What About You?

I started reading the introduction to What Is A Healthy Church Member? and was stopped in my tracks by a brief statement:

The health of the local church depends on the willingness of its members to inspect their hearts, correct their thinking, and apply their hands to the work of the ministry.

How many of us have this attitude in the local body of Christ we belong to? It is far easier to identify what's wrong, what we don't like, what we would prefer to see happening in our churches. But how many of us have the attitude of ownership that this statement conveys? Of course, if there are un-Biblical things going on we are commanded to raise these issues and correct them. And if there are issues with the adequacy of leadership in our churches, we do no favors to anyone to not deal with those issues truthfully, lovingly and graciously. But so much of what so many of us postmodern Christians fuss about in the church are really our preferences. And this statement from Thabiti Anyabwile cuts to the heart of that tendency.

More to come as I begin to unpack this book and shape a Sunday School class around it.