A post popped up on Facebook thanking those who pre-ordered a #1 best seller with the above title. How books become best sellers because of pre-orders is beyond me. Maybe the author is popular. I had never heard of this author until this ‘suggested’ post pepped un on FB. So I looked him up. He is also known as The Church Doctor and has published a lot of books with catchy titles. He has an educational background that includes a Ph.D. from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and a D.Min degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. He is the author of 30 books on the subject of church health, vitality, and the effectiveness of the church. The book’s full title is: Who Broke My Church?: 7 Strategies that Change Everything.

At a glance, I would say that he probably has some good things to say. I really don’t know since I have not read his books. Therefore this post is NOT a book review. The title caught my attention.

When I saw the question ‘Who broke my church?’ My immediate thought was “If the church IS broken, we who profess Christ broke it!” You are probably wondering why I say that, so I’ll tell you.

First of all, I want to say that the true church, Jesus’ church will NEVER break because Jesus said “I will build my church and the gates of hell will NEVER prevail against it. That begs the question, “Which church is Dr. Hunt talking about?” I don’t know since I haven’t read the book, but I can say it might be the church that man builds. It is that church to which I refer. Depending on what constitutes a ‘broken’ church, a church can break apart in many ways. And it is we who profess Christ who break it! While I will leave you, the reader, to speculate on specific ways it it broken (we are great speculators since we always have opinions)’ I would like to take it up a notch to something that seems to have happened over at least the years that drives many, if not most of the ‘brokenness’ in today’s church.

In a nutshell, today’s church has become ‘man’ centered instead of ‘God’ centered, and It is men who caused the shift, not God. Therefore, as I said before, if it’s broken, WE broke it. The answer is in the question. . .

If it’s YOUR (man’s) broken church, you (men) broke it!

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NOTE: The above short rant is in no way critical of the referenced book but merely an old guy’s opinion.