What Should the Church Look Like?

There are so many denominations that outsiders may struggle to tell which churches are actually Christian, which ones are teaching the Bible or even what Christians believe. We have Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Catholics, Pentecostals, Mennonites, Amish and many others. Then there are groups such as Mormons and Universalists whose beliefs differ significantly from historic Christian doctrine.

Disagreements aren't inherently wrong. Christians disagree about everything from whether spiritual gifts such as tongues are still for today to whether drums belong in church. We debate tattoos, cohabitation, women in ministry, politics and how churches should respond to the LGBTQ community.

But there are also much bigger questions: Who is Jesus? What is God like? Is there a heaven and hell? What is the gospel?

For me, worship should center around God and give Him glory. I don't particularly care what style of worship a church uses. Do we have different preferences about the music we listen to? Of course.

Every church, however, is filled with human beings with different gifts, talents, personalities and backgrounds. Someone who grew up singing hymns may naturally prefer hymns. Someone else may feel more comfortable with contemporary worship music. Some worship teams may not even be familiar with hymns.

Those differences are often more cultural or preferential than theological.

That doesn't mean every denomination or church is the same. Some churches are loud. Some regularly preach about the rapture. Some strongly embrace the gifts of the Holy Spirit, with people singing and dancing during worship, while others stand quietly. Some attend Mass. Some believe women can be pastors while others don't. Some churches are heavily involved in politics while others deliberately stay away from it.

Yet across denominations such as Pentecostal, Methodist and Baptist churches, Christians can still share foundational beliefs: there is one God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead on the third day; and through Christ we can be reconciled to God.

But many people outside the church seem to encounter Christianity primarily through its divisions: Protestant versus Catholic, conservative versus progressive, traditional versus contemporary.

Maybe we need to go further back.

What Did the Early Church Look Like?

Before denominations, worship styles, church buildings and debates about what a Sunday morning service should look like, there was the early church.

Acts 2:42–47 gives us one of the clearest pictures of that community. The believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking bread and prayer. They gathered together, ate in one another's homes, worshiped God and shared what they had with people in need.

Church wasn't simply somewhere they went once a week.

It was a community they belonged to.

Throughout Acts, we see Christians praying together, caring for people in need, sharing the gospel and depending upon the Holy Spirit.

But we shouldn't romanticize the early church either.

It wasn't perfect.

Acts 6 describes a dispute because Greek-speaking Jewish widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. Paul's letters address division among Christians, sexual immorality, lawsuits, arguments over spiritual gifts and the mistreatment of poorer believers.

Problems within the church aren't something Christianity suddenly developed in the 21st century.

The question is what Christians do when those problems are exposed.

When the Church Hurts

We can't have an honest conversation about what the church should look like without talking about church hurt.

So many people are desperately trying to tell their stories and simply want to be heard. Yet sometimes the Christian response sounds something like this:

"You need to pray more."

"You need Jesus."

"If you got hurt by the church, you put your trust in people instead of God."

Or even, "Mcdonald's makes 200 mistakes, but you still go back."

These phrases may sometimes be spoken with good intentions, but they can be extremely detrimental to someone's healing process.

You cannot compare someone's experience at McDonald's to someone's experience within a church. They aren't equivalent.

People don't walk into McDonald's expecting spiritual leadership, pastoral care, biblical teaching and a community that represents Jesus Christ. There is a different level of vulnerability and trust involved when someone allows pastors, leaders and fellow believers into deeply personal parts of their life.

When someone finally has the courage to say, "The church hurt me," perhaps our first response shouldn't be to explain why they shouldn't feel hurt.

Maybe sometimes we simply need to listen.

At the same time, I have another concern when we talk about church hurt.

I don't want people's experiences with Christians to leave them believing that the church itself is evil.

Scripture describes the church as the bride of Christ. Christ loves His church even when the human beings within it fail terribly.

And that's what bothers me so much.

When people outside Christianity hear the word church, what comes to mind?

Is it Jesus? Love? Community? Generosity? Hope?

Or have we become better known for division, political arguments, hypocrisy and stories of abuse?

We shouldn't hide those failures to protect the church's reputation. If something harmful happened, it needs to be acknowledged. Accountability matters. Repentance matters. Listening matters.

But neither should those failures become the entirety of what we believe the church is.

Perhaps the answer to church hurt isn't pretending the hurt never happened. And perhaps it isn't abandoning Christ's vision for His church either.

Maybe it's calling the church back to what it was always supposed to be.

A people devoted to truth.

A people who pray together.

A people who eat together.

A people who care for those in need.

A people who make room for different gifts and backgrounds.

A people willing to confront sin within their own community.

A people who listen when someone is hurting.

A people whose disagreements don't become more important than the One who brought them together.

We may never agree on every worship song, every instrument, every spiritual gift or every secondary theological issue.

The early church didn't live without conflict either.

Maybe the better question isn't whether we can create a church where everyone agrees.

Maybe the question is whether people can still recognize Jesus when they encounter His church.

References

The early believers devoted themselves to teaching, fellowship, breaking bread and prayer, while also sharing their possessions with those in need (New International Version [NIV], 1978/2011, Acts 2:42–47).

(NIV, Acts 6:1–7)

(NIV, 1 Corinthians 1:10–13)

(NIV, 1 Corinthians 6:1–8)

(NIV, 1 Corinthians 11:17–34)

(NIV, 1 Corinthians 12:1–31)

(NIV, Ephesians 5:25–32)

(NIV, Galatians 6:2)