05/24/2026
When the Church Gathers…
Recently I sat with a young couple. One of them is clergy, called by God and trying to serve faithfully. The other is doing everything he can to support her and help carry the weight of ministry.
They were heartbroken by the behavior of a very small group of people. At one point they said, “The church isn’t supposed to be this way.”
And they were right.
But the Church has always been made up of people who are still being sanctified.
That is why the Church gathers.
We do not gather because we are perfect. We gather because we are not. We gather because we need grace—prevenient grace that awakens us, justifying grace that saves us, and sanctifying grace that makes us holy.
From the beginning, the Church gathered around the means of grace. Acts tells us the believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). They gathered to worship God, receive the Word, share the table, pray together, and learn how to live as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Worship reorders us. It reminds us that Christ is Lord, and we are not. Paul writes, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).
We also gather because holiness is not formed in isolation. John Wesley understood that the Christian life is deeply personal, but never private. We are saved by grace through faith, and then drawn into a community where grace continues its transforming work.
“This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3).
Sanctifying grace is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit making us more like Jesus. And one of the ways God sanctifies us is by bringing us together.
We learn together.
We grow together.
We stumble together.
We repent together.
We forgive together.
And by grace, we knock off one another’s rough edges.
It is easy to imagine we are patient until someone tests our patience. It is easy to believe we are forgiving until we are wounded. It is easy to claim we love the Church until the Church becomes difficult to love.
But this is often where sanctification happens—not in an idealized community, but in the real gathered Body of Christ, where imperfect people are being made holy together.
For shepherds, this is especially important to remember: sometimes the sheep bite.
That does not make the bite right. Unhealthy behavior should not be excused or ignored. Boundaries, accountability, repentance, and truth-telling matter deeply in the Church.
But every pastor learns that loving people is not theoretical. Shepherding means loving real sheep—with wounds, fears, histories, immaturity, grief, resistance, and sometimes teeth.
And learning to love them through it makes us more like Christ.
When I served as a children’s pastor, I learned that often the most ornery child in the room was the one who needed me the most. The child who interrupted, tested limits, or pushed every button was often the child most in need of patient love, steady presence, and faithful boundaries.
I have found the same thing to be true as a pastor.
Sometimes the most difficult person is carrying the deepest fear. Sometimes the loudest critic is desperate to be heard. Sometimes the person resisting change is grieving something they do not know how to name.
Again, this does not excuse harm. The fruit of the Spirit still matters. But pastors are called to see with the eyes of Christ.
Jesus saw the crowds and “had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). He saw them truthfully, and still He loved them deeply.
Hebrews reminds us not to neglect meeting together, but to encourage one another toward “love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24–25). Sometimes that encouragement is tender. Sometimes it is corrective. Always, it is meant to draw us nearer to Christ.
So yes, the young couple was right. The Church is not supposed to be this way.
But the answer is not to give up on the Church.
The answer is to let Christ make us holy.
Jesus did not give up on His Church. He gave Himself for her “in order to make her holy” (Ephesians 5:25–26).
So we gather.
We gather when the Church is beautiful, and when the Church is painful. We gather not because everyone in the room is already holy, but because God is making us holy.
We gather to worship the Triune God, receive grace, grow in sanctifying love, and be sent into the world as witnesses of Jesus Christ.
The Church is not always what she is supposed to be.
But by the grace of God, she can become more and more what Christ died to make her:
holy, loving, faithful, and full of His Spirit.
