churches are full of people

I've seen some discussion recently about emotional/spiritual abuse in churches. like this one from Jonathan Hollingsworth in Relevant Magazine, and this one by Thom Rainer on ChurchLeaders.com

Don't allow the edges to get blurred.  There is a clear separation between loving biblical discipline and  abusive bullying, and oversensitivity to well-intended criticism is a different issue altogether.

I was brought up around churches. I grew up understanding the wring of emotions a pastor goes through while preparing sermons, trying to guide his flock through their problems both from the pulpit on a Sunday, and individual counselling - and receiving sustained verbal abuse in return. I've seen several good people give up everything to go and serve on missions, only to return within months because of internal politics or a personality clash with leaders and other missionaries. 

 It's heart-wrenching. 

I've been in the middle, between pastors and irate parishoners who want the church to suspend basic biblical principles, and where selfish and power hungry elders and deacons conduct full-on, red-faced, finger-jabbing shouting matches because they aren't getting their own way.

I used to think churches were a unique case. "If you want to be offended" I'd say "you should join a church!" 

Now I've spent several years working with sports clubs and non-church charities, and I've realised that whenever certain people get a sniff of power in any setting they turn into monsters. I've worked with serial club-and-charity destroyers who move from one organisation to the next, dividing the members and destroying the club from the inside. I've seen groups with potential to thrive becoming utterly stagnant because one or two members have moved into positions of authority and imposed their self-serving agenda. And yes. I've seen full-on red-faced, finger-jabbing shouting matches at Annual General Meetings because some people didn't get their own way.

 So am I saying that churches and missions are just clubs or charities like any other?

Well, no.  I'm not. 

Churches are full of people.
People who come for the right reasons, the wrong reasons, and for no reason at all.
People who treat church like a club.  Their club.  Their own personal multi-faceted charitable club where they can meet with their friends, do their activities and separate themselves from 'the world' - which means anybody who doesn't come to 'Their church'.

Those of us who are believers shouldn't need reminding.  Church isn't about us.  Church is us.  We exist because, even though we're self-centred self-seeking sinners, Jesus sacrificed himself so that we can return to a proper relationship with our maker and his creation.

That makes the abuse all the more demoralising.  

Emotional and spiritual abuse within churches is a natural and predictable consequence of us twisting the church away from the Christ and turning it into our own introverted social club.  Instead of spreading the word about what he's done, we've built barricades, driven needy people away and begun the process of tearing ourselves apart.  It's wrong, unbiblical, self-defeating and will have eternal consequences.

We can never tear his Church apart, but then what we're presiding over is no longer a church.  It's our club.