To do so would have been dangerous to my own soul because I would have believed that my truest self had arrived. Nothing would be further from the truth. My credentialed self would have arrived, but my true self would have remained lost. To wrap one’s identity in that which is fleeting is the beginning of the illusion. The truest profession you can have is your own self, with all the joys and flaws that come with it.

I want to make it clear that I have no problem with traditional local churches. Even though my own spiritual journey seems to be moving away from them, it might have never began without them. If the least that can said is that I gained an awareness of Jesus from those places, then that is enough. There may be no better foothold than that. No matter where our paths have taken us since then, many of us who have emerged from such spaces cannot deny we owe the traditional local c

If I had to describe this experience, or even define it now, I would say that church is the awareness of all people as image bearers of God, manifested in the intentional practice of God’s economy among them. The currency of this divine economy is love-given freely, not as transaction but as transformation, so that in each person, a creative personhood might be built up. One that reflects Christ while remaining wholly itself.