There are a few phrases that catch my attention every time I see them. "Come As You Are." "Everyone Belongs." "All Are Welcome."
They're good phrases. Hopeful phrases. The kind of words that make people feel like there might be a place for them. And maybe that's why they've stayed with me. Because the older I get, the more I find myself wondering whether the signs always match the experience.
Take "Come As You Are." At first glance, it sounds beautiful. It sounds like an invitation to stop pretending. To stop cleaning yourself up before walking through the door. To show up honestly, exactly as you are.
But somewhere along the way, I've started wondering if many churches have a second sentence attached to it that we don't see.
Come as you are... but don't stay that way.
Now, before anyone says it, I understand the argument. Growth is part of faith. None of us are finished. We all have things we need to work on, things we need to learn, and ways we need to grow. That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the difference between growing and conforming. The difference between becoming more fully yourself and becoming acceptable to the people around you.
I think "All Are Welcome" often carries that same invisible fine print. The words are printed in large letters for everyone to see. The conditions are written in invisible ink.
Most people never notice they're there. At least not until they discover they're the ones expected to change.
Because being welcomed into a building and being welcomed into a community aren't always the same thing. The real question isn't whether someone is allowed to walk through the door. The real question is what happens after they do.
Can they belong? Can they participate? Can they be themselves? Or do they eventually discover that belonging comes with conditions?
Those questions have been sitting with me for a long time. The more stories I've heard, the more difficult they've become to ignore.
For years, whenever I heard a church say, "All Are Welcome," I took them at their word. Why wouldn't I? If a church says something, I expect it to mean it. I expect those words to reflect not just what is printed on a sign, but what is practiced inside the building.
But lately I've found myself asking a different question:
Would everyone actually feel welcomed here?
The clearest example of that tension, at least for me, has been the way many churches treat LGBTQ people. Most churches would say LGBTQ people are welcome to attend. But attendance and belonging aren't always the same thing.
A person can be welcomed through the front door and still know there are places they will never be allowed to serve. They can be greeted warmly and still know there are parts of their life they must deny or keep hidden. They can be told they are loved while simultaneously being told that one of the most important relationships in their life is unacceptable.
The longer I've sat with this issue, the harder it has become for me to ignore what feels like a contradiction. We say everyone is welcome. We say come as you are. But for some people, those invitations come with conditions attached. Not conditions printed on a sign or listed on a website, but conditions they quickly learn through experience.
They're uncomfortable questions. But I think they're worth asking. Because when I look at the life of Jesus, I see someone who consistently moved toward the people others pushed away. I see someone who sat with people before they had everything figured out. I see someone who seemed far more interested in people.
And that makes me wonder if we've sometimes become more concerned with deciding who belongs than with helping people know they do.
Regardless of where we land, I think we owe people honesty. If a church says "All Are Welcome," then I think it's fair to ask what those words actually mean.
For me, one of the reasons this question has become so important is because my own views on LGBTQ people have changed significantly over the years. Not because of politics. Not because of culture.
Because I started asking questions. I started studying the passages I had always been taught settled the issue. And the deeper I dug, the less certain I became that the Bible was saying what I had always been told it was saying.
That journey deserves its own conversation. If you're interested in why my views changed and the conclusions I eventually came to, I've written a separate article that walks through the passages most often used in this discussion and why I no longer understand them the way I once did.
Because for me, this wasn't a political journey. It was a biblical one. For now, though, I keep coming back to the same question.
When someone pulls into the parking lot, walks through the doors, and reads the sign that says "All Are Welcome," what do they experience next?
Because ultimately, I don't think the sign is the test. The experience is. And if the experience doesn't match the sign, then maybe the conversation isn't about who is welcome. Maybe it's about whether we're willing to be honest about the fine print.