While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 

Jesus said “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

‭‭Mark‬ ‭2‬:‭15‬-‭17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The church where I serve is planted in an urban concrete part of town where little seems to grow except the population of lonely, homeless, drug addicted and abandoned people. 

A local melting pot of intergenerational, ethnic, and multinational souls within a center city church desert, our mission finds us eating, drinking, and serving alongside hundreds each week who look and act nothing like those in our own suburban neighborhoods. 

They often smell and look different and are unmannered but they come as they are, needing no invitation except a desire for new start and a new life. 

Jesus chose to be with people like these.  The dirty and despised. 

So we serve like Jesus. 

It’s uncomfortable at times. Awkward for many. But it’s as much for us as it is for these people we serve. 

All people need Jesus and we need to learn that all people means just that. 

Church has no room for your comfort zones but plenty of room for sinners who just need a hand up and out of what life and poor choices have dealt them. 

Come as you are. 

He didn’t come to serve the righteous.