New Waters S4 | Episode 4
Trusted Markers: Belonging and Acceptance
There are two words that seem to get a lot of attention these days and it feels like we’re talking about them more than ever:
acceptance and belonging.
Join Vijay and Dom as they unpack the differences between the two, discuss healthy spiritual practices and explore the radical acceptance of Jesus which leads to a transformed life in community together.
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+ Transcript
VIJAY: Dom.
DOM: Yes, sir.
VIJAY: The hits keep coming.
DOM: We keep doing it, bro.
VIJAY: This is episode four of season four of the New Water podcast, and this particular season, we're talking about the Church in a sea of change. And we're talking about that because both of us are pastors. But we love the church.
DOM: Oh, for sure.
VIJAY: I think it's one of things I appreciate about our conversations over the years is we love talking about the church, and it's worth fighting for, thinking about, and wrestling with. I always come away from our conversation feeling inspired. I'm challenged, thinking about new things practically helped in that, and that's really what we're hoping for.
DOM: And I think we feel the pain. The pain that people, the confusion people have about the church. Why do we even need the church?
VIJAY: Yeah. So that was part of the the seed of the idea for this podcast was, let's extend some of these conversations because we're probably not the only ones feeling these things, wrestling with these things, and we feel like this is a critical moment for the church. And in our last few episodes we unpacked some of the reasons for that. But for this conversation, Dom, when you think about some of the words that are, that are hot, important, frequently used in our culture. Really in every sphere of where any kind of group or gathering community of people is concerned. The words are acceptance and belonging.
DOM: They're hot.
VIJAY: I feel like in one sense our culture has never talked about it more than now, and that there are more options and places where people can belong to sports teams, and clubs, and memberships, or online chat rooms, and lots of places where you're interacting with people and whatever. So that the desire for it is strong, and yet it feels like, how do I get the pieces together and all of these different ways? Great Britain appointed a minister in the government, a minister of loneliness.
DOM: Yeah, to address.
VIJAY: Yes. They used to have the elderly population that had the highest sense of isolation, loneliness. Now they're seeing amongst late teens and early twenties higher incidences of feeling [lonely]. So you have this urgency of belonging, and even the opportunity, but then why the isolation and feeling alone in that. So there's more to this conversation that I think as the church we go well, we have good news to offer into this conversation, but there's more to it than just, hey, let's welcome everyone and come on, and let's be here, belong here…If that doesn't work for you, come here. What do you think is underneath this Dom, that will be helpful to tease out, so that we know, what does it mean for us to facilitate this, and to be a part of this as the Church?
DOM: Well, one thing for sure is that we're seeing that digital connection doesn't equal community. That even though a young generation has a lot of tools where we're connecting, that's not enough. And so one of the things that might help us to maybe separate in our minds is the difference between acceptance and belonging, and that they're not the same ideas. I mean, they're both closely connected to the church and how we speak about the church. But I think from the scriptures, and what we see Jesus doing, there's a sense that he's inviting people to feel that they can kind of come close and be part of the Kingdom. And even as I'm sharing this, I want to always use the word belonging, right? But the truth is that they're accepted as disciples who are going to follow Jesus.
VIJAY: As they are.
DOM: As they are, you know. But then there's going to be pivotal moments where the grace of God finds you in that moment. And Jesus reminds you that although you've been accepted, you can't stay the way you are. He has something much more beautiful for that. And I hope we can talk a little bit about this, how the sacramental space of baptism, or these special practices of formation are so important to the life of the Church. And again, many of those have been almost lost or secondary or optional in a digital age. So we're using a lot of these words that everybody uses without realizing their Christian sense, I guess I could say.
VIJAY: And in fact, this distinction between acceptance and belonging is not just parsing of words. This becomes really important. It's actually clear on, what are we trying to do? On the one hand, as the community of faith and modeling the way of Jesus, live in the way of Jesus, this radical acceptance, this invitation, because that's how we come close. Let anyone who's thirsty - Jesus stands up at the temple - the Feast of Tabernacles - that anyone who is thirsty come.
