depontification

someone emailed me yesterday to say that she’d visited our church a couple of times a few years ago. i’ll keep her anonymous, but i want to tell you what she wrote. i hear from people once in a while and they all basically have the same thing to say. here’s what she said:

I liked it! Very unpretentious, unthreatening, conversational, and communal. There was art on the wall, and people just interrupted you in the middle of your sermons with comments and questions. And there was coffee. It was refreshing that you did not pontificate your sermons from the pulpit, like so many others did.

it’s words like these that make me realize that what we are trying to do here is actually working. we are trying very hard to be all these things she described. i’m telling you, it is not easy. many people get offended by it. several have left because, as they say, it doesn’t feel like they’ve been to church, that we’re actually irreligious. whatever. i’m going to keep trying. in fact, that might be my new year’s resolution: be more offensive! no, no, no! i take that back. rather, i’m going to be more me, and our church more we. offensive will be the natural consequence.