At some point, most people who’ve drifted from their faith community can name the moment it happened, and more often than not, it’s usually about the way someone made them feel on an ordinary Sunday–as opposed to a dissonance in theology. 

Jesus doesn’t let us off the hook on this. To acknowledge him here on earth is to live in a way that makes him visible in the people around us. This shows up most clearly in ordinary moments: when someone we don’t particularly care for gets something wrong, and we have to decide whether to help them anyway or make sure everyone in the room knows who got it right.

The person distributing that judgment rarely saw themselves as pushing anyone away. 

Most of us don’t.

The decision for “un-grace”, made consistently in this less hospitable direction, is part of why pews grow sparse. We tend to look outward for explanations, but the harder question is whether the people who stopped coming were pushed out by the way we–the ones in the pews–treated them.

Faith is what people experience when they’re around us, as much as what we hold privately.

This week’s invitation: Think of one person who’s drifted from the Church. Live your faith well enough this week that, if they were watching, they’d find something worth coming back to.