Six years ago I began working at our local church.  There wasn’t anything conventional about how I got there.  However, before I decided to take the job,  I went through this process of  counting the costs of working at a church.  One thought that went through my mind was what I would find on the other side of “the curtain” as I started my employment at a place I had a lot of respect for. Would I be greatly disappointed once I saw what was really going on inside?

In the movie, The Wizard of OZ, Dorothy and her three friends are on a journey in search of the wizard of OZ, who they were told would hold the key to how Dorothy could return to her home in Kansas.

While they were speaking to him, Toto, Dorothy’s dog ran off to pull back a curtain. To their surprise, there was a little man maneuvering controls that were creating the majestic voice and image on the screen they were looking at. Dorothy walked over to the man who identified himself as the wizard of OZ, and told him that he was a “very bad man!” He responded with, “no, I am just a very bad wizard”.

This would sum up the disillusion that most people have when they are looking for the local church or its leaders to have all the answers to their life’s problems. We visit a church because someone told us that it’s an amazing church or they have an amazing pastor and we go seeking to find everything we have been missing.  Unfortunately to our dismay, we only find that the local church is run by people like you and I and every church has its problems or has something that it’s missing. The leaders are not superheroes.  They are not perfect and they would be the first to tell you this.  They are usually great people, but they make really bad “gods”.

The bible says that we are to “not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Heb 10:25  Church is not supposed to replace God, but to create an environment of encouragement.

Hopefully, you have found a local bible reading church, not to complete you, but to continue your journey with other like-minded people, that can help you to grow and find the encouragement you received over the weekend.

By Jen Morgan