DOM: Well, think of Peter. He needs a vision from God. To say there's a new acceptance now, that you have to work out, that he didn't get it.
VIJAY: He's like, oh, now I understand. He spent so much time with Jesus, and he still didn't get it. So there's this acceptance, but the acceptance is the invitation to then, experience belonging, which is, you said in an earlier conversation, it's not a feeling.
DOM: Belonging is not a feeling. No, it can't be, because there's going to be so many moments in our life where we don't feel just a fun sense, that we agree or I think of other words that we associate with belonging, like we're the same, you know, or we're on the same page or we don't disagree. All of those things really have to get worked out. And they get worked out slowly as we mature, as we realize that someone else's perspective is better than mine, you know? And so you enter that space. And for the earliest Christians, I think they realize that in their Jewish heritage, you know, they have moments of this. But really clearly in the first century, there's a sense that baptism is that moment, where they realize, I'm not only accepted, but I need a special grace that is made available through this body, through Jesus, that's going to help me become someone else now.
VIJAY: That's key because you could sort of go - okay acceptance... and when you talk about, I need other people, that's diversity. We need diversity. And yes, the Christian community is marked by diversity, but becoming…
DOM: That’s different.
VIJAY: Belonging and becoming are so tied together. The acceptance is, come as you are, but you're not going to stay as you are.
DOM: No, you can't. And actually you don’t want to. Because when you get a glimpse of Jesus, you're like, I'm fully alive when I'm more like Jesus.
VIJAY: Well, I actually think that actually taps into the human desire we all have. We actually all want both. I want people to accept me as I am, because I have my own battle with shame and like the psychological impairment of sin. Right. And the human consciousness of shame. Right. The nakedness.
DOM: Disordered.
VIJAY: Adam and even covering up right away, is this picture of like, I'm not comfortable with who I am, this shame. So acceptance brings me out of that. But I also know I'm not who I want to be yet. There's this sense in me, of like wanting to become more. This idea of growth. We've talked about how we can just personalize this and go self-actualization, I'm going to figure out how to grow myself when I…
DOM: Wellness machine - it’s a billion dollar industry. So we have to be careful because we don't want people to hear this as just some moral tips. No, there's a supernatural grace that only is available to us in Christ.
VIJAY: In Christ's body, that we actually need a community to be formed. So I would love to just spend a bit of time as we talk about this, because I think it actually helps us make sense of things, like you mentioned already, Baptism, and helps us make sense of sacraments. It helps us make sense of how we deal with sin in our own lives, in each other's lives. It helps us make sense of like, what am I saying yes to? And that actually I need a moment where I am saying yes to. The analogy that always comes up for me, is marriage. There's something about a moment where a couple is making vows to each other. Ridiculous statements.
DOM: You're like, you’re never going to do that. No, no.
VIJAY: And I remember my dad saying something beautiful to me at our wedding. He's like, The couple doesn't keep the vows. The vows keep the couple.
DOM: Oh, it's powerful.
VIJAY: You grow into, hopefully, living out and becoming someone who is faithful and unconditionally loving and sees past the brokenness and the painful stuff.
DOM: Forgiving. Yes, forgiving.
VIJAY: But you aren't that on the day. You’ve vowed to become that way, in fact, is what happens. And hopefully, that intense experience of community helps you become that person.
DOM: Yeah, that's beautiful.
VIJAY: It's not lost on us, it shouldn't be, that Jesus calls himself the bridegroom. The Church is the bride, and heaven is described as the wedding feast.
DOM: The ultimate. The celebration.
VIJAY: The final union, and that somehow we are being prepared as a bride, to become people who can live in this covenant relationship with God. So how does that change how we see the Church, if that's what we're talking about?
