I am a church...
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I am a church person. I have been a church person all my life. My earliest memories are of the church nursery, my mother's Sunday school classroom, and the flower-decked chancel on Easter morning. Still, the church, through the years, has left me with bad memories as well as good: memories of power struggles, thoughtless words that hurt, failures of conscience. Why, then, am I still a church person? Why haven't I given up, shaken the dust from my feet while muttering, “Hypocrites!”? Perhaps I am still a church person because I have never confused the church with God, have never looked to the church for the perfection of the Almighty. The church is an earthen vessel. It contains treasure — never doubt that — from God. But the apostle Paul did not say, “We have this treasure in fine china.” The church is an earthen vessel, according to Paul, not just because it is human — therefore fallible. The church is an earthen vessel for a purpose: so that it does not become an idol, which is always a danger when it becomes too bright and shiny. The church is, and will remain, an earthen vessel to remind us always that “the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.”
— Curley
