Our church is currently working through the “More to Life” study by Dennis Pethers (a phenomenal study, by the way). In the first session, Dennis tells the story of a homeless man who comes into a church to worship. Needless to say, he is not dressed to the nines, has not bathed in quite some time and probably smells bad. One of the leaders of the church walked up to him and asked him to leave because he “wasn’t dressed appropriately.”

Shocked? I was, too. I could not believe someone in a church leadership position would ever ask someone to leave because he didn’t “look the part.” I thought to myself, that would never happen at our church. Then, Scott, our Discipleship Pastor, shared a question his wife, Veridee, had posed after watching the video.

“You wouldn’t ask him to leave. But, would you sit next to him?”

Wow! Talking about taking it to the next level. It is so easy to think our church has the right attitude toward those who are outside our walls. We think we have it all together. But, do we really? Are we really willing to put ourselves, individually, in uncomfortable or unfamiliar waters if it means just one person could be reached…just one person could come to know Jesus?

Guess what…Jesus did.