What if we stopped hiding behind our standards and started holding each other in grace?
Let’s be real—if you’ve made it this far in the series, you’re probably carrying some church wounds of your own.
Maybe you’ve been silenced for asking honest questions.
Maybe you’ve been labeled because of who you love or how you struggle.
Maybe you’ve led in ministry—and bled in ministry.
Or maybe you’re just tired.
Tired of playing the game. Tired of chasing approval. Tired of pretending that’s what Jesus ever asked of us.
Same.
But here’s the thing: I still believe in the Church. Not the institution as we’ve built it.
Not the brand.
Not the political platform or the polished production. I believe in the messy, Spirit-breathed community Jesus imagined when He said, “Where two or more gather in My name…”
I believe in circles over stages.
In meals over membership classes.
In carrying each other—not correcting each other from a distance.I believe we can be better.
But only if we’re willing to be honest about what we’ve become.
The early Church wasn’t perfect. But it was personal.
They broke bread together.
They confessed to one another.
They didn’t go viral. They went vulnerable. Somewhere along the way, we swapped that out for a system.
A structure.
A culture where success is measured by how many people show up, not how deeply they’re known. And we wonder why so many feel invisible.
Why so many leave not because they’ve lost faith in Jesus—but because they couldn’t find Him in the crowd.
A better way starts with this: Presence over performance.
Imagine a community where people didn’t have to arrive “clean” to be welcomed.
Where the goal wasn’t managing behavior, but nurturing belonging.
Where leaders were allowed to say, “I’m still healing too.”
Where you didn’t have to defend your process or your pain. A community that doesn’t just preach grace—but practices it.
Not as an excuse to never grow.
But as the soil where real transformation takes root.
I think about Jesus and His disciples. He didn’t draft a code of conduct before inviting them in.
He didn’t start with a six-week doctrine series or a personality test. He said, “Come, follow Me.” He walked with them. Ate with them. Sat in silence with them.
He asked questions.
He told stories.
He cried. That’s how the Church began: not with a policy—but with presence.
And that’s where it has to begin again.
So what does this look like today?
It looks like choosing relationship over rightness.
It looks like getting curious before getting corrective.
It looks like holding space for people to ask hard questions without immediately answering them.
It looks like showing up for someone whose life makes you uncomfortable—because the Spirit led you there, not because you’ve got a lesson prepared. It looks like pastors who aren’t too important to take the trash out.
Like leaders who can admit when they’re lost.
Like churches who welcome the doubters without turning them into projects.
I know what some people might be thinking: “But don’t we need truth? Don’t we need standards?”
Sure.
But truth was never meant to be a weapon.
It was meant to be a person—Jesus. And Jesus never held people at arm’s length to make a point.
He let them come close. And that proximity changed everything. He never traded love for clarity.
He led with love—and let clarity come in its own time.
If we want to build a better Church, it won’t be because we nailed our theology.
It’ll be because we learned to love like Jesus.
Because we made peace with the gray.
Because we stopped pretending that messy stories are a threat to holiness.
Because we remembered that “above reproach” doesn’t mean “beyond relationship.”
I still believe in the Church.
But not because of what it’s done.
Because of who Jesus still is. And I believe there’s a way forward.
A way that doesn’t require hiding.
A way that makes room for grief, growth, and grace. A way that’s slower, but more real.
Less shiny, but more sacred.
Less like a business, and more like a family. That’s the Church I want to help build.
That’s the community I believe Jesus is still calling us to become.