Holy Misfits: Creating Space for the Church Outsiders

Finding a place to belong in Christian communities can be challenging when churches divide along lines of race, class, worship style, education, and political beliefs. I share my personal journey as someone from an interracial family who struggled to find acceptance in various denominations, highlighting how Sunday remains "the most segregated hour in America."

• The discomfort of not fitting in at church can come from various factors beyond race—including worship styles, theological differences, or personal background
• Finding mentorship in church communities is particularly difficult when you don't remind church leaders of themselves
• Christ's ministry specifically welcomed outsiders while challenging those who used religious law to create social hierarchies
• Religious rejection is not the same as rejection from God, though we often internalize it that way
• Creating spaces for Christian "outsiders" allows us to build authentic community based on Christ's inclusive model
• The spiritual journey often involves periods of doubt, cynicism, and feeling adrift—these experiences don't disqualify you from faith

I invite you to share your own experiences of feeling like an outsider in Christian spaces in the comments below. What has made you feel unwelcome, and what questions do you have about finding your place in faith?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what's up?
Jimmy James Johnson, herekeeping it 100 with you on all
things Christian.
I wanted to take a break fromour usual programming to talk to
you about an issue that I thinkmany people can relate to, but

(00:22):
it's not often covered in church, or sometimes folks feel
embarrassed to discuss it, orit's just not brought up because
part of what's assumed in yougoing to church is that somehow
you belong there, somehow youfeel comfortable, or you're

(00:44):
looking around and seeing yourown people, and sometimes it's
something as kind of basic aspeople that look like you or
people that drive your kind ofcars or live in a neighborhood
like yours, and in my mindthat's a little unfortunate

(01:06):
because I would hate to thinkthat that's.
The best we can do is have thechurch divided based on
socioeconomic along those lines.
But it can be more subtle thanthat.
You can go to a church wherepeople they worship a certain

(01:27):
way, they say certain things,they use certain phrases.
There are some churches thatare very sedate and everybody's
kind of quiet and kind of saystheir prayers very quietly and
kind of under their breath.
And then there are churcheslike I grew up being a member
where you get a Black Baptistchurch that is loud and it's

(01:51):
expressive and people aregetting caught up in the spirit,
right, like we're singing,we're stomping, people are
speaking in tongues, some folksare just falling out on the
floor.
It's kind of like anything goesand, despite what you may think
about whether those arelegitimate displays of worship,

(02:17):
the fact is that there aredifferent things that we all
grow to be comfortable with,different things that we all
grow to be comfortable with,things that we, when we imagine
the environment we want to be inhere, are some kind of
guardrails that make us feellike we belong there.
Because, let's face it, most ofus don't want to kind of stick

(02:38):
out like a sore thumb.
Right, we want to be welcome.
We don't want people giving usthe side eye and like what the
hell's up with this dude?
One of the reasons why thisguilt-free faith channel exists
is because of my own struggleswith finding a place to fit in
the Christian church, because,for me, as I grew up, we tried a

(03:06):
number of different churches inan effort to find out where we
would fit.
And so we would.
We tried virtually everydenomination, but part of the
issue was because we were aninterracial family, a black and
white family because we were aninterracial family, a black and

(03:26):
white family.
Part of the reason was becausemy mom had come from the kind of
a more conservative Catholicworship group or demographic,
and my dad had grown up kind ofmore in the local black Baptist
church, and so, of course, formy sister and I, who are
interracial, it wasn't clearoftentimes like where we would

(03:49):
belong Now.
Granted, I mean, you may livein a place that's so diverse
that this isn't a real issue,but for many places or many
cities, as they say, sundaychurch hour is the most
segregated hour in America.
And, wow, like, what astatement that really is

(04:11):
relative to how Christ was goingabout town to town, swinging
open the door of welcome, ofgenerosity and essentially doing
away with a lot of the barriersthat were erected by God.
Like in the Old Testament, thisNew Testament was to be

(04:33):
inclusive and a lot of peopledidn't like that.
There were a lot of people whowere extremely aggressive
regarding upholding that, andthen there were just a lot of
people who you know that justkind of puzzled them, or they,
why are you spending time withthe Gentiles?
None of that computed right,because people were coming out

(04:54):
of an ethno-religious backgroundthat had never built that type
of bridge before.
So one of the things I want tosay about this because obviously
I could talk about this for avery long time and perhaps I

(05:15):
will you have to leave in thecomments what questions or
comments you have about notfitting in the Christian church
and that, like I said, thatcould be race, that could be
class, that could be education,that could be neighborhood, it
could be politics, it could beeven down to like what are like

(05:36):
the very specific things onechurch or denomination believes
versus another one.
Some people are really, youknow, focused on that.
Some people might call thatnitpicky, other people may call
that really central to what theybelieve faith is about.

(05:58):
But one thing I want to assureyou of is that if you feel like
you're alone somehow in yourpursuit of God, you're not alone
at all.
There are so many people whoare just adrift.
No one's taking them undertheir wing, just a drift, no

(06:24):
one's taking them under theirwing.
They don't have like a clearpath to mentorship, right,
because they don't really it'snot clear, at least right off
the bat, how they belong.
Oftentimes people take youunder their wing because they
see something in you thatreminds them of themselves.
And so what happens to theperson who doesn't have those
characteristics that remindthose church elders or deacons

(06:49):
or whomever Bible study leadersof themselves?
You really can get kind of lostand left out.
Fortunately for me, after many,many years of drifting about and
not finding my place, I didfind a mentor who was a close

(07:11):
friend of the family, who, ofcourse, having known me from
birth, understood a lot about meand where I was coming from and
could see things in me that hecould relate to, things that he
wanted to nurture and just kindof was like in a partly just
because of our relationship withmy family was willing to make

(07:36):
that investment in somebody thatyou know a lot of people in the
church would not have made.
I'm not an easy Christian toinvest in.
I have a lot of faith issues.
I have a lot of cynicism.
You know I've spent a lot oftime in and out of God's.

