Our Defective Church

Readers of the Beaver County Times could not help but notice the headline in Tuesday’s paper screaming the news and, as they love to do, hoping to provoke some controversy and arouse some anger.  Here’s a slightly less hysterical version of the story: read all about it 

In fact, the re-release of this older Vatican document did spark controversy around the world.  Our Presbyterian Church (USA) has responded with a message of concern: read all about it

As you may know the Vatican paper restates the long-held Roman Catholic conviction that “the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them (non-Catholic churches) as instruments of salvation.”  But then it goes on to call non-Catholic churches in general and Protestant churches in particular “defective.” 

I agree with the Pope on both accounts.  I have seen the Spirit of Christ use non-Catholic churches as instruments of salvation.  I have seen the Spirit of Christ use Park Presbyterian Church in Beaver, PA, as an instrument of salvation.  Thanks be to God!  And, of course – absolutely, I agree that our church is a defective church.  How defective we are!

Among our defects: 

• We are sent into the world by Christ to be his loving witnesses in word and deed, but too often we prefer to sit at home and complain about the sad state of the world.
• We are commanded to love one another and by so doing let the world know that we belong not to ourselves but to our loving Savior.  We prefer church gossip and petty complaints about the things that bother us.  
• We are called into God’s presence with singing and told to make a joyful noise, but we gripe about styles of music and refuse to sing hymns if we don’t like hymns and praise choruses if we don’t like praise choruses.  
• We are given good news to share with our children “when we lie down and when we walk along the road,” but we make Sunday morning soccer practice or “one day to sleep in” higher priorities than keeping our baptismal vows.  
• We are told to be the “aroma of Christ” among those who are saved and those who are perishing, but too often we smell the stench of compromise and cowardice among those called to be our leaders.  

 The Pope got it exactly right.  Our gracious God still uses the church as his instrument of salvation.  And our church, even our Park Presbyterian Church, is defective in a thousand ways.  In fact, my only disagreement with the Pope is that he forgot to include his own church among the defective churches.  

Most of our defects are shared by our friends down the street at SS Peter and Paul.  And then we have our special Presbyterian defects and they have their particular Catholic defects (one of which is that they don’t know they’re defective!).  The good news is that God loves nothing more than using his defective churches as instruments of salvation.  By grace through faith we are saved! 

See you Sunday, and, by the way, defective folks are always welcome at our defective church!