BONUS BLOG: the church she’d been waiting for

With gratitude to Christina Lorey —

In my church, we often sing a song called “All Are Welcome,” but sadly, that’s not true. Catholicism excludes MANY people.

But in other denominations, that’s thankfully changing…

In a tiny Kansas town, Rev. Lora Andrews posed a question to her congregation:

“What systems today would have Jesus flipping tables?”

Immigration raids, said one attendee.

Health care costs, said another.

“Billionaires,” said a third.

“Tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy? He would not stand for that,” said another.

The question was an opportunity for Andrews, an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, to focus her small but growing flock on the ways that their new congregation, which she calls Roots, can be an oasis of progressive values.

Roots goes beyond merely welcoming young, liberal, diverse worshipers, Andrews said.

The church strives to make their congregants’ experiences, including acknowledgment of harms the church may have caused in the past, central to its services.

Christa Cooper, who was raised Presbyterian, married and divorced a man before coming out as queer at age 45. At the first Roots service she attended, Cooper said she wept as congregants sang along to Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.”

“This is the church l’ve been waiting for my whole life,” she said.

: The Washington Post

— What say you? RSVP