Journey to The Journey

I consistently rack my brain as to how I can better reach this element of the MOV, my heart truly breaks for them. Should I sit and listen to every one-sided story that grabs my ear? Should I show them some tough love and tell them to man-up and get over it? Perhaps there’s a balance there somewhere. I deeply want The Journey to be a place of healing to the unchurched. I know for that to happen we need to listen well and push these individuals to spiritually walk without a crutch again.

When I’m really wanting to be honest with myself, when I want to be productive towards actually helping people who have been hurt by the church, I need to openly admit that I contribute to what makes church unappealing, again I’m sinful. Seriously, I could tell stories for days about the atrocities committed by “believers” all while conveniently neglecting to follow those stories up with my equally sinful responses (the way I gossiped, slandered and bad mouthed them, or reacted foolishly). I wish I could claim my anger was always righteous but it’s usually just an outpouring of pride just like a high horse antichurch blog rant, I am what I dislike. To put it in the always clear words of Dr. Paul Tripp, “Sinners tend to respond sinfully to being sinned against.”