The sanitized church

A recent slashdot article leads with the CBC story that an overly sanitized environment may lead to poor health. This has always been one of those gut-feeling truths that we all embrace despite no affirmative proof to validate it…….until now.

I wonder whether in the church we strive to create overly spiritually sanitized environments to our own detriment. Are pastors so zealous in creating environments within their organizations that effectively weed-out all negative influences on the flock that they are short-circuiting the body’s spiritual immune system? Jesus did not model this behaviour pattern as he walked out his good-shepherd ministry here on earth. The environment that he created and allowed his new disciples to grow up in was filled with low-lifes, misfits and bottom-feeders. Surely this was a "church" I would not have allowed my son to attend! Prostitutes? Publicans and sinners? I would not have wanted these people within five blocks of my family. Man, my religious fibres are twitching like crazy!!! The disciples walked with Jesus in such an environment, and they learned and grew up by jumping in the deep end of the ministry stuff of seeing God’s Kingdom manifested with power - untrained, immature and unprepared as they were - they jumped off the cliff and built their wings on the way down!

Tags: church, evangelism