of clergy sexual abuse, what I learned, and how God grew my faith as a result. The fact that there is dirt in the church is no surprise to God. He knows. He sees, and he has a dirt removal plan.