THE CHURCH OF MIRRORS

Continued from previous page there were plenty of doctors and lawyers and professors, but the leadership of that congregation also included a plumber, a barber, and a janitor. Some were movers and shakers, but others were the sorts of iconoclasts you find in every college town.

That congregation would fail 21stcentury American standards of diversity. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit was able to use that collection of mismatched people to reach a wide variety of our city with the good news.

A Welcoming Church

I frequently tell the women in the prison chapel that one of their top priorities when they’re freed is to find a good church. I define a “good church” as one where they can tell the leadership who they are and where they’ve been and still be welcomed warmly rather than being met only with hesitation and exclusion. This is vital, because they need the circle of support a good church can offer.

A congregation that has embraced the intentional diversity Jesus designed into his church will be eager to welcome yet another square peg into the mix.

I also tell the prisoners the church needs them just as much as they need the church. Every congregation needs committed newcomers who bring something different, something a little out of the ordinary to the personality of the church. Just imagine the people a former prisoner will be able to attract to Jesus; they are likely to be the kinds of seekers who might not feel comfortable in a middle-class congregation.

The church was designed to be a widely diverse collection of oddballs, nonconformists, straight arrows, and free spirits. What better way to be equipped to serve as a reflection of righteousness to a world filled with oddballs, nonconformists, straight arrows, and free spirits?

¹“What Millennials Want When They Visit Church,” Barna Group, March 4, 2015; accessed at www.barna. com/research/what-millennials-want-when-they-visitchurch/.

BY GENE APPEL

I want to invite you to join me in one of America’s greatest cities for my favorite conference on the planet, the North American Christian Convention, June 27–29 in Kansas City, Missouri.

I especially want to invite you if you’ve never been to this special gathering, or if you haven’t been able to make it for a few years. After a fantastic convention in Anaheim, California, in 2016, we have great momentum building for Kansas City, and I hope you’ll jump on board. Let me share why.

First, we have an urgent theme: “This is for EVERYONE.”

God’s dream for his church has always been that it would be an EVERYONE kind of place. No matter who you are, where you’re from, what you’ve done, or the color of your skin, God is for you and Jesus loves you.

Peter stood up on the Day of Pentecost before thousands of people and announced, “EVERYONE who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21). Paul declared, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to EVERYONE who believes” (Romans 1:16). Second Peter 3:9 reminds us that the Lord is patient with us and wants “EVERYONE to come to repentance.”

But to be honest with you, sometimes I don’t live as if the gospel is for everyone. I can be one of those people Jesus talked about who love to judge and see the speck in another’s eye, while I have a plank in my own eye. I possess this dark, depraved, instinctive na- ture to take the plank in my eye and use it to build a wall between those who are different from me, rather than bridges. Maybe you struggle with this too.

For some, it’s the wall we build between people of different ethnicities, whether they are black or white or Asian or Arab or Jew. For some it’s political liberals we can’t stand, and for others it’s political conservatives who make our blood boil. For some it’s the body-pierced, tattoo-covered individual whose appearance is so different from ours, or maybe it’s the party person at work who lives a lifestyle so opposite ours. For some it’s the follower of Islam, Mormonism, Buddhism, Hinduism, atheism, Judaism,