The Corporate Issue

No, this isn’t about bailouts. It’s about church. Church, whether the small group Bible study one night a week, the dutiful gathering of Christians in the community in a large building Sunday morning, or the universal representation of the body of believers across the globe, refers to the corporate expression of Christ’s followers as opposed to the individual. Corporate meaning collective, communal, shared, etc. The individual living for Christ constitutes a disciple, but a group of disciples living and seeking Christ together constitutes the church.

Let’s be honest, the church is an easy target. There are plenty of hypocrisies and injustices that we could all point out in the church. The church is greedy. The church is fake. The church is too judgmental. Too political. And so on and so forth… The worst part? It’s true. At least, in a general, corporate sense, it’s true.

But there’s an important fact we must be aware of—we are the church. The church is made up of individual believers and each individual believer is part of the church. The individual believer does not have a choice in this matter. If he calls himself a disciple, he is part of the church and therefore contributes to the outcome of corporate body. All he can choose is how he participates in the church and what he contributes to the whole.

There is a principle at work here. The characteristics of a collective body will reflect the characteristics of its parts. The more of its parts share the same characteristic, the more that particular characteristic will be evident in the collective. Gold doesn’t have to be pure gold to be valuable. It just has to be mostly gold. Get rid of enough impurities and it will look and act like gold and sell for lots of money. Stand 1000 people in a field and have 900 of them wear red shirts. It doesn’t matter what the rest of them wear, as long as they’re scattered throughout the group, from a bird’s eye view what will you see?—RED.

Of course, the church is more than the sum of its parts, but none the less each of its parts contributes to the sum. The characteristics we see in the lives of individual believers, our lives, will inevitably be the characteristics we see in the church, only magnified!

Take for example how we spend our money. I’ve heard so many people criticize how the church spends so much on new buildings and stained glass and pianos and parking lots and gyms and coffee shops. I’ve heard how they should give all that money away, how we should be worshipping on bales of hay in a barn every Sunday. I’ve even said similar things myself. But as individuals do we spend our money any differently?

We, the same believers who attend these churches and who make these criticisms, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on new homes for our own comfort and pleasure. Plus, cars and computers and cell phones and vacations and more. Best case scenario, we give ten percent of our income so we can say we do our part. Yet, we are somehow surprised when the money we gave to a group of like-minded individuals goes toward building a luxurious new conference center that will remain empty six days out of the week.

Another example, what kind of people do we let into our church? It has been said that 11:00am on Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America. Shouldn’t churches be multi-cultural and multi-racial? Shouldn’t they bridge the gap between economic classes? We must examine our own lives. How many minorities, homosexuals, or homeless people have you had over to dinner this week? If the least of these are unwelcome at our home, they will be unwelcome at our church. If we unwilling to associate with them in our daily lives, Sunday morning will be no different. And if we are willing to associate with them on Sunday morning, but not otherwise, the situation is even worse because we are being hypocrites and are still part of the problem.

Furthermore, if the true worshippers will worship in truth and spirit, then we can’t expect the corporate body to truly worship on Sunday mornings if its members aren’t worshipping truly in their private lives. Can a fancy chapel, expensive sound system, and perfectly programmed service actually fabricate an atmosphere of “truth and spirit” in a congregation that spends 6 ½ days a week otherwise unengaged in worship? And if we aren’t studying the Word of God on our own, in our daily lives, how will we ever move from milk to meat as a congregation? A body cannot follow Christ unless its individual members are willing to follow. Moreover, the body can only move at the pace allowed by its members moving together.

Why is this principle important to note? “First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”It’s easy to blame the church because we lack a sense of shared responsibility. But who is this church that we’re accusing?

Unless you have some individual in mind that has personally wronged you, you are likely blaming the church as a whole, which is more of an idea really, an abstract entity, the ever ambiguous “they”. We may feel better about ourselves for pointing out injustices and aligning ourselves with the “right” side, but it comes with few actual results. There is no confrontation, no rebuking, no correction, and no restoration. Real change in the church must begin with real change in its members, and we have no right to criticize our brothers and sisters who share our church pew, if we have not first examined ourselves, because I tell you again WE are the church.

I find that there are three common reactions to the evident faults of the church. One, just give up and go with the flow. Two, rebel and leave the church all together. Three, do something about it. I encourage everyone to take the third response, but we must be careful to do it the right way. We must begin by examining ourselves and responding appropriately to the “planks” we find. Then, when have dealt with our personal issues, we can move on to restoring our brothers with gentleness and humility backed by a transformed life. Christ’s warning against judgment came with a purpose. We are to remove our own obstructions so that we can see clearly to remove those of our brothers.

Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Likewise, be the change you want to see in the church.