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Brandon Gross

Brandon Gross

Dear Church, We Don’t Trust You…

Words flowed like soured honey offering the promise of being sweet and gracious but at first taste revealing how something once good had been turned into a rancid paste of disappointment.

Opinions and tempers coalesced into a verbal crescendo of momentary but deep rooted anger. The flutter of whistling pages played the background melody to this spectacle as a hymnal was used as a symbolic hammer driving home his point.

I honestly can’t remember the point he was trying to make but I remember thinking this wasn’t too far off from a mid-morning episode of Jerry Springer; minus the relationship choices.

Some sit watching in the manner of a deer staring down the headlights of a car while others were more focused at trying to imprint their unique handprint by clinching into the backrest of the pew in-front of them.

A few would chime in, only to have their voice become another note sucked into this black hole of emotion.

 What was this broken spectacle…

It was the monthly church business meeting. And, this wasn’t the first time it had gotten spicy like this.

I was pretty young when I first experienced this broken ritual. Being older now, I know this kind of meeting is not the poster child of the church in general. And, for that matter, every business meeting wasn’t this emotional; most were dull and involved lots of “Yeas” and “Nahs.”

What I do remember, however, is how silly I thought it all was. I was a pastor’s kid, so I had heard all the stories about love, grace and forgiveness in scripture but this… this didn’t look anything like that. It was raw, unfiltered emotion. The kind of stuff reality shows are made of.

It didn’t feel very loving, gracious or full of forgiveness. It felt like a group of people who had lost sight of what they were really here on earth to do.

And it made me feel like I couldn’t trust them when they did talk about love, grace and forgiveness.

I Wasn’t Alone..

I’m afraid a lot of people, inside and outside the church, feel the same way…

They just don’t feel like they can trust the church because in many ways she’s not shown the world Christ, she’s shown them herself.

And, honestly we can’t really blame them. The church, unfortunately, isn’t known any longer, in many circles, by how much she loves; she’s more known for what she is against and what she can offer in the arena of programs, music, teachings and services… That in reality no one really cares about.

I think as long as our efforts in the church revolve around our buildings, programs, services, music and rituals we will continue to see this idea of trust coming up.

The Tree Of Relationship

Trust is the fruit that grows out of the tree of relationship and relationship only thrives in the soil of love.

For me to have trust with someone means I must know them, have a relationship that piece-by-piece builds a bridge of trust. I must know they are genuine.

The wonderful thing is Christ is all these things and desires to use His church as a means to show this love to the world. Trust is the fruit that grows out of the tree of relationship and relationship only thrives in the soil of love.

I think as long as the church considers relationships as a marketing tactic to grow their numbers, people will continue to smell the lack of genuine love there and therefore withhold their trust.

To be fair, I think most Christians want to be genuine, loving and gracious. They just sometimes over complicate it.

Summing It All Up

I think if I could sum up what those who have left, or lost hope, in the church would say it would be something like this:

“Dear Church, we don’t trust you… but we want to. We’re not impressed or moved by your broken rituals but by genuine relationships. We want to see and be Christ to one another but you keep making it about anything and everything other than that. We know we’re not perfect and we don’t have all the answer, but neither are you.

We are more alike than we are different and at the end of the day we want to be known by our love more than anything. We want to join with you as a family to share the love of Christ with the people around us. So, stop trying to attract us with your marketing lingo and fancy stuff (you’re not really that good at it anyway…. and, that’s ok, you don’t have to be) just love as Christ loves and be known for that. Ok… Good talk, let’s do it again soon.”

– one of those statistics

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