The Church Has Halitosis?

Halitosis can be defined as “the condition of having stale or foul-smelling breath.” We all have been around folks that suffer from this condition and don’t know it. Most likely, we have suffered from this condition and didn’t know it and got a subtle hint when someone offered us a Tic Tac!

Last week I listened to the first sermon of Rachael Clinton, an intern at the church I participate with (Vineyard Community Church, Shoreline, WA). She has worked with kids for many years, but this was the first presentation given to an adult audience. She did good!

During her presentation she said something about missional life and breathing. I wrote a note to myself to remember. When Jesus summarized the Ten Great Words, i.e., the Ten Commandments of the OT in a shortened saying, “love God with everything you have, and love others,” I was struck with how easy that seemed to be to help remember and practice when attached to breathing. We breathe in the love God, and we breathe out his love to others, which is the essence of being Missional.

At a local gathering of Pastors this morning, I suggested how memorable that was for me personally and then my friend Dr. Ed Cook suggested that the problem with the breathing out was that the church often had bad breath, hence the name of this post: The Church Has Halitosis?

That surely is a question that churches should ask as well as a question that individuals should ask. When we breathe out care for others, is it foul-smelling or pleasant smelling? Does it repel folks from further investigation of Jesus or does it draw them toward a journey with Jesus?

Wonder why we don’t have a halitosisalizer so we could check our breath before we breathe either as a church or as an individuals on our community or on others personally.

Spiritual Tic Tac anyone? Wish it was that easy. It seems that one kind of breath fixer doesn’t work for every kind of foul-smelling breath? I suspect that the same is true for the halitosis of the church and individuals. We may need to discover what smell we are radiating and then find a cure for that smell. Well, there’s an afissiparous musing for you…