Belonging Before Believing

At Community Life Church, we are making a conscious effort to put “belonging before believing”.  We think that perhaps churches sometimes put the emphasis in the wrong place: “get your beliefs all lined up and make sure that they are perfectly aligned with ours and then you can belong”.

We’ve all heard the saying “Birds of a feather flock together”.  Making sure we all believe the same before we can belong together is a sure way to be  “birds of a feather” church.

People who believe exactly the things we believe make us feel better about ourselves.  A “birds-of-a-feather church” is a comfortable church, in which we can feel secure and pat each other on the back because we all think and believe the same way.  A “birds-of-a-feather church” doesn’t take kindly to having among them people who don’t think and act just the way they do; a church which doesn't readily accept others who might think and act differently.

Romans 15:7 - “Accept one another, then, just as Christ has accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”

Look at Romans 15:7 again.  Key here is “as Christ has accepted you”.  Jesus didn’t say, "get your beliefs right and then I will accept you".  But that is what many of our churches have done in the past (and perhaps some still do). Acceptance of others comes directly out of having been accepted by Christ.  When we know He has accepted us, we are freed from the need to prove to ourselves and to others that we are right.  This frees us to accept others. Because we are accepted.

At Community Life Church, we want to be able to make this statement:  “Christ has accepted me, as I was, as I am, and as I am striving to become.  No matter how differently you and I may look at things, I accept you”.

And to back this up, we put in our doctrinal statement that it is okay to have questions and doubts as we dig deeper into our faith.  The purpose of this is to try to create a safe place within our fellowship for people to ask questions and wrestle with their doubts, for that is the way to build a stronger faith, to move forward on the journey each of us is taking.

In his book “More Ready Than You Realize”, Brian McLaren summarizes the approach of a “birds of a feather” church: “We’re on the inside, but you’re on the outside.  We’re right and you’re wrong.  If you want to come inside, then you need to be right.  So, just believe right, think right, speak right and act right and we’ll let you in.”

At Community Life Church we want to be motivated by acceptance, to be the kind of a church that McLaren describes in his book like this:  “We are a community bound together and energized by faith, love and commitment to Jesus Christ.  Even though you don’t yet share that faith, love and commitment, you are most welcome to be with us, to belong here, to experience what we’re about.  Then, if you are attracted and persuaded by what you see, you’ll want to set down roots here long term.  And even if you don’t you’ll always be a friend.”

Everyone believes in something; and for a lot of people that something is not really very clear. At Community Life Church we want you to feel that you can belong, even if you haven’t yet sorted out just what you believe.

At Community Life Church, we want to welcome “birds with different feathers”.