Our church sits in a nice neighborhood. We talk about loving everyone equally, but the moment someone walks in wearing a Salvation Army outfit from three seasons ago, I notice the temperature in the room shift. Deacons materialize. Someone offers to help them find a seat - like they're lost, not just different.
James hits the bullseye: you can't hold the faith of Jesus Christ while playing favorites. These aren't two separate issues. Favoritism IS infidelity to Christ's actual teaching. You can't genuinely follow someone who spent his ministry eating with despised people if you're uncomfortable when 'those people' show up.
I was part of a church plant that intentionally met in a community center in a poorer neighborhood. The economics mixed differently - wealthy white folks and Black families and immigrants and people with mental illness all mixed together. It was awkward constantly. But something holy happened. When you genuinely share table and conversation across dividing lines, you can't maintain the fiction that some people matter more to God. You see them. They become real. And Christ becomes more real too. Our church shrank by half, honestly. But we shrank into something true.
No comments yet. Be the first.