Sometimes we call them spies or plants. Sometimes we call them team wreckers. Sometimes we call them bad apples. Sometimes we call them cancer. It's those individuals or even groups that bring down the integrity, morale, or chemistry of an organization, team, business or major group. Not only is the reputation called into question, but there's a slow drain on the vibrancy, effectives, ethics, productivity of that group. Corruption and individualism creeps in.
Recently the NBA Commissioner mandated that all NBA player dress up for press conferences and/or NBA related appearances. He was trying to reverse the hip hop imagery of thuggery about the NBA. Along the same lines, the new NFL Commissioner began handing down major suspensions to any NFL player caught or involved in illegal or questionable activities. NASCAR officials have come down heavy with fines, penalties and suspensions on teams, owners and drivers who alter in any fashion the specs of the Car of Tomorrow in an effort to crush any image of cheating. Major League Baseball has pushed to get rid of steroid or any performance enhancing drug usage among its players. All this is an attempt to clean up their respective sport of any perceived or actual improprieties with an eye on improving their image.
The Church has gone through and continues to go through various cultural evolutions in order to remain The Church, yet exist in a fallen world. How do you live in the world without becoming tainted by the world? Monasteries and nunneries don't appear to the answer if we're trying to share the Good News. Adding rules and regulations got the Pharisees in trouble in Jesus' day. Walling ourselves off in church buildings or church cultures doesn't work. Nor does ignoring the worldly behavior of "Christians" in the church.
How does today's church stand on truth, proclaim Christ's message of hope and salvation to the lost and demonstrate love to all people? Tough question. I could write a chapter on this subject. Paul says to connect with the people of the world without compromising your values so that you can show God's Good News to them. He also says not to even have lunch with people who claim to be followers of Christ but are pursuing a worldly, sinful lifestyle. In fact, Paul teaches this church to whom He's writing to expel a man who's sleeping with his own mother and treat him as an unbeliever.
Because none of us are perfect, all of us could be expelled from a church because of our inconsistent behavior (not for sleeping with our mothers, but other sinful attitudes or behavior). However, The Church must lovingly stand on and for God's truth, otherwise she becomes irrelevant, corrupt and ineffective. So as believers we must exhort when necessary. Encourage when necessary. Challenge when necessary. Confess when necessary. Teach when necessary. Confront when necessary. And restore when necessary.
God, I need your wisdom as a pastor and as simply a follower of Christ, when and how to speak, when and how to challenge, when and how to love, when and how to encourage, when and how to restore. I see the fishers in my own life. I need your wisdom, strength, guidance in dealing with my own issues. God, sometimes I look at the church and my own life and think about those famous words, "we have seen the enemy and it is us." I worry about the enemy within, about individuals, The Church, me giving in or giving up. I thank you for the promise of Jesus' words, "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." God help me, my church be unpolluted by the world as we extend ourselves to the world who desperately needs you, your truth and your saving grace.
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