Recently I’ve been reading a book that is really challenging me. I don’t know if ‘challenge’ is even strong enough language to communicate what this book is doing to me on the inside. ‘Troubling’ may be a more suitable way of saying what this book is doing to me. If you’re wondering what’s troubling me, no, it’s not Stephen King’s “The Shining.” Rather, Jimmy Dorrell’s book, “Trolls & Truth” is reminding me of much of Jesus’ ministry that is lacking in many ministries in Western culture and I am forced to keep myself in check as to whether these same things are lacking in me as well? I’m specifically talking about our willingness to spend significant time with people we see as drastically different than ourselves.

Dorrell uses his experiences and stories from leading Church Under the Bridge (hence “Trolls”) in Waco, TX to remind us of several realities of the church that we don’t want to see. This week I’m wrestling through the fact that at the forefront of his ministry, Jesus established the reality that “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). That “whosoever” would have troubled people in Christ’s day, and it troubles me now. If that statement is true, then what Dorrell says about the church should also be true:

“Of all organizations on the earth, the church should be the most inclusive one…(because) the Teacher [Jesus] crossed gender, racial, moral, and economic boundaries in His clear effort to include “whosoever” at the banquet table.”

If that’s the case then we should be willing to find ways to spend significant time with people who, at first glance, are different than us because God has deemed them valuable. Our love for God and our desire to love what God loves should compel us to do so. And after all, at our core we are actually more like fellow sinners of this world than we are like our Savior. That’s why we are so dependent on Him. He has made us clean with His righteousness, it’s not of ourselves.

Dorrell concludes a section of “Trolls & Truth” with this – “Not only did [Jesus] undercut the religious people’s prestige, be He placed the trolls of their society in a place of honor.” If you find this either challenging or troubling, I urge you to join me in reevaluating the types of people you gravitate towards and determining why that is the case and whether it needs to change? At the very least we have the capacity to grow in love.