The Perfect Church

If you should find the perfect church

Without one fault or smear,

For goodness sake! Don’t join that church:

You’d spoil the atmosphere.


If you should find the perfect church

Where all anxieties cease

Then pass it by lest joining it

You’d mar the masterpiece.

If you should find the perfect church

Then don’t you ever dare,

To tread upon such holy ground;

You’d be a misfit there.

But since no perfect church exists

Made of imperfect men,

Then let’s cease looking for that church

And love the church we’re in.

Of course, it’s not a perfect church,

That’s simple to discern

But you and I and all of us

Could cause the tide to turn.

What fools we are to flee our post

In that unfruitful search

To find at last where problems loom

God proudly builds His church.

So let’s keep working in our church

Until the resurrection.

And then we each will join that church

Without an imperfection.

–Mavis Williams