(Note: what follows are essentially working notes of a work in progress. I've numbered this article as there should be hopefully more to follow).

Something is drastically wrong with the church today.

As attendance drops to a historic (for our nation) low, as pastors and church leaders are caught up in scandal after scandal, and as leaders pursue a secular agenda, it is important for us as Christians to ask WHAT precisely is the matter.

I believe the answer is quite simple. Something is wrong with the church today because we have lost our way. We have become too complacent, too content, and have lost our sense of purpose. We preach that we should "go and make disciples", using Matthew 28:19 as our guide, but while we are going, we are making disciples. The reasons we are not doing this are many, but they are merely excuses we make to avoid doing what we have been commanded to do.

I've seen the casualties of our failure everywhere I look. People who've been cast aside, thrown by the wayside when they once filled the church pews every Sunday. I've heard pastors dismiss them as "church hoppers" and dismiss them as incidental to their members, when too many of those pastors have never bothered to ask themselves WHY someone who was once so faithful, so fervent, so active in their faith would abandon it so readily. Was their faith truly that shallow, or were there certain needs in their life that went unmet, needs that could have and should have been met by the congregation had they been in tune with the will of God?

Yes, something is drastically wrong with this church, and it's a something that can only be fixed if we are willing to ask ourselves some rather hard questions and humbly accept the answers we are provided even if they indict some of our very core beliefs.

In the following pages, I submit my beliefs regarding the problems that face the church today. It is my opinion and mine alone, and although others might share it, I take full ownership of these beliefs. In writing this, I am acknowledging my humanness, and my potential for error, and the very possibility I might be quite definitely, quite decidedly, wrong. But I leave these answers for you, the reader to decide.

It Starts at the Top

If I were to say where we need to begin in fixing the problems with the church today, I would have to demand that it starts at the top. It's not that all of the church's leaders are bad, just that they are human and as prone to error as you and I are. And they've become so accustomed to doing things a certain way that they have a hard time accepting that anything could be any different.

As a Christian, I've found myself a bit of a spiritual nomad. While I consider myself a fundamentalist in that I hold to the inerrancy of Scripture and believe dogmatically in the deity of Christ, I have examined the teachings and practices of many different Christian faiths. In each church, I've found something lacking; the churches we like to label "liberal" are often full of social gospel theorists and liberation theologians, and short on the teachings of sin and righteousness that so predominated the theme of many of Christ's recorded teachings. Yet the churches we like to label "conservative" teach the teachings often missed in the "liberal" churches, yet, despite their insistence on the inerrancy of scripture they will leave out key verses that support a Christian's commandment to care for the poor and needy. In one instance, I actually had a Bible study teacher state that he thought James 1:27 and the first part of James 2 were added later by scribes bacause, in his opinion, they didn't fit in context. Using this rationale, he felt justified in dismissing the passage entirely. And this was in a VERY conservative, fundamentalist church.

Much of our problem, I believe, lies in the emphasis we put in degrees, in pieces of paper that state someone's worthiness to hold a degree. The flaw in this logic is so obvious as to make me wonder what it is that makes people continue to place such emphasis on these degrees. Someone's degree does not necessarily indicate their faith, and someone can be quite active in their faith and understanding of God's Word without holding a single degree. We anoint people to the pulpit based on earthly credentials, and we dismiss them on the lack of these credentials.

But our leaders were meant to be servants, not masters. Somewhere in the mix, the heirarchy got all wrong and our leaders began to see themselves as spiritual overlords rather than as servants of God simply doing his will. While there's a temptation here to assume I'm talking about the Catholic church, don't. I've seen many Catholic priests who are excellent servants, and I have seen many protestant ministers who are spiritual overlords. The problem is not universal in the Catholic church, by any means, nor is it exclusive to the Catholic church. The Catholic church simply spells out its heirarchy more officially than do most churches.

We follow a savious, though, who did not pen a single book under His own name, though He was certainly capable of such. He did not personally found a single seminary, though He certainly had followers who would have sacrificed their personal wealth to build the same. And He did not command his followers to build seminaries, but rather, to "make disciples". He was, in fact, asking them to do with others precisely what He was doing with them for three years. And He is asking us to do the same.

A long time ago, I labelled myself a "misfit Christian". It's a label I embrace and it's a label that I wear as a badge of honor, not of shame. I call myself such because I have found myself not entirely fitting in with any congregation I have ever visited (although, I've certainly not been outcast by most of them). I am at home in churches of many denominations, yet I don't usually feel compelled to stay. In a society where ownership is judged to be so important, that has posed a problem for a few of those congregations, because I haven't "committed" in a way they have felt meaningful.

But it has allowed me to see the good and bad of many different theological perspectives. And while I have found no "perfect" church, I have found very few that were utterly hopeless. They are what they are; they're made of people, they're led by people, and people are imperfect in so many ways.

In my wanderings, I've found not a few fellow "misfits", and I have to wonder, are these some of the "church hoppers" of lore? While I've certainly found a share of church hoppers (those can usually be distinguished as the ones that want something from the church, and, once they get it or they are denied, they move on), I've found several there with the same hunger, the same thirst as mine. Enough, at least, to make me question whether I am entirely wrong in my philosophy.

We have a label for such folks. We call them "square pegs in round holes". But while we use that term, we don't examine its origin. I found its origin quite accidentally, and, knowing it, am quite proud to proclaim myself a square peg in a round hole. In fact, it's such a wonderful spiritual illustration that I'm surprised that more pastors haven't picked up on it.

You see, the term originates from nailless construction. When you fasten two beams together in nailless construction, you drill the hole round and cut the peg square. A round peg will slip out; a square peg will not. Thus, a square peg in a round hole is a piece that holds the structure together. Which is why it has become a badge of honor for me.

I think the first step to repairing what is wrong with the church lies in listening to the misfits, the square pegs in round holes. They just might have some information that can make a lasting difference.