Wonderful People

I am blessed.

Specifically, I have had the most wonderful conversations with members of my congregation over the last week.

In particular, Sunday afternoon, I had a long, sprawling conversation with a young man who has been coming to the church for about a year.

His great questions and observations about Marble (btw, that's a photo up there of our 5th Ave. door on a Pride Sunday) helped me to put my finger on two reasons why I love our congregation:

1) Our diversity is an unmanaged diversity. It's a smack-you-upside-the-head, kick-you-in-yo'-butt diversity. Like, you sit in Bible study with someone and they say something and you say "WHAT?!" They're totally off the wall, weird and/or wonderful. And you have no idea what to do with what they said. Or someone tells you there life story and you feel certain that you have NEVER met someone with that story--not even close. Our diversity is an "I wonder what it means that God made us this different" kind of diversity. I love it.

2) We don't care what you believe. I know that's shocking to a lot of people who associate church with cognitive assent to dogma. But we've made a calculated risk at Marble. The risk is this: belief follows action, not vice versa. That is, we don't act as a Christian because we believe in Christ--we believe in Christ because we first act as Christians. In part, this calculated risk is a response to a widely unchurched culture in New York, in which churches and their beliefs are highly suspect. But I think it's also a progressive and welcoming way to create community. What we really want is for people to come to faithful belief by testing over time... beliefs should be rugged enough to be proven true. To test them, we have to try on the corresponding actions first: ie, act as though we believe.... To believe in Christ is to be hospitable, compassionate, self-giving, humble. We encourage people to do those things--and we trust God to work out the details of belief.

I love my church. And a God who would create such a place.