You Don’t Have To Be Perfect To Follow God

Some of the people who preach the word of God are the ones who need God the most.

I always say that one of my favorite places to be is in church. I’ve written before about how much I love church. Church is the place where I found joy and community and learned to love myself a little more every Sunday. Yet, I know that for too many people, church is where they first encounter shame, judgment, and fear—where they hear sermons about all the ways that God doesn’t love them and so come to doubt themselves and feel disconnected from Christ with every passing week.

One such church is the True Vine Apostolic Church in my hometown of Hampton, Virginia. Just a few weeks before the celebration of Christ’s birth, just a few miles down the street from the church where I grew up and learned to love God and myself, another church has gone viral for spreading a message of shame after a video surfaced of the pastor berating a young woman in his congregation for becoming pregnant out of wedlock. 

On Dec. 5, 2024, Pastor Terry W. Jackson, the presiding pastor at True Vine, had a young lady stand before the pulpit and apologize to the church for being pregnant and beg their forgiveness. Whether the father of her unborn child also needed to seek the same forgiveness, I don’t know, but while the congregation encouraged her and clapped as she shakily said into the microphone, “I hope y’all forgive me,” I wanted so bad for someone, any one of those followers of Christ, to stand up and tell her that there’s nothing to forgive. Our Father in Heaven has already forgiven her and loves her, and everyone in that room should love her with the same grace and loving kindness. She doesn’t need the forgiveness of any the people in that room, she needs to grow deeper in connection to the God that lives in her.

But no one in the congregation made such a move. Instead, they sat and listened as Pastor Jackson continued in his message of shame, telling the young woman that while “the church is praying for you,” they don’t condone her sin and no one in the congregation, not even the woman’s own mother, should throw her a baby shower. In fact, according to Pastor Jackson, the mother-to-be is lucky to even still be alive. 

“We ain’t gonna condone your sin now, we ain’t gonna do that. Aint no baby showers going on. That’s what you lose out, you have a baby out of wedlock,” Jackson told his congregation to a chorus of “Amens.” “Nobody at this church is about to attend one. [Your] mama shouldn’t have one either… You lose all the prize and glory, you just lose all that. Thank God that God didn’t take you out of here.”

We lose nothing when we choose to let God into our hearts. In fact, we gain the world and the unconditional and everlasting love and protection of the Father. Some church leaders would have you believe you must be perfect but God does not require perfection from us. He knows we are not perfect; He knows we all have sinned and fallen short of His glory. 

And yet, some church leaders like Pastor Jackson believe and teach that in order to follow God, we must behave like God. We human beings must be the ultimate judge, we must punish, condemn, and wield our authority over sinners, reflecting a wrathful and uncompassionate imagining of God. But I believe Jackson and those who think and preach like him have God’s character all wrong. To truly be like Christ, there are a few key attributes that we must always exhibit like, Forgiveness, Mercy, and Love.

Jesus tells His disciples that the greatest commandment is to love God above all else and to love each other as God loves us (Matthew 22:36-40). He repeats this upon His ascension to Heaven where He gives his followers a “new commandment” to love one another as Christ has loved us (John 13:34). But so many of his followers have abandoned the love and replaced it with reproach and an unearned sense of power.

God doesn’t need us to step in on His behalf and punish people for their sins. He’s got that covered on His own, thank you very much. The Bible tells us that vengeance is the Lord’s (Romans 12:19) and there are too many stories that show us how God steps in and takes care of business when His people commit sin. The Bible also reminds us multiple times that no one on this planet is without sin in their heart and because God loved us so much, He sacrificed His son so that if we accept Jesus into our hearts, we would be forgiven of our sins covered in His love and mercy forever more. You’d think a pastor would remember that so close to Jesus’ birthday.

None of us here on earth have a heaven or hell to put people in and yet, every day, pastors and preachers and churches all over the world spread messages of condemnation, damnation, criticism, and intolerance, all under the guise of trying to save people from their sin. No wonder church attendance is dropping every year as more and more people become disenchanted and disgusted with places like True Vine Apostolic Church. They leave church and disconnect from God forever, because so many people never felt His love in the one place where He is supposed to reside. 

I pray God saves us Christians from ourselves. I pray we embody the love of Christ and learn to serve each other rather than shame one another. And I pray that God, not a congregation or pastor, forgives us for how we so often get His character all wrong in order to reflect our own biases and opinions. Regardless of what Pastor Jackson and the rest of True Vine “can’t condone,” God still loves us and there’s no sin that separates us from His love. 

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