I came across an old email from a blog reader saying thanks For the blog and telling a bit of his story. rereading it again two phrases stuck out for me were "check brain at the door" and "loss of community".
One of the things that attracted me to the evangelical church I grew up in was the way it challenged my brain. it still saddens me that many people feel that they need to leave their brain at the door. Any faith that's not willing to be challenged particularly by those who are exploring it is surely not a faith worth adhering to.
I’m wonder if the problem is that when any group of people start seriously thinking about an issue you end up with a divergent range of views. Many Xn churches especially evangelical ones tend to define themselves by what they believe. so any belief that breaks away from orthodoxy is actually a break away from the community.
How do you survive this? My thought is forget about community and focus on people. find yourself some people you can share life with and discuss faith with, no more than 6 friends (including spouse). then get involved in stuff, I’ve developed my connect grow and serve idea specifically to address this. I know I’m not going to get everything I need in life or for my faith from one activity / group / church, I get different things from different places, which has the perhaps unexpected result of being happy to be involved in a church community as I am no longer resenting how they fail to meet whatever needs I wish they would meet.
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