In recent years, the Church has faced a wave of public exposure. News outlets have reported everything from financial mismanagement to moral failure, hidden sin, broken systems, and leadership conflicts. Ministers have stepped down, organisations have been investigated, and long-concealed issues have surfaced with unsettling force.
For many, the question arises almost instinctively:
Why is this happening to the Church?
Why the scandal?
The easy response is to blame individuals, leadership models, or cultural pressures. But to stop there would miss the deeper spiritual reality unfolding beneath the surface.
Scripture does not leave us without insight. What we are witnessing is not merely a collapse of integrity — it is a divine shaking with a redemptive purpose.
Scandals reveal the humanity of the Church.
The Church is called by God, empowered by the Spirit, and commissioned for His purposes — yet it remains made up of human beings who are frail, flawed, and capable of falling.
When hidden affairs emerge, when embezzlement is uncovered, when political rivalry erupts among leaders, or when ministries subtly evolve into family empires rather than Kingdom outposts, we are reminded of a truth the early Church knew well:
We are still a people in need of sanctification.
The existence of sin in the camp is not evidence that God has abandoned His Church. It is evidence that we have often ignored the quiet warnings of the Spirit, tolerated unhealthy behavior, and elevated giftedness above godliness.
We have sometimes admired charisma more than character, applauded success more than surrender, and rewarded performance more than purity.
At the same time, scandals also reveal the divine purpose of God.
While humanity explains the failure, divinity explains the exposure.
Scripture is consistent: God purifies what He loves.
“For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God.” —1 Peter 4:17
Purification is painful but necessary. Before Christ returns for His Bride, He prepares her. And that preparation begins not with expansion but with examination; not with crowds but with cleansing.
We often pray for revival, for harvest, for influence — yet Scripture shows that renewal rarely begins with celebration. It usually begins with a shaking.
- Before Pentecost came the upper room cleansing.
- Before Israel entered the Promised Land came the purging of Achan.
- Before Jacob became Israel, God dismantled his deception.
- Before Peter preached, he was sifted.
In the same way, before the Church can step into her greatest days, she must walk through her refining fire.
Have we forgotten our first calling?
The Church has many assignments, but only one identity: We are the Bride of Christ.
Somewhere along the journey, we traded intimacy for activity.
We built bigger and nicer buildings, but neglected the condition of the body within them.
We refined our operational systems, but ignored the spiritual systems of the heart.
We enforced excellence in ministries, but excused compromise in leaders.
We trained volunteers, but rarely discipled their souls.
We expanded programmes, but did not expand holiness.
In our attempt to be efficient, relevant, and influential, we slowly drifted from the truth that Christ desires a Bride — not a business; a people — not a performance.
The scandals are not merely a commentary on our failures.
They are a commentary on our forgetfulness.
- We forgot our first love.
- We forgot our first posture.
- We forgot our first calling: To belong wholly and faithfully to Christ.
Shaking is not the end — it is the invitation.
When God exposes sin, He does not do it to shame us but to save us.
When He disrupts our comfort, He is calling us back to consecration.
When He dismantles what we built, He prepares to rebuild what He desires.
Scandal is not God’s rejection of the Church.
It is His mercy to the Church.
The shaking is a summons.
A call to repentance.
A call to purity.
A call to character.
A call to spiritual depth.
A call to return to the simplicity and sincerity of devotion to Christ.
The path forward must begin with cleaning the inside first.
We have invested heavily in what people see — structures, systems, strategies, branding, technology, and excellence. None of these are wrong. But they cannot compensate for a lack of holiness.
Jesus’ words to the Pharisees echo across our modern structures:
“First clean the inside of the cup…” —Matthew 23:26
The future Church God is raising is not the most creative, most visible, or most efficient.
It is the most pure, the most obedient, the most surrendered, and the most in love with Jesus.
If we clean our buildings but not our hearts, we miss the point.
If we refine our operations but not our obedience, we miss the point.
If we grow in numbers but shrink in holiness, we miss the point.
Christ is coming for a Bride with no spot, no wrinkle, and no blemish — and the shaking is His preparation.
The scandals are a mercy — not a disaster.
The Church is not falling apart.
The Church is being re-formed.
God is not exposing us to destroy us.
He is exposing us to heal us.
The shaking is the sound of a Bride being prepared.
The cleansing is the sign that God has not abandoned us.
The exposure is evidence that revival is nearer than we think.
Before glory comes cleansing.
Before revival comes repentance.
Before the Bridegroom returns, the Bride is awakened.
And perhaps that is what the scandals are truly saying:
Return to your first love.
Return to holiness.
Return to the Lord your God.
