I had a conversation with someone recently who swore off church for 30 years. After 30 years of feeling broken, hurt, and far from God, I was having a conversation with someone about how excited he was about the things he felt God calling him too. I also had a conversation with his wife, who comes from years and years of abuse and pain experienced at the hand of church leaders. But we had our conversation after she sang her heart out and led our church in worship that morning. She sang so powerfully and with such heart. After years of suffering and injustice, she stood with confidence, serving in her giftedness for God’s glory. She was a part of creating space for an entire church to encounter Jesus, after the pages of her story were already written to say, “the church is a place of pain.” Those two people have experienced real life change. Two people who had terrible feelings about church a year ago. Two people who felt left on the outside. Two people who may not have found community, found a home, anywhere else. Two people who had left the Church, seemingly for good, met Jesus and are growing in their faith.
That’s the only kind of church I ever want to work for, the home where outsiders come, find a place to belong, feel comfortable bringing their mess into the light, and experience true transformation through God. I want to work for the church branded and led in the direction of those not already in their doors. Those are the people I’m fighting for because that’s exactly who I was. I was outside, alone, broken, without hope, but Jesus rewrote every line of every page of my story. He made me new and gave me life! He has done that through my own personal, wild, life, and I’m already looking forward to sharing as much of that with you as I can! It’s a major part of what I was created to do!
He also created me to help lead and teach the church of the misfits and outcasts. I’m called to be a part of creating a space where people who have given up on God, people who have zero experience with faith, and people who have doubt and questions can come exactly as they are and encounter the real Jesus. I’m called to help create safe spaces for the least, the last, and the lost to find and follow Jesus. There are several facets to this, and I think that’s why this blog needs to exist. I’m convinced that more and more people will run home into the Kingdom of God, into the arms of their heavenly Father and His eternity, if more ministries and churches were putting these things into practice.
This calling was reinforced for me during the summer of 2022 as we experienced our big baptism celebration as a church. Observing the people we were baptizing made my heart explode as I looked around and thought, “I don’t ever want to do this any other way.” From the woman we baptized in the river with an oxygen tank to the moms and dads baptizing their own children, to the homeless man we met that morning and dunked too. Men. Women. Children. Teens. Elderly. Straight. Gay. Long time Christians. People who met Jesus for the first time that morning. An insanely diverse and outcast group of misfits were experiencing transformation through Jesus. Each one of them being people who may not have found that at another church. Each one of them a voice once stifled or ignored now a life renewed and redeemed.
Those are the people I want to love. Those are the people I have a deep, burning desire to bring Jesus to because I was them. I am them. Broken. On the outside. Desperate for hope. It’s because of the powerful work of the love and open arms of the local church that I had a heart ready to let Jesus in and completely transform my life overnight. I exist to serve the least, the last, and the lost because that is exactly who I am, and it’s exactly who I think so many churches miss opportunities to reach.
To me there is nothing more devastating than the idea of someone seeking an encounter with God walking through the doors of a church only to feel unwelcome, uncomfortable, and forgotten. I think the church I work for and the current group of people I am ridiculously blessed to do ministry with share this burden, and I know we have spent the last 10 years being so intricately intentional about creating spaces that feel like home. We aren’t perfect. We mess things up along the way often, but we own up to that, and we constantly strive to do and be better. I genuinely believe that mission and vision needs to be shared with the world. We’ve worked hard to create spaces where people who may not have found it anywhere else, can discover truth, can grow deep in their faith, and can be loved by a community of people who want to do good in the world.
None of this is to say that traditional church is wrong. Old churches with bells, hymnals, and pews are reaching people too. All of it, every church, is an important, anointed part of the plan. We’re all on the same team! I just think we could all afford to make a little more room in our hearts to love people who might not find love and truth anywhere else. If outsiders, hurt people, and the marginalized can’t find refuge and safety in our churches, where else do they go?
So if you’re here and you’re a long time Christian, I hope you walk away challenged and inspired. If you’re here and you have questions, doubts, or disbelief, I hope you speak about that. I hope you find that this is a safe and supportive place to be no matter where you are in your spiritual journey. I pray these conversations open doors to new ways of doing church and ministry. I pray that if you are deconstructing, that this can be a space where we can reconstruct together. And above everything else, I hope what happens here leads to more and more people intimately knowing their creator.
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