DOM: I think one of the things we want to remember is that, for our listeners, maybe for some people, the belonging and that pain is connected to having been part of a church, and they used to trust, they used to feel accepted and part of that, and then there was a violation that took place where they're disconnected from that. In my context, I think of Quebec, or I think of the secular spaces that we're going to be stepping into as the church. Many people don't have those stories. They have no church hurt. They have stories that they've read, but it doesn't really apply to them personally. And I think we have to get honest about that. There's something about betrayal in the context of this covenant community of the church. The same way, would be like a marriage. In this covenant is a betrayal that feels different than just my friend hurting me, or I don't talk to that person anymore. Yeah, right. Versus a spouse who, like.
VIJAY: Is a deep betrayal.
DOM: It’s a deep betrayal, and it's a deep woundedness. And I think one of the things we hope that listeners catch is that it's true that there's a deep kind of pain that happens, like there's a woundedness about this community, but also the healing that we long for can only happen in that community as well. We're not wounded by the church and then find healing alone. We’re wounded in community, but we also realize that health and healing happens when we find a healthy community, or when we become people who create a space that's healthy enough for others to find healing there, too.
VIJAY: So this is the interesting dynamic that we need to not just communicate and help people understand, because as you said, for people who haven't, who have no experience of the church. So they would probably, hopefully in the best sense, see the acceptance first. And they would assume that means belonging. And then all of a sudden you run into a formation issue right, going wait, what do you mean I can't do that? Or that behavior is whatever, or those people are getting baptized or communion. How does all this work? We can almost feel like a bait and switch where we haven't communicated like this is about becoming someone new. It needs to be a normal part of how we talk and not just for new people, for everybody. For everyone to think like this is a community that's going to change you because you're accepted as you are, but you're not left as you're as you are. And so all of the things we're doing in the Church and what we call things like structures and whatever, that sometimes you go, oh, do we really need that anymore? Do anything to that? They are the things that actually help that create the formation. It's an oversimplified analogy and used a lot of times, but this idea of a trellis to support something that needs to grow. Yeah, because without that it just kind of goes.
DOM: Random on the ground.
VIJAY: Right. And so the point is life, formation.
DOM: Point is not the trellis.
VIJAY: No. I mean, the dominant metaphor in Christian spirituality, the writers of the Scriptures use is a tree. That is itself a structure tapped into a system that allows for what - growth. This idea that, like I have a 17 year old, my oldest right now, the day he was born, I remember my parents phoning. And you know, they're like, What happened? So you're saying, well, he was 8 lbs…. But when my dad phones today and says, how’s Noah? I don't go, well he was 8 lbs, and he wants to know what he’s doing today, the implication is yes new life, but growth. You have matured as a person. That maturity cannot happen by yourself. You can't make yourself mature. It happens in community. So if growth is only meaningful, in fact, we would consider it a tragedy. Yeah. If you know early parents who have kids early on, what are you looking at? You're looking at all the growth indicators or health. So we know this in biotic life. This is true in the life of the church.
DOM: Yeah. And I think this is, again, one of the challenges that we picked up on the previous episode, that if the formation of a person into the way of Jesus is just highly spiritualized, then you don't know what's going on in my heart. And people said this to me all the time, you know, like, you can't judge me. You don't know what's going on in my heart, and in my heart I'm close to the Lord. It's almost like there's no indicators that we should be looking for, and we have no right to even suggest that a person who has been following Jesus for ten years should be more generous than you are. And like trying to think of it, I think what is right. Is it okay that a person has been in church for 20 years, yet can’t pray with somebody.
VIJAY: Yeah.
DOM: That seems like, I don't have a guide for this, but it seems like something's up right? Like this is important. So how can I help? I don’t want to shame you. How can we help you be comfortable in praying for someone who maybe says, Can you pray for me? And I think we've made it so internalized - that I'm growing by myself, and you don't have a right to ask me what that is, that now it's like I just want to feel accepted, and I want to feel like you're okay with me deciding where I'm at. Yeah, that doesn't happen.
