"I saw behind the curtain at church and it's all politics, gossip, and power plays."
How it sounds in your head: I volunteered on the leadership team and heard how they talked about people. I saw the board meetings turn into power struggles. The worship leader and youth pastor hate each other but smile on stage. It's all politics.
"For you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?"
-- 1 Corinthians 3:3Source: trauma from witnessing religious power structures operating in flesh instead of Spirit, weaponized by enemy to kill your hope in the Bride.
You literally sat in meetings where 'mature believers' gossiped about struggling members. You watched elders jockey for control. You saw decisions made from ego, not prayer. The inner circle was nothing like the public image.
The Corinthian church had divisions, quarrels, a man sleeping with his stepmother, believers suing each other in pagan courts, getting drunk at communion—yet Paul still called them 'the church of God, sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.' Their mess didn't disqualify them; Christ's blood qualified them.
I REFUSE the lie that church politics invalidate the Bride of Christ. IT IS WRITTEN that where there is strife and division, people are carnal—but that doesn't mean the CHURCH is canceled; it means those people need more JESUS. I will not let immature believers steal my vision of what God is BUILDING. IT IS WRITTEN that He will present the church glorious, without spot or wrinkle—I'm watching the renovation, not the unveiling. The BARAK blessing covered a family of liars, deceivers, and murderers, yet God still called them His people. I am part of the Bride being washed, the Body being built, the temple being raised. I am the righteousness of God in Christ, and I carry the DNA of heaven into broken systems until they look like HOME.
The Father isn't waiting for the church to clean up before He moves—He's moving NOW through cracked pots because that's how His power is perfected in weakness. He ran to you when you were a mess, and He's running to them too, and He's gathering a family of mess-survivors to show the world what GRACE looks like.