At Home with Sinners: One Woman’s Journey toward Embracing Her Imperfect Church and Her Imperfect Self

Abstract

Raised as a pastor’s daughter in what she believed to be a great church, the author’s world was rocked when in her early teenage years her dad stepped down from the ministry and left his church. Over the years that followed, she journeyed through a variety of church and parachurch organizations, always looking for and never quite finding a place that perfectly fit her expectations of community and shared mission. Perpetually disappointed by the failings of those around her, the author begins to wrestle with questions of what it really means to be part of a church. Eventually, she realizes that joining a church requires not only a choice to accept an imperfect institution, but also a choice to accept imperfect people, including herself.