It's a safe place.
It's full of folks; each arrives with baggage and none are perfect yet.
It's where you go, knowing you'll be received lovingly.
It's a place to dump all the weight and get refreshed and refocused.
It's a classroom for practical stuff.
It's a library of accumulated wisdom.
It's a connection point for good-hearted folks.
It's a good place to find folks who've been through what you're facing.
It's a pep rally to pump us up when we need it.
It's a place of solace when we need it, and a refuge.
It's the launch point for our lives in a tumultuous world; maybe that, most of all.
It's not perfect, but it's learning and changing.
It's a place to dump all the weight and get refreshed and refocused.
It's a classroom for practical stuff.
It's a library of accumulated wisdom.
It's a connection point for good-hearted folks.
It's a good place to find folks who've been through what you're facing.
It's a pep rally to pump us up when we need it.
It's a place of solace when we need it, and a refuge.
It's the launch point for our lives in a tumultuous world; maybe that, most of all.
It's not perfect, but it's learning and changing.
If it's not, it's not church. It's something else.
If it's speaking an antique language, it's an antique.
If it's polarized and polarizing, it's political.
If it's rule based, it's a court for judgement.
If it's exclusive, it's a country club.
If it's ethnically narrow, it's just broken.
If it's the center of member's lives, it's a cloister of irrelevance.
The church is not the gospel, by the way.
The real purpose of church? Making a place for all of us to know our Father and for equipping us all to be the light on every hill, in every office and marketplace, every neighborhood and classroom. We are the light that the world sees every day; we are the message He sends.
~ there's more of course, but this stuff always comes up ~