There are a lot of reasons why people don’t like the church. The church is viewed as hypocritical, unwelcoming, and it seems incapable of keeping up with the times to the point of hating anyone even mildly progressive. That’s what so many who have left the church or who look in from the outside see. Quite frankly, I don’t blame them. I know that people from the church have dealt out a lot of hurt, whether they know it and acknowledge it or not. Having grown up in and loving the church, I have a different perspective.

It’s not our goal to ostracize anyone for any reason. Jesus says to love everybody…

…but not everybody plays along. That’s because we’re human too, and we make a lot of mistakes. We’re trying not to. Sometimes it’s difficult, sometimes we argue, sometimes we’re mean to other people within the church, or to people who are outside of the church. Sassy Jesus meme (and also the Bible) declares that we’re supposed to love each other.

If you have felt unloved by the church or by God, I’m sorry. God loves you, and He wants to have a personal relationship with you, and if the church does not love you, then they are in error.

Now, if you’re involved in church, you might have realized that there’s been a great shifting of pastors over the last year. The head pastor of my own church was called by God to another ministry. That call leaves a big gap in leadership to fill—my congregation is looking for a new papa or mama bear to head the charge in making our church home a better, Godlier place. In fact, we just had a big meeting on the matter. Not all attended, but those who did created a brief outline of what we want our church to be: good listeners, accepting of whoever walks through our doors, more than just a Sunday morning church, caring about the community, ready to be called upon to serve, loving one another, and intergenerational-minded/purposed. In short, we want to be like Jesus to our world.

This is what we want to be. Do any of those sound criminal? Our purpose is good, and our mission is important, and we’re trying. We’re not perfect, but we’re trying. Part of being a Christian is accepting that God wants to make us better, to change our hearts, to shake up our lives, and to turn our focus to loving Him and others. It’s a scary deal, looking at it from the outside. Who likes the inconvenience of change? But if it means that I’m saved from death, forever, it’s worth it.

We also discussed what we wanted to see in our new pastor. This hypothetical leader would be spiritually inclined and energetic and caring toward youth. He/she’d want to see all the different cultural ministries within the church (Filipino, Anglo, Hispanic, Korean, etc.) united as one big family in Christ (as my dad likes to put it, “the whole rainbow is going to be in heaven, not just white people, so you’d better get used to it while you’re on Earth”) (also Jesus was almost certainly not white). We want our pastor to realize that the church should go beyond our own four walls and move into the community to reach and help the hurting with more than just kind words, but also with food and clothing and shelter.

Thinking about all of this feels almost like putting in an order at McDonalds, where you speak into the static box and out of a window pops exactly what you wanted. Except that we don’t know what this pastor will be like. However, I can guarantee that even if he/she isn’t who we were dreaming of, he/she will be the one God has chosen to lead His people. We’re praying through each day of this change. We need to love the new pastor just as we should love everyone else, and above all, we need to love God first.