Don’t judge the potluck by the one weird dish. Don’t judge a church by one weird member.

One bad sample is not a sound basis for a judgement, and people do this constantly with groups. The strange dish gets remembered, retold, used as shorthand for the whole evening, and the twelve perfectly good ones disappear from the account. It works the same way with a congregation, a team or a family. One embarrassing member becomes the reason to write off everybody else in the room.

If you have dismissed a whole place because of one person this week, separate them. Judge the group by the ordinary majority rather than by its most quotable member.