19/05/2026
I know that a lot of people travel to a particular church because “people there are like me.”
There’s a lot of people my age, or race or class or who worship like I do or whatever.
But I don’t want to go to a church where everyone is like me.
One of the things I love about my local church is that not everyone is like me.
I love that I’m in community with people of a completely different generation, different background, different ethnicity, different sexuality, different politics, different all kinds of things to me.
People I would never know or have anything to do with without this church.
And I love that I have to shake hands with the man I really don’t like and reconcile that his humanity is sacred too.
Difference isn’t a bad thing, it’s beautiful.
These relationships make me better. They enrich my life and help me to learn and grow.
Lucy Knight said “Community isn’t the same as assimilation. Diversity is beautiful. If we truly believe that each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made then we have to learn to see ourselves and others as God sees us. As unique, complex identities”
And I get that it can be difficult sometimes.
Sometimes it’s awkward to navigate.
But to borrow a phrase from our church’s patron St Augustine
“Solvitur ambulando”: it is solved by walking.
We work it out together.
