My favorite verse in the Bible is Proverbs 12:1, “Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.”

When I was in my 20s, this became my life verse. I’ve found however, that I do not naturally love to be instructed or corrected. In fact, I rather find it uncomfortable and irritating. I constantly have to work on loving instruction. I guess what I’m saying is my natural tendency is to be stupid.

I really don’t want to be stupid. So I work very hard on remaining teachable, both through books and through relationships. I have mentors in my life who challenge me on what I do and how I do it. I also sign up for classes. I constantly challenge myself and my preferred way of doing something by hearing how someone else does it to see if I can improve. My assumption is most people live this way, at least most of the people I spend time with.

With that being said, I want to challenge us church people to examine what we do as the church.  I was reading 1 Corinthians the other day and came across a portion of scripture that I’ve read a thousand times but this time God revealed something new to me. 1 Corinthians 11:17, “But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.”  My reaction to this scripture is, “Ouch.”  Paul is writing this to the church in Corinth, not a group of “heathens” somewhere out there. Now, we like to assume that because we are doing something as a church it is covered by a “good intention clause” by God. But it’s not.

This is a hard pill for me to swallow. I’ve been a part of the church my whole life and I would hate the think I’ve been party to something in the church that Christ would look at and say, “Stop it, you’re doing more harm than good.”

I think it is important for the church to examine and take a look at what we are doing and ask the question: why am I doing this? Is this action doing more harm that good? Even if my intentions were good, is this helping? Am I promoting Christ and his grace or my ego?

Now let me tell you again, I do not enjoy this process. I would much rather choose to believe all decisions I make, as a person and as a pastor, are perfect and completely Godly. The problem is, they aren’t. Some of my decisions as a person, a pastor and a church member have been more about my ego than about furthering the body and the purposes of Christ.

1 Corinthian 11:28 says, “Let a person examine himself.” My hope is that as believers in Christ we would heed this instruction and examine our lives, our choices and how we do church. My prayer is that we would allow the Holy Spirit to convict us and then redeem us.