I was recently pointed to John O’Keefe’s article, “10 Reasons Why Your Church Sucks,” which describes so many churches I’ve been to that it’s scary. Not all of them hit all 10, but many of them come pretty close.
I get this all the time (likely from people whose churches suck): “Church is not about whether you enjoy it. It’s not about you. It’s about God.” Wrong. It’s about God
This is a bigger deal than the nay-sayers depict it; but that’s because they’re trying to justify their sucky services—which, when it comes down to it, suck because they’ve been corrupted by sin. Hey, all churches are corrupted somewhat by it. The church is made up of (redeemed) sinners. (I never understood why people act surprised when they discover this. “Hey, someone stole money from the offering plate!” What do you expect when you hand a full plate of free money down an aisle of strangers? It’s a miracle that people don’t dip into it more often. People have just become too used to the miracle. Oh well, mini-Rant over.)
The sad part is that you have people defending dead churches. Again, shorter: They’re defending death. There are some things that are indefensible, and we shouldn’t try to tackle them. Death is one of them. If you have a dead church, stop jabbering about how it’s Jesus’s church and the gates of hades can’t stand against it. If it’s dead, it’s already in hades. Either bring it back to life, or leave the dead to bury their dead and come follow Jesus… in a living church.