CityChurch is a place where anyone can belong. We fight hard to protect our culture where everyone is welcome; no matter who you are, where you’ve been or what you believe. But it doesn’t just magically happen. It requires people like us to protect this culture.
Everyone knows what it feels like to be “othered”. As Jenai unpacks in our conversation, “othered” is a very provocative word that evokes some kind of emotion in us. While her experience is based primarily on being Filipina-American woman in predominantly white male spaces, there are countless ways to be othered: how much money we make, our hairstyle, the clothes we wear, our education, our faith, the books we read, our values, where we live, what we eat for lunch… the list goes on and on.
When have you been othered? What did it feel like?
As followers of Jesus, we cannot lose sight of creating community and belonging in diversity, not forced conformity. We represent a faith that encompasses an incredibly wide swath of humanity from every continent and nearly every country on the globe. Christianity is weird and eclectic. Let’s embrace that weirdness as a way to include everyone.
Something important for us to remember as Community Care Leaders in a church where anyone can belong: we’re going to encounter people of all different types. Including people that disagree with us, make us uncomfortable or maybe we don’t even like. But there is room for them in this great big messy family we call CityChurch.
BUY JENAI’s BOOK! Click the link or purchase a copy wherever you buy books. And you can find more of her stuff on her website and the Othered Substack:
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