The Problem With Empty Aquariums

In my room, I have an aquarium. Its empty. It looks good, with the fake green plants (and a couple real ones!), the plastic rocks, and the constant flow of air bubbles highlighted by the fluorescent aquarium light. Now, those of you that know me, know that I love my aquarium and my fish and that it really does add a lot to my small dorm room. But there’s a problem. Right now, my aquarium is empty.

Sure, it looks good. The bubbling white noise puts me to sleep. The beautiful colors and light adds a cheerful ambience to the room. But there are no fish in it. Taking care of my aquarium is easy–no fish means no food, no changing the water, no changing the filter.

You see, live fish are such a pain! I have to change the water regularly, monitor the chemicals in it, change the filter periodically, adjust the heater, and all in all, do a lot of work to take care of those fish.

I realized, this morning, that my empty aquarium is a lot like many organizations and churches. My empty aquarium looks good and is easy to take care of. But it is empty: An aquarium was made to hold fish, and mine is just full of fake plants, plastic rocks, and artificial bubbles. Just like a lot of churches and Christian organizations.

So many organizations look good on the outside and are easy to lead and take care of. They are full of fake Christianity, artificial Christians, and people who look good on the outside but are fake on the inside. This is actually a pretty easy situation for a lazy leader: When people don’t have actual problems (or won’t show them), everyone can continue acting out this farce in which everyone is perfect and no one causes problems.

Problem is, this is empty. Churches and ministry is supposed to be messy. It is supposed to be hard. It is supposed to have people with problems. When Christ ministered on earth, he had harsh words for those religious folks who looked good on the outside.

Tellingly, Jesus spent his time amongst the rough and tumble elements of society. His dinner companions were known drunkards and gluttons. He would go hang out with tax collectors and thieves. In fact, his inner circle of trusted assistants were a ragtag group of blue-collar workers and societal embarrassments. When he needed them most, they all deserted him. But not before pulling weapons and making a fool of themselves by cutting off the ear of the religious leader’s slave.

Christ built his ministry around troubled, problematic people. Why should we do any differently?

When a wierdly dressed, obviously struggling person shows up in church, what is our response? When someone speaks up about a rather embarrasing sin they are struggling with, what do we tell them? Do we write them off as lost or show mercy and grace? What do we do when someone close to us in ministry offends us? What if they ignore us, overlook us, or call us names? How do we respond?

An equally important question is: What do we do with our sin? Do we hide our problems behind a white-washed facade of personal perfection? Do we compartmentalize our life and hope people don’t find out about our failings? Do we realize that a failure to be authentic and transparent will drive people away from Christ?

An empty aquarium looks good but is fake. It is a farce; an aquarium was designed to hold fish. So with churches: A church was designed to be filled with sinful, failure-prone individuals. When an aquarium is empty, we know something is wrong. When a church has few problems and a lot of good-looking “perfect” people, we should also recognize that something is wrong.