For many of us, the church was a place of very unnatural and complicated relationships. In fact, often our relationships were codependent where jealousy, envy and competition was rampant. In such contexts feelings of exclusion, being ignored, unappreciated or needing to strive for acceptance abound.

We try to keep TLS free of that. You can involve yourself as much as you want. You can be a lurker or you can be lively. I’ve observed that the more you involve yourself the more you’re going to get back. What I mean is the returns you get from a relationship should equal the investment you put in, plus interest.

You are free to go in and go out and find pasture, as the psalm says. No one has a gun to your head requiring you to do this or that. You are free to determine your own level of involvement and decide where to draw the line. But I do encourage you to take risks. So far the community has proved amazingly embracing.

Presume you are going to be accepted, appreciated and even loved.

Dive in! The water’s fine.

(*** PS: If you’re not in our secret Facebook yet, ask me for an invite.)