[Brookhaven]

I like it.

The best analogy for a church (imho) is a hospital; not a hospital for the body, but a hospital for the spirit.

If church members would view themselves as patients in a hospital for the spirt, a lot of problems with the church would disappear.

if you’re in the hospital with a broken leg, do you look down on the person being treated for lukemia? No, if anything you count yourself lucky, and your heart goes out to the person with lukemia.

Yet how often do we see people in the church looking down and condeming others. When what we should be doing is looking on them as though they were spiritually sick and in need of compassion and help.

[rogue yam]

Mark 2:13-17 (New International Version)

Jesus Calls Levi and Eats With Sinners

13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

[rogue yam]

Yet how often do we see people in the church looking down and condemning others. When what we should be doing is looking on them as though they were spiritually sick and in need of compassion and help.

I consider that step two.

Step one is looking at ourselves and seeing that we are spiritually sick and in need of compassion and help and asking God for that help.