My trip to London…

Several years back Tara and I took a trip to London. At the time I was much more, "Yay America" than I am now. But I remember thinking, pretty much the moment I got there, that you know maybe other countries know what they're doing. All of a sudden I began to see the world as a place of dialogue and cooperation where no country, even my own, had all the answers. I know that seems obvious, and had you asked me before I am sure I would have said the right thing, but somehow being there made it true to me in a new way. And it's not like I had any deep political conversations with any locals. Just being there was enough.

When I first became a Christian I was very much involved in a very unique, successful (and now somewhat notorious) church plant up in Seattle. The attitude there was very much we are starting this church because every other church has it wrong. And that was pretty much my attitude. That was, at least, until I went to seminary. At seminary, studying with folks from all kinds of traditions (Baptist to Unitarian) I realized that though I didn't agree with all of them on everything, they all had something to contribute.

My view of the church, like my view of the world when I went to London, became a place of dialogue and cooperation where no church, even my own, had all the answers.