VIJAY: Well, and I think this actually recasts the spiritual practices in life, because if salvation is simply like, hey, you're saved, you're going to heaven, you're accepted as you are, whatever. When we've emphasized the gospel like that, we don't know what to do with Christians behaving badly. Or people who are not being formed.
DOM: Not only that - we should just expect that after we say yes to Jesus, he should just kill us because we're not useful for anything, because we're not supposed to be formed for anything. And I'm thinking that would make sense if that's what happened to people. But we died to ourselves, to enter some new life, to live a new life. And the joy of living that life is beautiful. I think the other thing too, that we want to talk about maybe just a bit deeper, is a theological problem that's here. And it just kind of just came to me. It's the idea that for so many people, this conversation goes into a part of their brain, which is we're trying to merit our faith, we're trying to earn our salvation, we're trying to do these things to prove that we're meritorious, like, you know. And so I think we want to be very careful that the church has been very conscious of how we are longing to be formed in the way of Jesus, because Grace has already found us, number one. And it's a transformation that is shaped by grace. So even that but also the great Dallas Willard had a great phrase for this, right?
VIJAY: I was literally just going to quote him.
DOM: Well, it's just he has a profound phrase that he uses - that the Christian is against earning, not effort. Right. We're not earning our way, but there's a particular effort that we celebrate.
VIJAY: And the other thing he mentions is, we love that Matthew 11, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest, Jesus isn't really talking about people who are tired. He was talking about his yoke of teaching, and learn my way of life. And Willard points out Jesus never expected us to just be like him. In the moment of temptation. I can resist in the moment of conflict, I can bite my tongue. In the moment of need, I can be generous.
DOM: It’s not just about magic…..
VIJAY: No, that we actually have to adopt his way of life, to become someone like him. This formation is built into what it means to say yes to Jesus in the first place. And I think that makes me also realize, okay, why does he form this community? Why doesn't he just do all the work by himself? And we get the superstar accounts of Jesus in his life. He's constantly bringing the disciples into teaching, sending them out. There's this group that's forming…
DOM: And even after he's gone, they're going to have to keep.
VIJAY: They have to keep working this out, which is so many of the New Testament letters. It makes me think, Don, that I need to realize that I'm saying yes to a community, in a covenant type vow, where I promise to be a part of your formation in my, and and I'm expecting you to be a part of mine, together. When we take communion, it's one loaf, like we're sharing Christ together. It's a reminder I'm not by myself. And when we do baptism, when I watch a new baptism, I relive my own. And I remember, and it's them saying, I'm a part of you now, and us, the community saying, yes, you are a part of us. Now we’re renewing our vows.
DOM: Yeah, it's beautiful.
VIJAY: To help each other become like Christ, collectively. So let's talk about that. Even in the area of sin. When sin shows up in our lives how does community formation work? Because, like you said, we can have this, don't judge me - you don't know what's in my heart. I'm going to deal with it in my own way...
DOM: Sin is too powerful for us to think we can deal with it on our own. I think it's really profound because, again, if I go back to people in a secular culture, people who are not Christians, one of the things that will keep them most away from saying yes to Jesus in the fullest way of the Church is because they see Christians who are not formed, you know, as our worst apologetic, unformed Christians. And we don't mean people who are perfect. No, we're just people who don't even long to be shaped in ways…
VIJAY: Like the scriptures say a form of godliness, but no power, or the religion Jesus called it like whitewashed tombs or whatever. It’s this whole idea…
DOM: And so many people in the world are like, we are nervous about the judgmental way that religion seeps into the world. And they don't mean don't talk about sin, they just mean if you're talking about sin, can you show us how you've been set free of that said, that's what they want to.
VIJAY: It’s the worst kind of Christian, is the uninformed Christian. So in a sense though, the culture wants to say hey, remove all the barriers, don't call people to a new way of life, don't ask them to die to self. But actually the culture at the same time wants us to be formed, because the greatest gift the Church has for the world is a transformed community.
DOM: It's a witness of a different way of life.
