No Perfect People Allowed

Church by the Glades is doing a series called, No Perfect People Allowed. Pastor Dave uses a phrase that describes the makeup of the church as people who were and are "messed up, shacked up, and jacked up."

Too often, people outside of the church see it being made up of a bunch of moral police, pharisees if you will, who are proudly addicted to their own morality and their attempts to look like good people. And too often, they are exactly right. There are too many of those people inside the church. If you are lucky, you can find a church that is full of people who are continually confessing their addiction to morality and the appearances of godliness, instead looking to transform their hearts and lives from the inside out.

Either out of sheer laziness or just plain flippancy, I find myself being drawn toward the light of transparent authenticity. Translation: I like to just be myself. I also find that this comes quite naturally. But I think that this transparent authenticity is a struggle for many who are trying to follow Jesus. Inevitably, the church breeds those who would strive for the appearance of perfection. And it also breeds conformity, and not the good kind.

There are certain issues that I like to hear preachers address and this would be one of them. Often, people love Jesus and they mean well, but they just don't see their own addiction to the appearances of morality. They like to quote the Bible verses that best serve their purposes and then proceed to chuck those verses at everyone else. Rather than a topic for a four-week series, I'd love to walk into a church where these words hung permanently above the entrance, No Perfect People Allowed.