Two weeks ago, we held one of the services for one of our senior facilities and a gentleman who attended our service was very impressed with it. His father has been in this particular senior facility for a few months now, and so this gentleman had the chance to see our service.

To me, he only expressed his heartfelt enjoyment, but he asked my husband a question that we often get asked, “What church are you from?” Usually, I give a vague answer that we are a non-denominational group and my husband did the same, but when the gentleman pressed him for where he attended church, my husband had to be truthful and tell him that on the other three weeks of the month, we usually don’t.

“Shame on you,” was the man’s reply and it struck my husband’s heart to the core. My husband and I have enough negative experiences with churches to make it hard for us to open ourselves up to that once again.

Our experiences have mostly involved moments of hypocrisy to people lying to us or people trying to cheat us. Each time we would try another church, something would happen to make us draw back once again, but we have never drawn back on our faith. Jesus Christ is still my greatest hero. In fact, our faith has grown progressively since we started our senior ministry six years ago. We have found more Holy Spirit in our direct ministry than any church we’ve been to, and I have just decided that that is how God is reaching us–through service to others.

The thing that has been most difficult for us has been the reaction that we receive from those who go to church. We have been questioned about our credentials, asked to count heads so that we can get a small church a few dollars, and even once heard a pastor lie about our church affiliation so that his congregation could feel nice and warmy about our performing there. There is a long line of church folks questioning our motives.

Those who don’t question our motives are the ones we are reaching and the people in the facilities where we serve. The seniors have come to count on us that we will show up each week no matter what, and the staff at the facilities call us in when they need someone to pick up the slack because they know we are dependable and committed. They never question what denomination or by what authority we are there.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think we have started to use our denominations as a crutch to not do anything. We pour our dollars and cents into our church and we feel comfortable thinking that we don’t have to go outside the walls to do anything else. We surround ourselves with other Christians and we thwart relationships that go outside of our faith, unless we think that we can convert them, that is.

I’d like to see Christians inside the church to get outside the walls and into their communities more. I’d like to have them see people like us, who are just everyday servants living out their beliefs, as part of the family rather than outsiderrs. I’d also like to see them become open to embracing non-traditionals who are pushing the boundaries a little and asking the hard questions.

Maybe this post feels a little bit like a rant, but I wanted to take a moment and let people see what it feels like to be an outsider, even when in the eyes of God you’re supposed to be an insider. It’s like being the last one chosen to be on the team for kickball. I was that kid in third grade, and I’m still that kid at forty-three, only this time, it isn’t kickball.