One of the main points of the book is this:

Belonging comes before believing.

 

This means that when people are accepted as who they are with all their mess and corruption, all their addictions and immorality, all their dropping F-bomb language and not put under a cultural moral code, when they are allowed to see what a follower of Christ is like when they are truly being transformed rather than being told, “you must change A, B, and C, before you + us = our community.” (Billy inspired me with the equation)

 

The gist of this is that as Christians our actions speak way louder than our words. (An 8 year old pointed this out to the entire service Sunday!) We can talk a good game about Love and acceptance to the world around us, but then tell them they must change stuff, before they have fellowship with us. That is not what Jesus did. Jesus was around “sinners” so much he had a bad reputation, I believe the Pharisees called him a “drunkard” and a “glutton”.  Seems to indicate that if we don’t have a bad reputation with the Religious elite then maybe we aren’t getting dirty enough.

 

Thats what we need to do, we need to stop worrying about looking pious to each other, thinking about the next paid ministry position, stop trying to write some amazing new theological treatise just to get the accolades of scholars that no one in the real world has ever heard of. We have got to get in the ditch like Jesus and St. Patrick of Ireland in the place that God has called us if we want to see Christ change the lives of people. We have got to get a little reckless.

 

I want to know what you think about Belonging coming before believing. Do you see this model in the Bible? Is it a model that you have seen work or fail and how so?