John Burke leads a great church in Austin Texas. www.gatewaychurch.com. He has also written a fine book called: No Perfect People Allowed.As you can guess his premise is that the church should be a place of welcome for anyone regardless of what they have been through or what they are struggling with. Gateway is full of Christ seekers and Christ followers who have been through, or are experiencing, all kinds of difficulties.
His challenge that maybe Jesus would retell the story of the Good Samaritan using instead the Parable of the Good Gay makes you think.
The basic question then becomes: How welcoming is your church?
Burke also sites research conducted by Christan Schwartz who studied 1000 successful churches and discovered the following common characteristics:
-empowering leadership
-gift-orientated ministry
-spiritual passion
-organisational structure
-holistic small groups
-loving relationships
-need-orientated evangelism
-inspiring worship services
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