I have more I want to say to you about maintaining unity in the church.  These thoughts are spurred on by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Life Together.”

It can be easy to become discouraged by the gap between the ideal in your mind on what church “should be” and the real.  You must love Christ’s Church in spite of its imperfections.  Longing for the ideal while criticizing the real is immaturity.  On the other hand, settling for the real without striving for the ideal is complacency.  Maturity is living with the tension.

Believers are going to disappoint & let you down, but that’s no reason to stop fellowshipping with them.  They’re family, even when they don’t act like it.  You don’t walk out on family.

People become disillusioned with the church for many reasons:  conflict, hurt, hypocrisy, neglect, pettiness, gossip, legalism and more.  Rather than being shocked & surprised, remember the church is made up of real sinners, including ourselves.  Because we’re sinners, we hurt each other, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally.  But instead of leaving the church, we stay and work it out if at all possible.  Reconciliation, not running away, builds strong character & deepens fellowship.

Divorcing the church at the first signs of disappointment is a mark of immaturity.  God has things He wants to teach you & others.  Besides, there is no “perfect” church to go to.  Every church has weaknesses and problems.  You’ll soon be disappointed again.

Groucho Marx was famous for saying he wouldn’t belong to a church that would let him join!  If a church must be perfect to satisfy you, that church’s perfection would exclude you because you’re not perfect either!

Every church could put out a sign saying “No perfect people need apply.”  The Church is only for those who admit they are sinners, need grace, and want to grow.

To quote Bonhoeffer:  “He who loves his dream of community more than the community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter…  If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even when there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness in faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we keep complaining that everything is paltry and petty, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow.”