We watched in horror recently as the cruise ship Costa Concordia crashed upon the rocks in Italy, causing the deaths of many. Horror turned into blame as it was discovered that the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, may have had a large part in the ship’s crash. Worse, he may have jumped ship before ensuring the safety of his passengers.

He was quickly dubbed, “Captain Coward” in Italy and t-shirts were even made with the words a coast guard official yelled at him: “Get back on board for &%*#’s sake!”

In stories such as these, it’s easy to find outrage within ourselves. The imaginary conversation within our minds goes something like this (whether we actually internally verbalize it or not):

“I can’t believe he did that! Coward. If that had been me, I would have stayed on board until everyone was accounted for!”

And thus, our morality stays superior to at least one human being on planet earth for another day. We’ve judged when we cross the line from saying, “That was a terrible act,” to saying, “What a terrible human being.” But in reality, and in our hearts, each of us is a hypocrite.

Sure, none of us will probably ever get the chance to pilot a cruise ship and face the moral dilemma. Even if some reading this have been in a situation where they did save lives at some point in their life, it wouldn’t give us the right to pass judgment on anyone.

I sat thinking today about a slightly different scenario. What if everyone in my church was on the deck of a cruise ship and one of our members fell overboard? I’m pretty sure we would do whatever it took to rescue them. We’d call the coast guard, lower a life boat, throw them a preserver, or jump overboard ourselves, wouldn’t we? Yeah, that’s not the same as being the captain of the Costa Concordia, but I think that’s a pretty reasonable response.

Another thought – we do have people who go overboard in the church every single week. People who abandon ship due to weariness, moral failure, backsliding or other sin. Some are pastors, some are deacons, some are single mothers, some are youth, some are new members. But they leave. They jump overboard. And what is the most common response?

We typically act like Captain Coward. We look the other way. Mental discussion again: “Well, that person had issues. And we don’t really need to be associated with that sin. God will bring them back if He wants them back.”

I get it. The cruise ship captain did something that caused people to die. And the thing I’m discussing is just about people who are leaving the church due to sin. Apples and oranges, right? To a degree.

But when we don’t seek to restore people who fail, who leave, who jump overboard, who will? And what do you think typically happens to them? If the captain doesn’t take responsibility to right the ship, who will? And if the Christian community doesn’t seek out and help her own, they aren’t typically going to make it.

Over and over, we hear the statistics of how many “unchurched” there are in our country. It’s an alarmingly high percentage. In my experience, a vast number of the “unchurched” are those who went overboard, those whom the church forgot or didn’t care to chase after or rescue. Kinda like a captain who forgot what his duties were.