Tom Long tells of the time when he visited a Sunday school class and heard something he had never heard in church before.  The topic for the day was quite simply, “Scandals in The Church.”  The teacher mentioned all the tough times the church has endured throughout history.  He spoke of the hypocrisy, the scandals, the persecution—the awful things that have been done in the name of the church and of God.

As he was lecturing, a woman in the class raised her hand. When the teacher called on her, she asked, “Given all these heavy burdens of the church, I want to know, why do you keep coming back to church?”  The teacher pondered the question for a second and then responded, “I’ll tell you why I keep coming back to church…” And every eye-ball in the class suddenly focused on the teacher.  In …