Kathryn, the_naptime_reader’s Reviews > Pure Scum: The Left-Out, the Right-Brained and the Grace of God > Status Update

The qualification to be in the church is to realize we are not qualified to be in church. I often tell people to stop looking for the perfect church if you are out there shopping around – because if you join it, you will wreck it! Better to throw your lot in with a bunch of people who know they are screwed up.

For those of us who claim Christ, maintaining a community within our own genetic families is a mission that never ends.

But true community begins only when Christians come together long enough to notice each other’s faults–and then stay together knowing those faults! It’s not that different from the togetherness we experience within a normal family or with close friends when we are committed to them no matter what may come…

In this life, we are guaranteed nothing, and if we take Jesus as our model–whose friends scattered right at the moment of his greatest need–then it’s reasonable to presume that some of us may have to walk the path of losing everything. In a very basic way, we just need to appreciate what is happening in the present. For now I have these friends. Today I am in this group of believers at this particular church.