VIJAY: I can't remember. I think it was my Dad who said to me, that the greatest gift you're going to give…
DOM: Your Dad sounds like a smart guy.
VIJAY: He’s a good dude. The greatest gift you can give to your church is your own transformed life. I'm sure he was quoting somebody else that he read. That's what it means to be a spiritual leader in the Church, is my own transformation in the community, on display as you see me, hopefully growing out of my immaturity, and my problems and whatever. Pastors don't stay around long enough in churches to do that.
DOM: No, it's true.
VIJAY: Or people don't.
DOM: Or people just expect the pastor to be some superhero that has it all together. And we've said this before, but we are always witnesses before we are apologists. In a sense, we're always witnesses of a new way of life. That is our primary defense of the faith. Right. Versus it doesn't matter who I am, let me defend the faith with six tips. Your witness and your formation will shut that down so fast. It is the apologetic cry. Now we do need articulate explanations of why we believe certain things, but that feels like such a secondary thing. And I think in our culture, even in churches, there's a fascination of just being people who can defend the faith, even almost in a strange way thinking we're defending God, as if he needs defending. But what we're doing is we're making a defense for why this way of life is the only way to live. And that is done by saying, I'm kind of following Jesus myself.
VIJAY: In a world where propositional truth, and ideas, and evangelism, if that's what that is, it’s gone.
DOM: It's finished.
VIJAY: The life, the transformed life of a community together. That makes me think that as we as pastors and leaders think about, even when we serve communion, when we do a baptism, what are we saying to the church that it is? How do we help people realize these are vows made to God, with God, and to a community. This is the beginning, to say you're not going to be the same person five, ten years from now. And if there are areas of your life that continue to remain unchanged, it's a call to go, wait a second, Why is that? Why am I not being formed in this way? And even as Pastors, going why are huge chunks of our people still…? Because someone said if one or two people are doing a certain thing, you can blame them. If a whole community is doing something wrong, the leader has to ask themselves, what's going on here?
DOM: The water stream underneath has something wrong with it.
VIJAY: What's going on? What is it about this? It's allowing this sort of aspect of immaturity to continue on in our own community, and how are we culpable in that, as pastors? Leaders are like, what are we inviting people to, in terms that like we're saved to become people, not just saved from.
DOM: Something.
VIJAY: Sin and death or hell down the road? Yeah.
DOM: As a pastor for years now, I think of so many people who almost have been taught that some of these grace-filled moments in the life of the church (communion or baptism) are just optional. And that's on us. And just to see this, theologically for some of our listeners who know some of the theology, these are some of the things we fought the most about. We've betrayed one another most when we've said, you don't take communion like us, you're not a Christian, you don't do baptism exactly like us, you're not a Christian. And the world, they're watching us. And I often see this in a secular society. Christianity will continue to be seen as a pluralistic religion because we have so many different expressions of Christianity, that we've lost some of the most important places where we are united. There's special kind of moments of grace and God's presence in these practices, that attacks at the root. They just cut at the stem, and information is that. It's a sense of saying, God, we need help to not believe the lie that we can handle sin on our own, number one, because again, that's the individual piece. Yeah, you might have some problems. You're not perfect, but you know, you can figure this out on your own. No, no, no. We can't. And part of what sin is separating us from that community. That healing can be found, Right? So we're wounded by community, but we're also healed in community. And you see Satan finding Jesus alone. You know, he’s pulled out from where he's going to be, and right away there's an orientation. Like Peter, he's caught in this moment of alone, he's shifted in that moment. So how do we do that better? You know, by acknowledging our need for each other and by, again, not tricking people to believe that belonging is just a feeling of hanging out with people that are the same. I come back to a story in our context. It's a very complicated story of someone that was caught…they just admitted a horrible sin that had happened. And I found out about it. I realized it was one of those things that I needed to share with our elders. And as we were talking about this, I had a moment where this person, because they were involved in ministry, in a public sense, they understood that they needed to step down. And that happened. And I thought about all the systems that are in place behind the scenes for that to happen. They've confessed. They're in a kind of a season of repentance. They understand that this is really painful.
