Excerpt from Authentic Pursuit (Chapter 2)

“The first time Alicia came to church as an agnostic… she was wearing skintight, electric red pants. It was a big deal that she had even agreed to come to church in the first place, so I was nervous when we… walked in together through the front door. When the woman stationed near the…  sanctuary entrance saw the two of us, she made a snide remark about how Alicia was dressed inappropriately for church. It was frustrating and hurtful to me how someone who had no idea how long I had prayed and how many times I had begged my girlfriend to come to church could negatively affect her experience before she even walked through the door. Even though Jesus spent much of His time around prostitutes, tax collectors, sinners, thugs, and people we wouldn’t want our kids hanging out with, we [the church] had a bad habit of accepting people conditionally. The truth is irreligious people felt comfortable around Jesus. He radically accepted people from all walks of life and changed them from the inside out with love. But too many times as a church, if outsiders didn’t look like us, talk like us or act like us, we tended to withhold our acceptance of them until they got their act together. So naturally, new people who were different from us tended not to stick around, which really hindered us from being able to lead them to the Lord and see God do something miraculous in their lives. There was a definite divide between “insiders” and “outsiders,” ….

Irreligious people felt comfortable around Jesus. He radically accepted people from all walks of life.

Meanwhile, the crowds I was used to hanging out with were… artists, musicians, hipsters, loners, outsiders, and all of the “fringe” people who were never accepted by the rest of the world. They were deep-thinkers who asked hard questions. But who was going to take the gospel to a community so desperately different from… our own subculture? Where were the churches for those people? 

I didn’t see one. 

So I decided to start one. 

I decided to answer the call I felt God had put on my heart to start a church…  where irreligious people would feel welcomed and valued because they’ve been made in the image of God. A church where people didn’t just hear about the love and grace of God—they experienced the love and grace of God for themselves.”

—Excerpt from Chapter 2 of Authentic Pursuit by Corey Trimble with Josh Brooker

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