“A special people, set apart to represent God to the rest of the world. That’s how God wanted Israel to live, but they refused. Instead, they turned inward and treated those who were different from them as ‘outsiders,’ people to be avoided (or maybe tolerated) instead of embraced. So when Jesus, God with flesh on, shows up on the planet, he is accused of all sorts of evil by the religious elite of the day. And he makes friends with lots of different people—people those elite don’t like, people on the outside. Jesus invites them to the party, to the table and to walk in his ways [...] Here’s the catch: people are not looking for doctrine. They’re looking for a God with skin on, whom they can know, speak with, learn from, struggle with, be honest with, get straight answers from and connect their lives to.” - Small is Big, Slow is Fast, Caesar Kalinowski
Basically this is how we are to live. When we create a missional community we are to welcome everyone, not welcome the cool ones, the ones we get along with and tolerate the ones that get under our skin. We are to WELOCME with smiles and open arms, with gladness in our hearts. Everyone deserves to be loved they way Jesus loves. We need to show them what that is like, because not everyone is tuned to Jesus at first. Some will take more work than others to tune to Jesus. The amount of work it takes to tune to Jesus does not equate to that persons worth as a human being. God’s faithful, forgiving, everlasting love is what equates to every single persons worth.
