There are people who believe that their spiritual gift is “Church Critic.” They have a fun ministry of pointing out to others all the areas that we need to “fix.” Pastors oftentimes really struggle with people with this particular gifting, not only because its generally pretty discouraging, but also because most pastors desperately want to fix each of these things and when a Critic is expressing their gift, the pastor often adds pressure to himself.

A few years ago I was approached by someone with the gift who opened the discussion with, “do you know about the problem with this church?” My response was, “Yes, and I’ll bet my list is longer than yours. It’s actually worse than you think!” The Critic didn’t quite know what to say. I had out-gifted them! Rather than defend and try to explain the fact that we were failing in some area, or feel defeated, I was just honest. Our church is very far from perfect and has many areas that need work.

At the heart of the issue is the feeling by some that our goal is to achieve as much perfection as possible. We should seek to do things well, and we should continually work on areas where we are weak, but the goal of the church is to proclaim the grace and mercy of God and His love expressed through the death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross. As fallen human beings we continually demonstrate that we “fall short of the glory of God.” The fix is not to try to be perfect, but to again rest in and proclaim the grace and mercy of God.

When someone approaches me and tells me they are unhappy with an aspect of our church, I can easily find common cause with them. There are always areas that I am unhappy with as well. I ask them if they thought that the goal was to make us happy? My happiness is not a goal, nor do I make it a goal to try to please each person who attends. Instead, my goal is to proclaim, share, and show the love, mercy, and grace of Jesus, and sometimes my own and the churches own failures help communicate that.

So if you come to our church, you will observe a failing church with failing people. We have this treasure in clay pots. If we are who we’ve been called to be, our weakness and failings will provide a showcase of the power of God who saves sinners and is kind to evil and ungrateful people.

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

(2 Corinthians 12:9)