Have you ever belonged to, or even visited, a perfect church? Probably not. Churches are made up of people, and if people are not perfect, it's a safe bet the churches to which they belong are not perfect either.
Imperfect churches are not new to Christianity. Even in the early days of the new religion, churches routinely struggled with internal problems. Some were cold and formal (Ephesus, Sardis). Others were plagued with bickering and infighting (Corinth, Galatia). There were freeloading deadbeats (Thessalonica), holier-than-thou elitists (Antioch of Syria), and personality conflicts (Philippi). Virtually all of them had to deal with doctrinal squabbles of one kind or another. Even the original "mother church" of Jerusalem, under the direct guidance of the apostles themselves, had its share of hypocrites and problems. The one church we know of that thought it was in pretty good shape (Laodicea) was actually confusing perfection with stagnation.
Cultural differences aside, a modern Christian thrown into the brotherhood of first-century churches would probably feel exactly the same frustration that so many of us feet today—"Can't anybody get this right?" Yet for all their problems, somewhere in the mix of those early churches were a lot of good people who comprised "the Lord's church”. The fact there were tares mixed in among the wheat does not cause us to reject the idea all of them were striving for. Whatever their imperfections, we still look to them as the model. Some of those churches undoubted eventually lost all semblance of trying to obey God and became apostate bodies. But God did not slap that label on them the first moment they made a mistake. He was longsuffering with them, willing to bear their weaknesses if He saw a willingness to learn and improve.
So how does a Christian, striving to do the right thing, deal with an imperfect church? Does he just shrug his shoulders and pretend everything is cool? No! The early churches were rebuked and prodded into doing better. We cannot settle for complacency. Does he mount a crusade to stamp out all the '"error," however small, until the group achieves his image of what a church ought to be? That kind of self-righteous excess usually creates more problems than it solves.
The best any of us can do in an imperfect church is to live our own lives as close to the image of Jesus as we can, and teach others to do the same. As long as we share a fundamental respect for the Lord's word as our guide in that endeavor, and are willing to change, our imperfections are a demonstration of God's grace in an imperfect world.
--- David King