Why I think TLS is important!

Something I learned after years of being a pastor of local churches is that community is a great idea… until the people get together. The idea is always sweeter than the actuality. Being in community is hard work. I don’t believe there are any perfect churches. There are only perfect moments. The challenge is to make more of them or stretch them out as far as possible. The problem with a lot of churches is that they attempt to enforce a consistent conformity of life that is unreasonable and undesirable for most people.

So I conclude that the best kind of community is one where there is a space provided for people to totally be themselves, but responsibly. I coined the phrase “authenticity with accountability”. That is, we are free to be who we are, but if we say or do hurtful things we are going to be called on it and expected to deal with it. The power of this kind of community is incredible because it means you can come into the “gathering”, be validated, inspired, exercise your authenticity, but then go back out into your world of work, relationships and play to put what you’ve learned about yourself into practice. For some, gathering for this validation, inspiration and practice is needed daily. For some, weekly. For others, monthly. But the space is there, like a base camp for explorers, to provide these things on a consistent, reliable basis. For explorers, just knowing it is there is 90% of its value.

TLS provides this. Like one of our newest members said, “I like this place, I might hangout here for a while.” Read more about that here.