The bad churches that we love to love

As my sweet little church joins me in a Lenten journey through the history, meaning, and purpose of evangelism, I found myself with a peculiar thought in my head.

Being a part of a church is a relationship, much like the kind of relationship you have with another soul. A community has a strange sort of spirit to it, one that's not quite as clear and distinct as the personalities of the human beings that comprise it, but a spirit nonetheless.

The goal, for any community of the Way, is for that spirit to be fundamentally healthy. That doesn't mean "big" and it doesn't mean "rich," any more than the message of our Teacher is about bigness or richness. It means manifesting grace, service, mercy, and kindness. It's not measured by organizational metrics and institutional measures and leadership dashboards. It's qualitative, like a poem or a story or a song. Like the Good itself, spiritual health is a quality, not a quantity.