Church is ruined...

Yesterday I was sitting in my Systematic Theology class. My professor (who is brilliant) made a comment that really caught my attention. He said, "you know, the more you study theology, the more church is ruined for you. You start nit-picking it apart."

What a profound statement!

And you know what? It's completely true. Since I started studying here, I've found myself finding flaws with pretty much every church I go to. I will pick apart all the small details of its worship service. I find myself imagining how I could make a church so much better because I'd get all those little details of theology right that people forget. I even wrote down some of my ideas.

Now, there is some good to that -- having good ideas for a church.

But seriously, how insanely arrogant of me!

I thought I could do better than all these adults who are smarter and have had more experience than me. Maybe they're even doing certain things for very good reasons and I just am not aware of it.

Getting back to finding myself picking apart every church I go to...

I thought something was wrong. Wrong with me. Wrong with the church. Wrong with The Church. Just something was wrong.

Then my professor said that...and boy was that a relief! It's not that something is wrong with me or the church. It's just I'm studying theology and am suddenly more aware of certain doctrines and so forth that I never knew about before.

But, finding these things wrong with the church, what do I do with that? Is the church completely messed up and going down the tubes?

No.

The church, while being inspired by the Holy Spirit and following God through his son, Christ Jesus, is, indeed, a human-run institution. Being such, it is flawed -- because humanity is flawed. Hence why we need a savior and redeemer. We can't do this on our own. Anything wrong with the church is just another testament to the fact that we need the salvific work of Christ Jesus on the cross and in the empty tomb more than anything.

I think that's a much better perspective on the flaws of the church.