06/08/2026
The Perfect Church
There is an old joke about the perfect church. We talked just a little about the perfect pastor, but turnabout is fair play. It goes like this:
Every Christian imagines there must be a perfect church somewhere.
A church where nobody argues.
Nobody complains.
Nobody gossips.
Nobody gets their feelings hurt.
Everybody volunteers.
Everybody gives generously.
Everybody agrees with the pastor or disagrees with her while defending her authority to speak the truth as she knows it.
Everybody loves the music.
Everybody shows up on time.
But if you ever find that church, don't join it. You'll ruin it. Perfect churches can only be perfect if it only accepts perfect people.
We talked about sanctifying grace—the movement of the Spirit in our lives that shapes and molds us into the image of Jesus—once we have invited Jesus to come and take up residence in our lives. Even then, it’s a work in progress. I love the inscription on the tombstone of Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham. It says: “End of Construction. Thank you for your patience.” In other words, as I go to be with God I will finally be everything I was intending to be. I’m sorry for having been ‘under construction’ for so long.
That’s a wonderful summary of our pilgrim journey to the Kingdom.
Archived Posts
The Perfect Church
There is an old joke about the perfect church. We talked just a little about the perfect pastor, but turnabout is fair play. It goes like this:
The Clothes You Wear
Sunday I talked about Joshua the High Priest having his filthy clothing replaced by a cleaned and beautiful garments. I also used the illustration of a boy becomes a dragon—who ‘wears’ dragon scales—and is stripped of those scales in order to be restored to a boy. In fact, I could have done the whole sermon around all the clothing imagery in scripture.
What just missed the cut for Sunday’s Sermon
Naaman’s servants may actually become one of the hidden gems of the sermon. They say, essentially: “If the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it.”
One of the Longest Benedictions I Ran Out of Time to Share
Maybe you know the story of how Joseph and Mary accidentally left Jesus at the gas station on their way home from Jerusalem. Well, not the gas station bathroom in Jesus’ case. Joe and Mary are far down the road before they realize Jesus isn’t with them...
So many quips and quotes...
So little time to preach
I wonder what Mary and Martha’s phones might look like:
* Martha = the open browser with 27 tabs
* Mary = the single window that matters
* Psalm 46 = God saying, “Close the tabs.”
Quotable Outtakes That Didn’t Make the Sermon This Week
“When you try to control everything, you don’t just exhaust yourself—you quietly replace trust in God with trust in you.” & more
There is a challenge when it comes to preaching the Word of God.
Preachers are called to open up and interpret the word—inspired and written down thousands of years ago—and make it relevant to a very different world. On top of that there’s a degree of persuasion that goes along with the process.