The Broken Church

Talk to anyone and religion is a subject very few want to talk about. Try telling someone you agree, that you don't want to talk religion, just share God's love, and still, there is a wall that quickly raises to block you out. But why is it so many just don't want to hear this Christian message?

So, what is "church"?
Church is a building or a home believers use to gather in. The Bible tells us that we, "believers" are that "church". In other words, the building, the walls, the sanctuary where God comes to dwell in is not a man made edifice, but the hearts of those who have acknowledged Jesus as Lord. 

So, then, why do so many people just seem to hate the idea of "church" and "church people"?

The homeless, the prostitute, the person that is all messed up enters "the church building" and "the church people" instead of behaving as lives filled with God's love and mercy, make visitors feel unwelcomed, rejected, ignored, and unwanted. Snob noses rise to the air and the mouths that were just a few minutes before praising the God that dwells in their hearts, cannot stand to sit next to someone with more tattoos than a subway train in the 1980s. 

People enter the church looking for answers. They are hurting. Families are in turmoil, fighting, in pain and seeking a word of encouragement and counsel. Instead, they are given excuses, appointments, mumbo jumbo talk that leaves them completely empty, and then if the "church leaders" do listen, before the service is over, the "church people" all end up knowing what was shared in private because the "church" sometimes has a super huge mouth.

So, where are the church leaders, the pastors, the people with the titles, the visions, and the dreams? Where are the people that pray for healing, command demons to be gone, and for God to do a great work? If the Bible calls you the "church" then why are you broken? Why are you falling apart? Why are you more interested in who shows up that has a good paying job, and not the person that needs a hand out? 
If you're full of God's power, then why are you powerless?
If you are speaking God's wisdom, then why do you choose to be a great fool?
If you are the body of Christ, then why do you present a weak, sick and falling apart gospel?
If Christ is in you, then where is the love?
If Christ dwells richly in you, where is the mercy?
If God's glory abides in your heart, where is your integrity and your loyalty?

If you are the church, why are you broken into so many pieces that the world is confused and doesn't know where you stand? 
Why do you call yourself by so many different names when God didn't come to dwell in man made temples, but in the hearts of mankind?

Why?

Why?

I am the "church".

I refuse to walk defeated.

I refuse to show myself broken and destroyed.

I will not walk in foolishness or without love.

I will practice mercy.

I will love.

I will love. 

I will forgive.

I am "the church".

Who are you?