I love reading Alan Creech’s blog because he’s one of the more honest and transparent people I’ve read. I think he probably gets into trouble because of that sometimes, but I think it’s helpful to read what he has to say. Like this:

Every kind of church is NOT OK. I won’t go off indefinitely on this here, but I’m sort of tired of the hyper “get along” attitude that has crept into some of our conversation. And I don’t mean to say that I like a hyper “don’t get along” attitude either, so please don’t put me in that category. I usually say what I mean, unless I’m holding back so as not to get attacked by those who await such opportunities like a Heron standing on a creek bank. This time I’ll try to say it and be very brief. There ARE forms of church that ARE crippling and harmful to Christians who are part of them - there just are. And some of those are churches that we have generally thought of as OK for a long time. But they’re not. “Well, isn’t there room for this kind and that kind in order to reach everyone?” Well, probably - I would never argue for total homogeneity of expression - that would NOT be my point. I am not simply mad at the “traditional” church because somebody pissed me off or hurt me. Just not.

This seems to be a theme in my life. I’ve been to plenty of different kinds of churches of all different denominations and traditions. My biggest fear is that too many churches become comfortable in the systems and programs they’ve established. After all, when you own large pieces of real estate and have large paid staffs, that means little changes can reverberate in big ways. People are fearful of change and making changes to long-held practices. As a result, churches often fall into harmful and unproductive patterns of behavior that may produce cosmetic and artificial results but don’t actually achieve the purpose that Jesus sought for his Church.