In these emails about church, I’ve said more than once that the early church was born and thrived during a long season where everyone loathed their government, when most of the population was intimidated and crushed economically. There’s some beautiful secret in that for us, especially in our culture where so many avoid organized religion and don’t think church matters.

Covid was a different yet still challenging season. When many churches closed or masked, I had friends who said this was the devil’s work trying to kill Christianity. We found the opposite to be the case. We made deep connections online, and with people in other cities, states and countries. We missed being together – reminding us how much we love church. We met in back yards. We raised $47 million to expand a building we weren’t able to enter.

And I loved the yard signs. As I’d bike around, I’d see a house with “Myers Park United Methodist worships here,” and signs from other churches – some that are still up even now! Church, at its best, happens in the church building of course, but also out there, in homes, on the streets, in businesses, uptown, when you travel. We who are the church are the church wherever we find ourselves, wherever God has taken us.

It’s not a matter of being sweet or pious. We always have our eyes and ears cocked for ways we might be helpful or holy, even “missionaries for love in a culture of contempt.” We are good listeners, with mercy as our default. We check our thoughts, words, actions and motives against Paul’s great checklist, the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, self-control.

And we take immense pride in and yet are never satisfied with our church’s ongoing partnerships with agencies who do full-time on our behalf what we can’t get done ourselves: housing, teaching, feeding people, providing medical care and resources geared toward the upward mobility of others. We even dare to be advocates out there, voters and letter-writers, knowing the church and the people of God carry (together!) a lot of influence with policies and governments – which can be in sync with our Christian endeavors, yet often throw up road blocks making our work and objectives tougher.

I love being United Methodist, although many other faith traditions have similar origins, histories, and ongoing missions. We were founded by the brothers Wesley, who met with others in small groups for prayer, study and mutual accountability, but then were out in the streets, visiting in prisons and among the poorest of the poor, providing aid and friendship. To be a Methodist back then, and ever since, means to have that dual identity: a person of prayer, and a person who wonders how to actually be the answer to our own prayers and to the prayers of those who are desperate.

There is a contorted view of Christianity in our culture that is prideful and angry, blaming those who face daunting challenges or are in trouble, haughtily judging them, either bored or cheering when assistance to those in need is cut off. You might say I am judging them! – but it’s a matter of discernment, and of simply being attentive and responsive to what we find plain as day in Scripture. Jesus was compassionate and welcoming to everyone – with the possible exception of those who had plenty and smugly passed judgment on and refused to help those who didn’t.

I admire Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s approach as a pastor. He and his leaders gathered around a map of Goldsboro, pinpointed the church, and drew a two-mile radius around their church and asked what Jesus was asking of them when he declared his and their mission in Luke 4 – to set the oppressed free. Who’s oppressed near us and why? What enslaves people? Alcohol? Work pressures? Outsized expectations? Cruel government? Lousy work environment? Racial prejudice? Then what can we do for and with them?

Church is in here, and out there. Probably the truest measure of whether we’re doing it right in here is whether we are bearing fruit out there.