Who here has been hurt by the church? I have, and I feel confident that if you’ve been in church for any length of time, you’ve probably been hurt too. In my thirty years of church involvement, I’ve witnessed enough hurt to call it quits—plenty of it. I’ll share one experience. Throughout my childhood, my…
The church is a wonderful thing. Messy sometimes, yes. Comprised of broken people, yes. Politically confounding, yes. Globally fragmented, certainly. But the older I get, the more deeply I realize that I don’t want to live a life outside the body of Christ. As a transient adult (I’ve lived in six different cities since my…
“We are your church, and we need your power in us.” ~Rend Collective, lyrics from “Build Your Kingdom Here” Sometimes it’s difficult to separate the concept of church from the idea of a building. But the church is not a building; the church is people. The early church didn’t have a designated building. Believers gathered…
Growing up as a pastor’s kid was tough, sometimes even harsh and lonely. It felt like we were living in a fishbowl, constantly under watchful eyes. We also got to experience firsthand how a church functions behind the scenes. We saw the good, the bad, and the ugly. It was hard watching fellow brothers and…
After graduating from high school, I attended a large Christian university. I quickly found myself involved at a local church. Girls on my floor often remarked that finding a church that felt right was difficult. After a year, many of my friends were still attending a different church every Sunday. Eventually, someone asked me how…