I want to take a quick second to tell you all about a cool new site that is starting up. It’s called Letters from Leavers. Tim, one of my roommates in college…the most ruggedly good looking of all the roommates…he might ad…started this project with a friend from school.
The idea is to give a place for people who have been hurt by the church a place to be heard and to tell their stories. If you have gone separate ways or are at enmity with the Church I would encourage you to read the stories and know you’re not alone.
Growing up as pastor’s kid I am sure that there were other kids that did not come back to youth group because of me…shoot maybe they’ve already posted on this site. The good (and sometimes hard) news about the Church is that it is made up people who are finite. People who cannot BE perfect, but who are becoming perfected through Christ. The Church will always be a community that lets people down…this awareness leads us towards freedom to let people be people. But in the bigger picture this truth reveals the necessity of living by grace…especially among other followers of Christ. Unfortunately, along the journey people get ran over and treated…uh…not like people…by the people who should be treating them the best. It is to these people that we must acknowledge our sins, seek their forgiveness, and live out the gospel of grace.
Justin, what a great ministry Tim has and how appropriate that you shared this. Yesterday, I put a message on a sports message board (of all places) that I frequently visit “I apologize for being one of those judgmental people and hope self righteous attitudes like mine don’t cloud your view of God or Jesus. If you look at Jesus, he hung out, connected with, and had compassion for the messed up people - prostitutes, diseased people, party people, etc. Those people knew they didn’t have it all together. It was the self righteous he was hardest on. Just don’t let your view of Christians (at times) and religion paint the picture of everything God is.”
After writing this, I finished reading Blue Like Jazz last night. When I got to the chapter on Confessions where they built a confession booth to confess theirs and Christianity’s sins to everyone else, I cried. Just hours earlier I had written the exact same thing, never before having thought that way or said anything like that in my life. God had confirmed what he was showing and teaching me through this book. The Church/Christians/We have hurt so many people in the name of God. I realized yesterday how sorry I was for all that I had done. I haven’t yet changed because I can still make bad decisions, be extremely judgmental, and look down upon others. But at least I realize how much I need and want to change. Even I am struggling with church right now. So for a timely post and an awesome ministry, thanks for posting this and may God open many doors for Tim through this.
While I have a hard time disagreeing with your description of me as “ruggedly good looking” the years since we have seen each other have not been so kind and I am more “rugged” than “good looking” these days. You on the other hand are still quite the looker. I bet you are beating off those parisians with a stick.
Thanks for linking to the blog.
I think we have had like 12 hits referred from your site which puts you like 75 referrals behind Jonny Baker.
32 hits as of today from your site.
Jonny Baker has 85. Movin on up!
You are ahead of Andrew Jones, although to be fair to Andrew, he blogged about us the first day the site was up so his post is long since buried in his archives.