Fixing Brokenness

Fixing Brokenness

Henry Ford is apocryphally accorded some credit for the expression – “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I wonder how much brokenness is accounted for by ‘fixes’ that were un-necessary? It has been truthfully accredited to the church that Christianity doesn’t pick up nor help its own wounded. They simply leave them to die or otherwise sort themselves out. This may be true because there is no means anywhere in church structure for recording wounds. Christians seem to either not care or they ‘don’t want to know or get involved’.

So sad isn’t it?

Our whole ministry is round about the area of fixing broken things – people in particular. To the church’s everlasting shame, their record of hurting, wounding, and then discarding people is well known. Whether it is legalism, jealousy, or downright ornery-ness, the church has it taped. If it was an Olympic event, the church would have multiple gold medals. It seems folk in the church can be very little different from those outside her boundaries in wanting to see people fall.

A person gets appointed to do a job and someone, somewhere, for whatever reason, starts to try to undermine them. Calls to the pastor complaining. Claims of unbiblicality. Complaining, murmuring, and muttered dissent are all part of Satan’s armoury for pulling that appointee down. And when it happens, oh my, how “shocked and disappointed” everyone claims to be. The poor appointee is left hurt and wounded, often with no explanation at all.

We see good folk shunned and terribly hurt by church legalism. “You used to drink?” or “You were divorced?” are two very common ‘crimes’. That these things happened before salvation don’t seem to matter – the person is shunned and even put out of fellowship by weak-minded and stupid leaders and pastors. That Christ died for sinners seems to go over the dissenters heads. There is no forgiveness, no understanding – only wounding and hurting to the point of destruction.

The church has so much for which it must one day answer.

We minister to such as these. Hurt and wounded soldiers of Christ need TLC too – Christ’s TLC. If we can rescue just one soul and restore them to faith, then our ministry will be worthwhile. I just wish more would recognise the damage the church and church people have done to His Kingdom and help restore many of the ‘fallen heroes’. I am not talking about those who have fallen because of their own actions, but of those whom the spiteful and legalistic have damaged and discarded – often, sadly, beyond repair.

Please don’t get me wrong. We are just a very small ministry among many others much bigger and better than us who make themselves available to the hurt and wounded. This is one problem that is truly iceberg-like. Ninety percent is never acknowledged or seen or talked about.

What a disgrace we sometimes are to our Lord and Saviour.