Our Church is Messed Up

Are you looking for a place to worship? You may want to stay away from our church. 

We’re a mess.

We have unwed mothers, divorced men, and non-American citizens.

We have depressed folks, physically disabled folks, and folks with problems so deep you’ll never hear the end of them.

We have believers in God, non-believers-in-God-but-curious, and those who don’t know what to believe.

We have married couples who are sickeningly happy, married couples in turmoil and married couples who look like they are sickeningly happy but are really in turmoil.

Some of us think the Bible is a book and some of us think the Bible is a smart-phone app.

Some of us have money. More of us don’t. 

We have recovering alcoholics, recovering drug-addicts, and recovering divas.

We are Republicans. We are Democrats. We are Libertarians. We are Other.

We are pro-life. We are pro-choice.

We are heterosexual. We are homosexual. 

We never start on time.

We are an up, down, sideways, crazy, confused, disoriented, discombobulated, group of misfits who can really only agree on two things:

We are a mess.

We love Jesus. 

(Okay, that second one is mainly the believers talking. But the not-sure-yet folks get it.)

We who come together know there are suffering people in our communities and in our world. Because Jesus came to first teach us a servant’s nature and then to die for us, we know we’ve been called to go into the world and act like servants as best we can.

Sometimes we get it right.

Sometimes we screw it up, because, well…we’re a mess.

If you live in Portland, 

if you are looking for a place to hang out with broken people,

if you are searching, 

if you are a mess,

come hang out with us.

If you are looking for people just like you, 

or folks who come in a pretty package,

or have high expectations,

you will be happier somewhere else.

This is a love letter to my church – the people of Kaleo.