#35 Joy Vetterlein [Christian Misfit]
Do you love Jesus butstruggle to connect with church? Do you ever feel like you don’t belong inchurch? Like you can’t connect with the people? Or have you been hurt by church?
You may be aChristian misfit. But you are not alone.
As the daughter of a pastor, Joy grew up in church. She explains how it has been a place of joy, interest and comfort for her, but also a place of confusion, pain and tension. She describes feeling the disconnect of what she was experiencing of God and what she was experiencing in church.
One Sunday, while on stage as the worship pastor herself, Joy was welcoming people to the Sunday service and into their church community and realized that she didn’t even feel a part of that family. She tells us that the more she explored and wrote about her feeling and experiences with church, she found others were feeling the same way. Joy says that this is a red flag, that it’s something we need to pay attention to for the sake of passing our faith to the next generation.
The purpose andpassion of Joy’s writing is not to be divisive but rather to bringreconciliation and healing to the church and its people.
Joy and I talk about what makes up a close community of believers. She describes a movement in Miami where microchurches are made up of small groups of believers on mission with the same calling.
Short of remodeling traditional church completely, Joy offers practical ways in which we can begin to heal, first internally and then in church. She says, “you don’t have to fit in to belong” and “no one can tell you you’re not invited because they’re not the ones handing out the invitations. Jesus is.”
Joy reminds us that God works through broken things and broken people. She goes on to share how this healing has looked in her own life and offers us hope too. She challenges us to be misfits not from a place of pain, but from victory, where we fully embrace our uniqueness and walk confidently in it.
Joy is awriter, producer, creative, pastor and misfit who's committed to helpingChristian misfits find healing and belonging in the church. She lives inSouthern California with her husband and two kids.
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