“They’re gonna love you,” she told me.

They don’t even know me. And neither do you!

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I went to surrender my Wisconsin drivers license and license plate this week – and with it, a piece of my heart. Transitions are always hard, and this symbolic gesture is a resounding hammer on the final nail in the moving process. I’ve been putting a lot of energy into building a new home here in the South: physical, social, and emotional. Choosing and investing in a space and a tribe takes vulnerable effort.

One tribe I’m intentionally building is a local church family. I’ve attended a handful of churches in this veritable Adventist mecca, but have largely been overwhelmed by the size of the congregations and the polished performance of the program offerings. As a country bumpkin who grew up in congregations of 40 members or fewer, none of these new environs felt like home.

But then I decided that choosing to make a home doesn’t always wait for the feeling to arrive first: sometimes you have to make a home and settle in afterward (actually, that’s probably the case most times; not just sometimes). So I picked a church and decided to show up multiple weeks in a row, to place myself in conversations, to be vulnerable in my search for belonging.

I was leaving said church after visit number 3, and crossed paths with one of the musicians. I called out to her to thank her for her part in the service that day, and she asked if I was new to the congregation.

“Yes – this is my third time here. I’m trying to find a church home,” I blurted.

“They’re gonna love you,” she replied – simply and surely. Then she turned with her guitar case and walked to her car.

They’re gonna love you; how can she know that? She doesn’t know me!

…but she does know them.

I stopped cold. She wasn’t commenting on my merit to be loved. She was testifying to her church family’s ability to love. She confidently knew that they could and would accept someone just as they were, just as they came – simply because that person existed.

Isn’t that what love should be?

Isn’t that the Church Christ called us to be?

I’m making a new goal. When I meet someone new, I won’t start with small talk questions like What’s your name? and Where are you from?. I’ll start with,

“My name is Jess. And I’m gonna love you.”

It might not be with words (I have a hunch most people would be very uncomfortable with that specific introduction), but it will be the underpinning of all my actions.

I’m off to love somebody today. What’s on your agenda?