(07:59):
I don't want to say his goodgraces, because I think part of
what he's trying to tell us isthat we're never out of his good
graces but for us, when wedon't feel full of faith or when
we don't feel like we'rebelievers or we're not doing the
things and checking the boxes.
We feel out of favor.
We feel like we're on theoutside looking in, and I don't

(08:23):
want you to feel like that.
This is the day for that to end.
And what do I mean by end?
I don't mean like that.
You'll never feel that or neverexperience that, but what's
going to end today is this kindof pit that you may feel of I'm

(08:50):
never going to belong.
I'm never going to findsomebody that will accept me
into the Christian family.
I'm never going to find peoplethat will unconditionally take
me where I'm at, whether I'm anatheist, whether I'm a wild
gunslinging sinner, whether I'ma drug addict, a thief.

(09:12):
Look, there are people, peoplelike myself and other people
that this channel is going togather into the group, who are
in your exact same circumstance.
And, like I said, as one ofthose people, I know that God

(09:37):
can provide a space for you.
Just like as I'm kind oflearning what my space is.
So what I'm envisioning forthis channel is that you and I
we're creating a space for oneanother, a special space, a

(10:02):
special arrangement where peoplethat are outcasts, people that
don't they don't have aconvenient label that they can
just, you know, write here's myname tag, I'm so-and-so, I'm
Christian, I'm this, I'm this,I'm this, oh, okay, yeah, have a
seat here.

(10:22):
We know where you belong.
If you don't have a name tag, oryou don't have a name tag,
people understand you've come tothe right place, because I can
assure you that a lot of peoplethat Christ ran into were—and

(10:50):
they were lost and they weren'teven expecting you know a
Messiah to come along.
They weren't expectingsomething dramatic to come along
and intervene and show themthat kind of love and
forgiveness.
So think how, you know, caughtoff guard, those people were

(11:14):
People that had never benefitedfrom the acceptance I'd never
benefited from the acceptancenot only of Jews or Christians,
but even like within their owncommunities, like the tax
collector, like the prostitute.
Nobody was reaching out to themand being like hey, it's okay,

(11:36):
we accept you.
We all have our faults andflaws, so it's all good.
You know what I mean.
But we don't hear a lot aboutthat, or we kind of hear about
it, because it's somethingpeople are supposed to say.
But let's face it, man, thereare some things that are

(11:57):
acceptable to say in your churchor your Bible study, and there
are a lot of things that aren'tand, depending on your tolerance
for conflict or your degree offrustration or despair, you may
or may not speak up.
In that circumstance you may gohome and vow never to go to the

(12:22):
church again because you don'twant to suffer like that
rejection and that pain and thatsense of on the outside looking
in.
And so for some of you, likethat might have been years ago
that you had that bad experience.

(12:43):
It might have been years agothat somebody side-eyed you at
church or questioned yourbelonging or criticized your
faith or your view and that cancripple you in terms of your

(13:03):
relationship with God.
Because we have a tendency tointernalize that.
We have a tendency to think, ohwell, they must be kind of
speaking on God's behalf.
If all these good church peoplearen't accepting me and rolling
out the red carpet for me, maybethat's a sign that I really

(13:24):
don't belong in the church, likenot only do I not belong in
this building, but like I justdon't belong in, like the
Christian family or whateverthey want to call it.
And what I want to say to youis like let's just kind of nip
that in the bud right now,because any type of prejudice

(13:47):
like that, any type ofdiscrimination, any kind of that
intolerance.
That's not from God, man,that's just not.
That's not the way Christtreated people.
In fact, really, the onlypeople that Christ was really

(14:11):
furious with were the peoplethat prided themselves on
fulfilling the law.
That's when he has to go andsay, hey, how dare you people
set yourself up at the top ofthis social hierarchy under the

(14:32):
guise of you're following thelaw, you're following the ritual
, you're following, and Christis like that's not the spirit of
what this is all about.
And so Christ went around andwalked that spirit out, and that
included reaching out even topeople like you and me, living

(14:56):
on the edge, living on the edgeof belief, living on the edge of
sin, living on the edge, livingon the edge of belief, living
on the edge of sin, living onthe edge of all kinds of
failures.
What's your failure, or what arepeople telling you your failure
is?
Is it divorce?
Is it people saying you're nota good parent?
Is it people saying you're notsuccessful, or you're some kind

(15:19):
of bum or a loser, or you cannever follow through with
anything?
Or maybe you're crippled byhealth situations and people are
saying why don't you get better?
Or why are you faking?
Or why haven't you found ananswer to this?
The rest of us are limpingalong.
Why aren't you doing that?
Maybe you feel like it's kindof more like your Christian

(15:41):
performance, like, oh, do I notpray enough?
Am I not praying for the rightthings?
Am I being selfish?
Should I be accepting more ofGod's love and walking without
guilt, or is this guilt thing?
What's keeping me in line thing?

(16:08):
What's like keeping me in line?
So, and indeed share, share inthe comments.
What's your situation?
What do you feel like you'refalling down on and what have
other so-called Christians toldyou in response to?
However, you may be different,or however your challenges may
be different.