This Church is Big Enough for the Both of Us

I used to go to a church that, hmmm, how to say this...was very isolationist. Provincial. Well insulated. An island of sorts. Like no man is. That kind of thing. It was impressed on the congregation that it was THE church and the other ones just couldn't measure up. Those churches did things we would never do in ways that we would never do them if we ever did do them. The first few years I went there I often invited friends to come because the teaching was sound. After awhile I invited friends because I figured they needed a church as good as mine. And eventually I quit inviting friends because I was embarrassed at the arrogance of my church.

For a stack of reasons my family moved on from that church and I've noticed a change in my heart that wouldn't have been easily rendered had we stayed. I first noticed it when a very charismatic couple visited us. I was able to talk with the wife briefly and found just how different we were but saw a glimpse of how much they could add to our growth. And maybe we could do the same for them.
I've also found myself inviting friends, not because I thought that we had so much to offer them but because they had so much to offer us.
And an even weirder thing, I've been excited for friends who have left for a different church and for others whose ministry in their church is growing.
Admittedly, it is weird that this is even weird.

I want to spend time with fellow believers who might do things differently than I would, but whose goal is still Gods great glory. And I wouldn't be wrong to say that this new (to us) way of thinking is shared by our church and its leadership.
We come from and maintain a mindset rooted deep in the knowledge of Scripture but we haven't been the best at exercising that knowledge in the kind of love that Jesus was known for. We are willing and learning. We want you, brothers and sisters, to come alongside us. We are seeing where we have been weak. 
We are seeing that this Church is big enough for the both of us.

Now I know that some will see this as some white flag waving ecumenisism. I would have called it that several years ago. No, this is not that. I'm not offering to help set up chairs at a consortium of the maritally confused. Nor am I offering to open the doors for a prayer to the generic god of the deificly deficient. Rest at ease, we should keep this all in the Family, realizing that the family is, more (cough, cough) diverse than we might admit. That word is ours. We can use it.

I'm looking forward to seeing you at church on Sunday, in serving during the week, playing with our children, or on the front porch with a beer.