A story I often tell when I'm speaking at a pastor's gathering concerns a time when I was a deacon in a church I attended. A little girl made a profession of faith at our VBS one year, and before the pastor would agree to baptize her he wanted to speak to her mother. He asked if I would go with him which I agreed to do so. The mother and her daughter lived in a government-assisted apartment complex near our church. When the pastor explained the reason for our visit, the mother was pleased that her daughter had accepted Christ and wanted to be baptized, but she had one question. "Will she become a member of your church?" The pastor said not necessarily but asked why she had that question.
The mother explained she had been an active member of a church in our county when her husband filed for divorce. The next Sunday she felt she had walked into a freezer. No one spoke to her, and during the following weeks she realized they really didn't want her there. She commented she felt like she had a large, bright red D stamped on her forehead. She had been deeply hurt by her church, and she did not want her daughter to experience that same pain.
Jumping several years later, for my doctoral project I coached a number of bivocational ministers and wrote about the experience for my dissertation. One of the persons I selected to coach was a female pastor of a very small church out west. In one of our sessions I asked her what would she most like to do in ministry. She responded that she would like to pastor a church that would reach out to persons who had been hurt by the church. I laughed when she said that and explained that if she ever did that her church wouldn't be small for long because there are many in every community who have been hurt by the church.
Unfortunately, many in the church have forgotten that each of us are the recipients of God's grace. Because we forget that we often fail to extend that same grace to others when they experience a failure in their lives. One of the most important things a church can do is to offer someone a safe place to fail.
Jesus said He did not come for the healthy but for the sick and those broken by life. We find His kindest words to those who were caught up in sin and who had failed in life. His harshest words were to those who thought they had no sin, no failure in their lives. This is an example the church needs to follow.
I remember a Christmas special that ran on TV for years. I hope it still does. In the special there was a place known as "The Isle of Misfit Toys." It was a place where toys that weren't perfect went because no one wanted them. Of course, by the end of the special these toys found a home.
The church should be a place of misfit people. People who haven't got it all together. People who struggle with life. People who are broken and need healing. People who have failed and need to be loved. These are the people for whom Jesus Christ gave His life that they might find healing, hope, forgiveness and salvation.
I hope your church is such a place.