{"id":41,"date":"2008-10-18T18:01:49","date_gmt":"2008-10-18T18:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html"},"modified":"2008-10-18T18:01:49","modified_gmt":"2008-10-18T18:01:49","slug":"the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html","title":{"rendered":"The Goldilocks of Christianity…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I’m not giving up on the Church…\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite some unfortunate evidence to the contrary, I believe that the church can be a place where broken and hurting people of all stripes can go to find Jesus shared and reflected in the lives of leaders and members.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>I believe that it can be a sanctuary where poor, struggling, addicted, mentally ill, self-harming, harsh and hard-to-love people can mingle with and be supported by people who are wealthy or stable or sober or emotionally healthy and peaceful without feeling judged or unwelcome. I believe that Christians of different ages and backgrounds and interests can worship together out of respect for one another and Christ\u2019s call to unity, sustaining the whole by putting the needs of others ahead of personal comfort, preference or ambition.\u00a0<\/span>And I believe that the core teachings of the faith\u2014even the controversial or hard-to-swallow ones–can touch people without being watered down or hidden from view when they are delivered with love and compassion.<\/p>\n

Since becoming a Christian in 2003 I have sought to find this kind of Church.<\/p>\n

In some ways I feel like Goldilocks of Christianity. There I was lost in the woods without knowing it and I come upon a lovely house.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sanctuary.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Safety.<\/p>\n

I walk though the door na\u00efve and hopeful, only to find dozens of diverging choices, approaches and versions of what it\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0means to be a Christian or how one is\u00a0really\u00a0<\/em>supposed to follow Jesus.<\/p>\n

So I try a one church\u2026 too hot.<\/p>\n

And another\u2026too cold.<\/p>\n

Searching for, but not finding, the elusive just right\u2026<\/p>\n

I hoped to land in that one community of people with the right approach with whom I could settle-in and ignore (or criticize) the\u2018other ones’ who clearly have it wrong. Regrettably, this approach assumes that it is possible (or advisable) for me to become part of \u201ca church\u201d and divorce myself from \u201cthe church.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I wish I had simplistic \u201chow-to\u201d list to encapsulate how I turned it around, but this is not a challenge with a single pole solution.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>And, if it were, it is pretty unlikely that the big answer would come from the pen of this New Age seeker, turned atheist, turned agnostic, turned Christian.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>No, I am not suggesting that I have the solution. I\u2019m just hoping that we can do our best to remember that the Church is a family, whether we like it or not.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Because really\u2026who wants to step out of the woods straight into a big dysfunctional family?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not giving up on the Church…\u00a0 Despite some unfortunate evidence to the contrary, I believe that the church can be a place where broken and hurting people of all stripes can go to find Jesus shared and reflected in the lives of leaders and members.\u00a0\u00a0I believe that it can be a sanctuary where poor,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-growth"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Goldilocks of Christianity... - Flirting with Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Goldilocks of Christianity... - Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’m not giving up on the Church…\u00a0 Despite some unfortunate evidence to the contrary, I believe that the church can be a place where broken and hurting people of all stripes can go to find Jesus shared and reflected in the lives of leaders and members.\u00a0\u00a0I believe that it can be a sanctuary where poor,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-10-18T18:01:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joan Ball\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Goldilocks of Christianity... - Flirting with Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Goldilocks of Christianity... - Flirting with Faith","og_description":"I’m not giving up on the Church…\u00a0 Despite some unfortunate evidence to the contrary, I believe that the church can be a place where broken and hurting people of all stripes can go to find Jesus shared and reflected in the lives of leaders and members.\u00a0\u00a0I believe that it can be a sanctuary where poor,…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html","og_site_name":"Flirting with Faith","article_published_time":"2008-10-18T18:01:49+00:00","author":"Joan Ball","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html","name":"The Goldilocks of Christianity... - Flirting with Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-10-18T18:01:49+00:00","dateModified":"2008-10-18T18:01:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/581859119d5895db46006b4beb0c1f27"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2008\/10\/the-goldilocks-of-christianity-2.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Goldilocks of Christianity…"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/","name":"Flirting with Faith","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Joan Ball","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/581859119d5895db46006b4beb0c1f27","name":"Joan Ball","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6b5\/6b5b96362ce68b986f37a822881ca1f5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6b5\/6b5b96362ce68b986f37a822881ca1f5x96.jpg","caption":"Joan Ball"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/author\/jball"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}