Stop Saying “The Church Isn’t Perfect”
There’s a phrase that gets thrown around every time we try to talk about pain in the church.
Anytime someone brings up the deep rooted racism, the inbuilt sexism, the harmful judgmentalism, the toxic narcisism...
I'm not saying this is true of every church. I'm not even saying it's true all the time. What I am saying is it does happen, a lot... but whenever it get's brought up, someone always trots out the same tired line:
“Well, the church isn’t perfect… we just have to keep our eyes on Jesus.”
It sounds humble. Sounds spiritual. But truth be told—it’s neither. It’s a deflection dressed in devotion. It’s what people say when they don’t want to have a hard conversation.
And today, I’m saying it loud: We need to stop saying this. Forever.
Here’s why:
I’ve been a pastor for over a decade. I’ve sat with skeptics, seekers, deconstructors, and faithful people hanging on by a thread. And I have never—not once—heard someone say, “I left the church because it wasn’t ‘perfect.’”
That’s not what people are walking away from.
They’re walking away because the church can’t seem to master basic human decency. Because they came looking for love and found power games. Because they needed safety and found shame. Because they expected Jesus—and got someone’s unhealed ego in a pulpit. And when they muster the courage to name that harm, we pat them on the head with a spiritual soundbite and expect them to move on.
Let me break it down another way.
Imagine my wife confronts me. “You’ve been lying about our finances. You’ve been gambling with our savings. You’ve betrayed my trust.” And I reply:
“Oh well… nobody’s perfect.”
I hope that scenario infuriates you. I hope you see the injustice and manipulation taking place.
Because in this scenario, perfection isn’t even an issue. My wife isn’t asking me to be a super-saint. She’s asking for basic human decency. To be honest. To be safe. To not gamble all our finances away and lie about it.
That’s not a tough ask. That’s not unrealistic or over the top. That’s like basic, starting line stuff.
And yet in church world, we’ve baptized dysfunction and slapped a “we’re all human” label on it. We’ve confused being “imperfect” with being toxic. We’ve turned “sinner saved by grace” into a permanent get-out-of-accountability card.
But guys, no one is asking us to be perfect. All they are asking for, at the very least, is basic kindness. To be warm, safe, and honest.
That’s not a tough ask. That’s not unrealistic or over the top. That’s basic, starting line stuff.
If we can’t even get that right, our problem isn’t that we aren’t “perfect”. It’s that we have a moral compass that’s worse than the very people we are called to share Jesus with.
And this isn’t just a modern mess. Paul dealt with it too. In 1 Corinthians 5:1, he wrote:
“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife.”
Even the Roman world—where anything went—was like, “Yo… that’s disgusting.”
And Paul doesn’t say, “Well, none of us are perfect.” He says, “Handle it.” Because if people who don’t even claim Christ are living with more moral clarity than the church, something is rotten at the core.
He wasn’t calling them to perfection. He was calling them to be human. To be decent. To NOT participate in nonsense that even the unbelieving world knows is twisted.
That’s the thing about the “church isn’t perfect” excuse. It’s not just weak—it’s dishonest. It’s a subtle way to avoid transformation. To shut down pain. To keep the status quo alive and well while people walk away feeling unseen, unheard, and spiritually gaslit.
So no—when someone calls out racism, don’t say “nobody’s perfect.” When women speak out about being sidelined, don’t shrug and quip, “just gotta keep our eyes on Geezuz”. When survivors speak up about abuse, don’t belittle their suffering with yet another “we’re here for God, not people” platitude.
Sit down. Listen. Repent.
Because the world doesn’t need a perfect church. It’s not even asking for one. But it sure needs a church that is warm, welcoming, and safe.
Again… That’s not a tough ask. That’s not unrealistic or over the top. I’m not talking about being super-saints here. This is basic, starting line stuff.
A church that protects people instead of systems. That chooses healing over being right all the time. That values relationship of rules.
That’s not perfection. That’s not sainthoot. That’s just called not being a jerk.
So stop saying “the church isn’t perfect.” That’s not the issue.
The issue is: can we even be kind? Can we own our mistakes? Can we be safe? Can we stop sounding like a contradiction to the gospel we claim to preach?
Because if we can’t even get that right, we’re not just imperfect. We’re simply nasty folk using the Bible as a smokescreen.
But here’s the good news. We don’t have to stay there. Jesus shows us a different way of walking in the world. A way to become the kind of church where people actually feel seen. Known. Respected. A community where transformation isn’t just a sermon—it’s a collective experience.
So what do we do now?
Here are 3 simple, uncomfortable, absolutely necessary steps to get started:
Kill the slogans. Throw out “the church isn’t perfect” and every other phrase that minimizes pain. Create space for truth, even when it’s messy.
Center the wounded, not the powerful. If someone has been hurt by the church, believe them. Listen without defensiveness. Their pain is not an attack—it’s a plea for healing.
Trade performance for repentance. We don’t need better PR. We need actual change. That means hard conversations, uncomfortable admissions, and rebuilding trust the long, slow way.
No, the church isn’t perfect. But at the very least, it can “not” dismiss people because of their skin color, “not” oppress people because of their gender, “not” mistreat people because of their sexual orientation. At the very least, we can exercise basic human decency. And who knows? If we get that right, maybe we can even become the kind of people Jesus called us to be—a new humanity that moves to the rhythms of love, bringing healing and harmony to the environments we inhabit.
But that’s for another article.
