More griping about unwelcoming churches.

If this sounds like a rerun from last semester, it’s because I had a similar experience today. I went to Christian Life Center in Santa Cruz, where nobody said anything to me other than people I knew already, or people who had to because we were at that part in the service where people turn around and briefly greet one another. Oh, there was someone who offered me a bulletin, but that’s it.

I was sitting in Pizza My Heart after the service, thinking about this and realizing that, as a Christian, I am Jesus’s ambassador. Admittedly, I suck at it, but that has nothing to do with the reality of it. Now, consider what trouble Washington can get into with other countries if they refuse to acknowledge those countries’ ambassadors, no matter how much the ambassadors may suck at the job.

I’m not saying Jesus is going to smite them or anything; I just figure he’s displeased. You may recall how, in his parable about sheep and goats, he identifies with the least of his brothers (and I’m certainly not the greatest of them) to the degree that if you slight them, you slight him.

Then there’s how the non-Christians might react to similar treatment. You’ve likely seen the results—remember when you tried to tell them about Jesus and they told you that Christians are just "a bunch of stuck-up self-righteous a--holes?" How’d they come to the conclusion that we were stuck-up? Street corner bullhorn preachers may be self-righteous, and apologetics-pushers are all too frequently a--holes, but where does "stuck-up" come from? Obviously they went to church at some point and were ignored. So they’re gonna ignore Jesus right back.

I’m tempted to turn my experiences into an article about it for Santa Cruz Metro or one of the other local alternative papers and embarass the hell out of the local churches. Maybe it’ll wake them up, at least; they’re really blowing it. Or maybe I should go back to Catholicism or something. I dunno.