Have you seen this floating around social media?

While I’m sure the people who have posted this have been well-meaning, this is a garbage take.

When your order gets messed up at McDonald’s, they usually do what they can to make it right. Far too many find the church full of people unwilling to take accountability and fix mistakes.

When your order gets messed up at McDonald’s, you might be out a few bucks. However, when “one thing goes wrong” at church, it’s possible your mental and spiritual health has been put in jeopardy.

When your order gets messed up at McDonald’s, you aren’t condemned to hell and called a divisive and evil person for pointing out the error. But when something goes wrong at church… well, we know how quick people are to condemn.

This may sound like a cynical and jaded take. However, that’s how your friends who have left the church will see posts like this.

It was never about them being hungry enough. It is almost always about the church failing to be the church.

Let me give an example. I have had several friends leave cheating spouses, only to have the church shun them or tell them they should have stayed. While some of them stay in the church, you can hardly blame the ones who have chosen to leave. When we don’t even allow the exceptions for divorce that Jesus allowed, we hold people to impossibly high standards when they’re at their lowest.

We need to do better. Let’s start by thinking through snappy little graphics like this… your hurting friends on the fringes of the church are watching.