VIJAY: And small groups of people are coming around them within that, not everybody needs to know.
DOM: Not everybody needs public exposure.
DOM: And this person kept saying to me, I feel nervous coming to church because people know. And I kept saying to them, nobody knows. And I said, this is what sin does. Sin makes you paranoid. Sin makes you paranoid that grace and love in a deep season of shame is not possible, because everybody's talking. And so as we went through this process, I remember a big step in this whole belonging in a much deeper way than just like I feel like this is belonging. But I remember when it was time for them to return back to start to serve, right after that process, there were some people that were like, you know, that person was removed because they had sinned. Like there was already a judgmental thing that was there. And I said, listen, part of the life of the church is that we acknowledge when they've been fully forgiven of these things and they've submitted to the beauty of God's healing, and we want to see them restored as a language, right? We want full restoration and full participation of belonging, even after those moments. And I think so many of us want the end picture of that, but we want none of the systems that are behind the structure. And that's why acceptance is so appealing, because acceptance takes away all of the systems that makes belonging real. That makes belonging visible. That makes belonging life giving. That makes belonging filled with signs of healing. And instead we're like, that sounds hard and long and painful. So let's just opt for feeling accepted. That's not where formation happens.
VIJAY: When you talk about the fact that it is long and hard and painful, the easiest thing is to leave.
DOM: To run and to run. And people feel this all the time.
VIJAY: Or just stay enough on the periphery that nobody would really know or press in enough to get close. I think what I’ve realized over the years myself was, hey, there may come a day when you have to leave this Church because…whatever. You’ll be tempted to do it far earlier than you need to because everything in us wants to cut short the process of refinement. One of my friends who's a teacher says anyone who says they like learning has either never learned anything, or is a liar. Everything in you resists the change.
DOM: Reforming
VIJAY: Even within our neural pathways. Well, how much more in community when the vulnerability….As soon as sin comes into the world. What do they do? They hide. They hide from God, from each other.
DOM: Jesus has to go find somebody who's lost, and they've already disconnected from the community.
VIJAY: Yeah. So this pattern of like coming back, bringing home, inviting in. The prodigal son picture is about the father pleading with both the irreligious son and the hyper religious son. Come in, don't stand outside. Don't stay outside, either because you're ashamed of yourself or you're angry with other people. Right? That's the older brother, younger brother. So I think we just recognize within ourselves we are fighting our own inclinations. I think even the incredible things I have learned. We’ve talked about sin, but there's other things that get formed in you when you're in community. I feel like I'm someone who I would say in large part I have not experienced much suffering or major loss in my life, even physical sickness. And so I was very much just naive. And I would say my theology of suffering was very shallow. Do you know how it's changed Dom, from people in my congregations, who invited me into their suffering, and not just from through a year, but people who battled through things that that tore down my understanding of God's answers to prayer, what faith looks like, and I literally have said to them, and then they're still in our church. You've taught me so much. Thank you for inviting me into your journey as I had to wrestle with. We sometimes cut short that process of growth. We give each other quick answers to, “oh, God’s got a reason for everything. God's in control.” Oh, gosh, all this stuff.
DOM: Don't get me started bro.
VIJAY: I'm uncomfortable with how long you're suffering is persisting. How lack of answers to prayer. We cut short. That distancing can be so even that aspect that has anything to do with sin as we invite each other into that to carry each other's burdens. I'm formed, I’m not the same person I was. I have a hole in my heart now of a wound that I've been that others asked, Would you carry this with me? And even though I didn't go first and through it firsthand, I got close to it. It changed me. That can’t happen apart from community. When Peter says, you know, share the burdens in love. Bear with one another. So I'm just about sin. It's this long, hard grind.
