An article explores why the church is losing to LOST. It was an interesting post but not having seen the show I wasn’t all that inclined to post anything on it. The reason we appear to be losing, according to the article, is we don’t tell the story very well. You won’t find me disagreeing with that assessment.
Now, I don’t want to digress any further down the road of the critic, I just want to bring up a simple question—why can’t we tell the story of the gospel like J.J. Abrams does with LOST?
via Why the Church is Losing to LOST | Church Marketing Sucks.
So now why am I posting on it? Well it was these two articles that I came across within moments of each other that brought the above article to mind. Let me give you two clips and I will follow with brief comments.
MATT SEDENSKY (AP) – Associated Press Writer The future Pope Benedict XVI refused to defrock an American priest who confessed to molesting numerous children and even served prison time for it, simply because the cleric wouldn't agree to the discipline. The case provides the latest evidence of how changes in church law under Pope John Paul II frustrated and hamstrung U.S. bishops struggling with an abuse crisis that would eventually explode.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press from court filings in the case of the late Rev. Alvin Campbell of Illinois show Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, following church law at the time, turned down a bishop’s plea to remove the priest for no other reason than the abuser's refusal to go along with it.
Second one from a different church.
After being raped and impregnated by a fellow churchgoer more than twice her age, a 15-year-old Concord girl was forced by Trinity Baptist Church leaders to stand before the congregation to apologize before they helped whisk her out of state, according to the police.
While her pastor, Chuck Phelps, reported the alleged rape in 1997 to state youth officials, Concord police detectives were never able to find the victim. The victim said she was sent to another church member's home in Colorado, where she was home-schooled and not allowed to have contact with others her age. It wasn't until this past February that the victim, who is now 28, decided to come forward after reading about other similar cases, realizing for the first time it wasn't her fault that she had been raped, she told the police.
Where is the genuine love except in words. The leadership of the churches are seen as protecting the victimizers while continuing making victims of the ones they were meant to protect. Why do they do that? Jesus once said in John that the darkness doesn’t come into the light because they feared being exposed and that they also love the darkness. Why do they love the darkness? Because their own deeds are evil. Until genuine love is demonstrated by protecting the victims within their own they have gained no credibility. You say that all churches are not like that? Then ask, when people treat other’s in the church poorly what is done to protect the victims besides telling the victims that they need to forgive and suck it up?
Food for thought. Take time to ask if it isn’t the message and the presentation but the substance of what the rest see within the organized church.