To Be the Church...

"I confess I'm still not sure what it means to "be" church. Been in it since infancy, and still don't know what it means---to be it, to do it. Yesterday's poem reminds me how tricky it can be even to find the entry points when folks have such different ways of trying to open the door ... some that turn out to be threatening, deadly even. I haven't lived through bodily bloody "Christian" violence, but I've had enough of those "Are you saved?" moments, times when "the preacher would trounce my tender sins"... and "true believers come knocking to tell me that flaming hell is real" to run from overly eager saviors of my soul, bearing their ideas of 'truth,' 'right answers' and 'one way or no way.' Sometimes I don't step away fast enough and my eyebrows get singed, my heart contracts, and I find myself scanning the room for exits. So I'm thinking if love is the mark of the church, then I'm still not living there full-time...."
-Kayla McClurg, posted on Inward/Outward

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