DOM: And particular sins are that way, right? Obviously in God's eyes, sins are the same, a sin a sin. It's a violation of the order. But then there's always some sense, I mean some unfortunate ways of life, whether we like it or not, disqualify us from leadership. We have to get that. Like if I choose to violate my marriage, it's a ripple effect that's different than, oh I stole a pencil, I made a mistake. They are different things. I know to God sin is sin, and it is, but how that gets worked out in a community is very different because of our humanity. I also think that belonging, to go back to the image of Jesus. We love this parable, we share about it all the time. He leaves the 99 to go get the one. I think for a Western thinker, who again is going to wear those individualistic eyes, the end of that story is Jesus sitting down with a sheep by the water. Jesus and the one. And everybody in the ancient world would have known that the end of that story is that one being reunited with the 99. Being brought back. And it's a profound image of what real belonging is. Not that you've been lost, or you didn't feel that you belong there, acceptance of. But let me just show you. Let me kind of come around here and these people here, they're going to learn what it means that you're a part of being this family. So we need to teach people how to read the Bible in a more beautiful way. If we're going to touch this issue.
VIJAY: And I think just to kind of put a point on it, it is both an incredible gift to individuals to know that there's a community that has pledged to be a part of your formation, like you don't have to do this alone. In fact, you can't. It is also, as we said, our gift to the world. Yeah. That in the church you will be transformed.
DOM: People are becoming.
VIJAY: It’s a blessing. So that even if my friends wouldn't ever want to come to my church, they're really glad that people do. Even if they don't want to follow Jesus, they're really glad that I do. That the world begins to go we need. And that was the witness of the Roman emperors in the first century.
DOM: These Christians are up to something.
VIJAY: They're living better than our own Roman citizens. What's going on?
DOM: To tie a bow on this, and Dallas Willard again nails this, that there is a consequence to not deciding to be formed in the way of Jesus, because something else will form you then.
VIJAY: You're not choosing non-formation. Exactly.
DOM: Nobody chooses - I'm not going to be a disciple of Jesus. That means I can do nothing. You're always formed by something. Jesus just, we really believe, gave us the most beautiful formation ever because, it's rooted not only in the fact that he's true, but I think it's rooted in the fact that it's also good for us. And I think for years, part of the life of the church for people are listening. They've connected the truth as well. Jesus is the truth, Right? And we preach the truth. We have the truth without helping people understand. Well, you know why it's so true? Because it's also good. And it's also the way we were meant to live. And I think we might have to gently start to move the pendulum that way, to start talking about why is the way of Jesus so good for us. It's also because it's true. But people just heard us almost yelling or preaching that way, that we forgot to say, wait a second, it's true, because it's very good. And that's kind of the great image of Scripture that God created things to be good, and they're being restored to that.
VIJAY: Yeah, I think one final word, Dom. You mentioned earlier that the church hurt runs so deep because it is betrayal or disappointment within a covenant community. So I think an encouragement to those of us that have felt like, man, I've experienced that. It takes courage to return.
DOM: To give church a chance again.
VIJAY: Yeah. To go back, as you said, to the place where it may not be the same church or whatever. There's wisdom in that, but that healing is not going to come by being on my own, and that the courage is to not say that was fine or okay, I'm just going to move on. In order to actually have healing from that, I need to find a place in a community where that can begin to help in my own journey of formation healing, to continue to grow. And so just an encouragement and a prayer for those of us that would say, yeah, that's where I am, that hopefully in some way this is an inspiration to say, okay, maybe I need to return, so that the healing and formation process in my life can continue.
DOM: And our prayer is that people just follow God's leading in that. That there's also a moment where they can even speak about that in a way that helps others as well. Sometimes hearing someone's story, and how God brought them through painful betrayal, and yet the grace of God found them there. It's the image of Jesus, finding you in these dark moments of pain. He will always lead you back to his family, to those who are ready to welcome us. It's beautiful.
DOM: A lot of goodies bro.
VIJAY: It’s good man.
DOM: Hopefully helps a lot of people as they listen. Belonging, acceptance. Not really the same thing - the way we thought.