I recently heard the following quotes. The first person said, “I live around the corner from a Kroger but I rarely ever go in there.” The second replied, “Almost none of the Kroger brands are worth buying.”

Was I listening to disgruntled shoppers or a competitor of Kroger? No. I was listening to two Kroger employees criticizing their company to a customer in the middle of a busy store.

What were they telling the people who were hearing them? They should be shopping elsewhere. If we enter a restaurant and an employee meets us at the door and says, “You shouldn’t eat here. The food is lousy.” What would we do? Most likely, we would leave.

If it were our names on the sign and these were our employees, how we would feel? We were likely spending a lot of money on advertising that we could hardly afford and they were chasing hard-earned customers away.

A negative public perception of a business can destroy it very quickly. People usually have options of where they can shop, so we must be careful not to alienate them.

If this were true in terms of business, why would it not also be true of the Lord’s church?

If we are criticizing the Lord’s church in front of other people, why would those who hear us, ever want to attend the Church?

If retail stores do not get enough business, they may close and people will lose their jobs and all that that entails. Yet, if the same thing happens to the Church, souls are lost!

Almost all of us have been guilty of criticizing the church in front of non-Christians. We need to repent and never do so again.

God has ways of dealing with problems between Christians (Matthew 18:15-17; 1 Corinthians 6:1-11). We must remember that and stop dragging these problems into the streets. A discussion of doctrine is another matter but we must keep it on the doctrine rather than on person. We must be careful not to be bring shame on the Lord and his church in our diatribe.

Maybe we need to renew our understanding of what the Church is and to whom it belongs. The Church is Christ’s body, purchased with his blood (Ephesians 1:22-23; Acts 20:28). It bears his name and must be delivered in its purity back to God in the end (1 Corinthians 15:24). The Church is the “bride of Christ” (Revelation 21:2,9).

A man who was insulting the local congregation would likely be ready to fight if someone insulted their wife. Yet, they see no problem insulting the Bride of Christ in front of Jesus?

We need to remember that we are all ambassadors for Christ (Matthew 5:14; Ephesians 4:1). God depends on us to take the gospel to the world (Matthew 28:20).

Let us always be respectful of the Church. People are listening very carefully to what we are saying. Let us praise the Lord rather than impugn his body.

by Richard Mansel @ www.forthright.net