Community

You can hear the worship music from the carpark half a kilometre away. Overly excited greeters welcome me at the door, palming service booklets and pens into my hand. The conference auditorium seats over a thousand guests and they’re clapping enthusiastically as the host jumps up on stage with a huge grin on his face. He welcomes the room with a cheer and kicks off the first worship song. The smoke machines frame the well-dressed worship team. I manage to…

“Don’t marry someone unless you’re equally yoked.” This is something we were frequently reminded of during our later years of youth group and into Bible Study, largely thanks to 2 Corinthians 6:14: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? Essentially, don’t marry someone (or even bother dating) unless you’re at the same spiritual level- that you both believe the same core tenants of Christian faith….

A man jumps onto stage to share his testimony. He’s wearing mocha-coloured chinos and a white t-shirt, the outline of his muscular body evident in the fall of the shadow on stage. He pushes the hair from his forehead with his fingers and clears his throat. Outside the church building, he’d be sexy. Inside the church, he’s angelic. “I grew up in a Christian home,” he begins. “… When I turned 18 I fell away from God. For years I…

When I was an evangelical Christian, I don’t think I ever successfully brought someone to church. I mean sure, I had plenty of conversations about God, I had plenty of conversations with those who were ‘straying’, but I never had the guts to invite someone unacquainted with church lore. This was less about the strength of my faith and more about a fear of thrusting a religion onto someone enough to turn them away entirely. My friends knew me as…