Welcome to Thriving in Exile. You may have subscribed recently, or you may be here because of your subscription to the Lincoln Park Herald. In any case, I’m glad you’re here.
You may be reading this as a follower of Jesus, wondering what has happened to your world. You may have grown up in a time or a place that Christianity was taken for granted. As you look around now, you may feel embattled, fearful even, that everything is changing.
You may be reading this as one who is suspicious of followers of Jesus. You may view all such as judgmental anachronisms. You may wonder how anyone could believe such nonsense. Or you may have thought such in the past, but you may now experience little nudges that tell you something is missing. You may harbor some hope that Jesus may hold some answers, however imperfectly his followers live out that hope.
To either of these, and to those reading just out of curiosity: welcome. I’ve been there.
Where are we going?
Over the next few posts I will share some of my back story. For right now, though, whichever description fits you best: don’t give up.
We live in a time when church attendance is falling off and even (maybe especially) those folks who grew up in church distrust it. It is a post-Christian time in America, post-truth, post-trust, post-community. This is not just about church. As Robert Putnam has pointed out in his book Bowling Alone, Americans generally have ceased taking part in community activities of all sorts. VFWs, PTAs, Lion’s Clubs, and Toastmasters all struggle with declining numbers.
We’ll explore a bit about that, but our purpose isn’t to dwell on such things. Rather, I would like to do two things with Thriving in Exile:
I would like to encourage those of you who have rejected Christianity to consider that you may have missed something important. If you have a serious illness such as cancer and have a bad experience with one (or more than one) doctor, you only hurt yourself if you reject the entire medical profession. Yes, there are hypocrites at church, because there are humans at church. There are many more imperfect people who imperfectly seek to follow Jesus. I’d like to encourage you to check it out. You may find a pleasant surprise.
I would also like to encourage those of us fellow imperfect followers of Jesus to support each other and encourage each other. We will not dig into doctrinal issues here, because lots of resources exist for that. Sorting those things out matters, and I don’t mean to imply they don’t. But in a post-Christian world that views us as mainly squabbling among ourselves. I think it’s worthwhile to remember Jesus never said his followers could be spotted by their doctrinal purity and accuracy. He said, “This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other” (John 13:35, NIV).
Right now, I plan to post one longer read and two shorter reads each week. But this is very much an evolving community, and I am open to input from you. We will adapt the frequency and length depending on a) your input, and b) what else is happening in my time-crunched life.
Next week: what do I mean by thriving in exile? Later this week: a couple of short bits of encouragement for the journey. I hope you will continue to check out where we’re going, but if you already know TiE is not for you, please unsubscribe with no hard feelings, only well wishes.