What would happen if we decided to give up going to church and decided to be the church? Would we find ourselves surrounded by people who look like us, behave like us, believe like us and belong like us? This article on the Emergent Village webpage has me thinking about what it would look like for me. Jared Enyart and his wife for the last two years have given up going to church – unless you consider church breakfast with a dozen or so homeless people under a bridge. They have begun calling what they do, “Messy Sunday.” Eating with people who smell like urine, swear, teach children how to throw sand at others is messy, but the Enyarts have realized that kingdom living in the steps of the king gets messy sometimes. Or as Jeff Walling sometimes puts it, “If things didn’t get messy, we wouldn’t need a Messiah. It’s a bold move. One that requires a lot of compassion and faith. It doesn’t take a long look at Jesus to realize that sometimes His work is going to require us to roll up our sleeves and get a little bit messy.

~JK