For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards

by Jen Hatmaker

I have much hope for the church, even as she sometimes gives me indigestion. I realize many beloved readers were hurt terribly under the steeples, and a bunch left and a bunch more want to. Some of you never tried it at all, because the church is so, you know, churchy. Organizing something as mysterious and marvelous as God’s family is just hard. I can’t think of a group that requires more grace. I have a few thoughts, first for church leaders and second for church people; I am weirdly protective of both because I am both. I love the girl on the sixth row who barely got in the door, and I love the pastor who studied all week while caring for his unwieldy flock. At the end of the day, both groups are just ordinary people who struggle and sin and sometimes act courageously and sometimes act horribly. The curtain is much thinner than it appears. Here goes.