This excellent post was stolen in its entirety from Carey Nieuwhof’s website. Carey is pastor of Connexus, a church in Western Ontario. He was featured on Global television’s recent documentary Hib2BHoly. Here’s his letter:
An Open Letter
Dear Hip 2B Holy Viewer,
If you happened to have watched Hip 2B Holy on Global, and you’re one of the people who hasn’t gone to church for a long time or ever, this letter’s for you.First, I just want to say sorry for keeping you away for so long. The church has not done a particularly good job of being clear or even being open to people who aren’t part of our club. That needs to change and I hope it is changing.Second, sorry for any and all anger directed at you by Christians. I’m always amazed that Jesus rarely had a harsh word for religious “outisders”. Instead, he kept his harsh words for insiders who didn’t reflect God’s heart (usually religious leaders). How we got it backwards, I’ll never know. So for the times we’ve held placards denouncing you and whatever your group stands for — sorry. It’s not like Christ to attack the people He died for.Third, sorry for behaving like Jesus died for the church. His compassion and affection were actually sent for the world, not just for a small minority of people or peoples. When Jesus died and rose again, we were all covered by that. Sometimes we in the church behave like it was for us only. That’s wrong.Fourth, sorry for making it so hard to understand what God is saying. If you’ve tried church, you realize that often we just get “weird” about how we do church and we make it hard for someone with no background to understand what’s happening or going on. That needs to stop.Finally, while the documentary did a great job in many respects, I felt a bit bad about its portrayal of mainline Christianity. Yes, it’s in decline. Yes, I was in mainline circles for a decade and left, but there’s no bitterness. There are pockets of life and some fantastic Christ-followers in mainline churches. Wish that had come out.There is a lot more to be said. But the bottom line is this: Jesus loved this world passionately enough to die for it and offer us new life.I hope you can be part of a new dialogue — a new beginning. Many of us are still getting our heads around what it means to be loved by God. I don’t fully understand it.When we gather, we want to create an open, accessible, even irresistible environment in which people of all backgrounds and life-stories can come together to discover grace, forgiveness, transformation and hope.We need you. We need skeptics, doubters, people who think they are beyond the reach of love, people who feel the whole Christianity thing is garbage. We need you in community — in our community, to be part of the community and part of the dialogue.
