This blog post is a great read.

Part of my faith story is growing up in Anadarko, OK, a town with 41% white people and 41% Native Americans. I loved my small town church - a bunch of good, wonderful people - but we never did a thing with our Native American neighbors. “They had their churches; we have our churches.” Granted that America’s legacy of racism, genocide, and colonization is difficult for anyone to deal with (especially a small town church), I longed for a faith that took Jesus’ words a bit more seriously to love your neighbor as yourself.

This article hits the nail on the head. When we reduce our faith to only a private, isolated piety/set of practices, we lose what makes our faith significant in the first place. The question I’ve heard asked before at congregational transformation events - if your church got up and left town one day, would anyone in your community know? Another recent book (Candlelight) I read says that the church should be a gift to your community. Our hands and feet can become gifts to our neighbors, no matter where we are.

God IS love. So, love people, okay?