Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

-Ephesians 5:25

The Church – the people of God – is Christ’s beloved. He sacrificed His entire life that she might have abundant life. He didn’t do this because she was beautiful, lovely, or worthy. Instead, He died for her because He abounds in outrageous grace and love, and He continues to love her despite all her blemishes, no matter how big or glaring they are.

Every individual local church-even with all her failures-is a specific manifestation of the bride of Christ, and He loves and died for each of them.

It’s easy to hate on churches. Unfortunately, unfaithfulness often abounds, and they practically paint big red targets on their backs just asking to be criticized and tossed to the side. But if Jesus loved his people before they ever looked anything like Him, how much more should we as fallen, broken individuals continue to love His bride and fight for her good.

Thousands of churches throughout North America are sick and dying, and we could easily run away hoping to avoid getting caught in the wake. But instead, let us love the Church and the local church with the same grace, mercy and patience as Christ has. Let us be willing to lay down our lives that our churches might thrive again.

This blog, in addition to being a place to encourage and strengthen my own church, serves as a resource for this very task: church revitalization. My prayer is that through the posts and discussions on this blog, pastors and church members would be emboldened to sacrificially pursue renewal and health in their churches with the same passion as our Savior.