Henri Nouwen’s writings in Bread for the Journey are currently dealing with the church, and I’m finding a number of them to be particularly inspiring, especially as we live in a time when some are advocating a “churchless Christianity.” Nouwen accepts the struggles we have with the church, including sometimes our need to forgive the church….
When we have been wounded by the Church, our temptation is to reject it. But when we reject the Church it becomes very hard for us to keep in touch with the living Christ. When we say, “I love Jesus, but I hate the Church,” we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too. The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the Church seldom asks us for forgiveness, at least not officially. But the Church as an often fallible human organization needs our forgiveness, while the Church as the living Christ among us continues to offer us forgiveness.
It is important to think about the Church not as “over there” but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in whom we meet our Lord and Redeemer.
Oboedire 
challenging, but timely for me…