Uncomfortable: The Challenge of Christian Community

Messiah Community Radio Talk Show

Does your church make you uncomfortable? It’s easy to dream about the “perfect” church―a church that sings just the right songs set to just the right music before the pastor preaches just the right sermon to a room filled with just the right mix of people who happen to agree with you on just about everything. Chances are your church doesn’t quite look like that. But what if instead of searching for a church that makes us comfortable, we learned to love our church, even when it’s challenging? What if some of the discomfort that we often experience is actually good for us? This book is a call to embrace the uncomfortable aspects of Christian community, whether that means believing difficult truths, pursuing difficult holiness, or loving difficult people―all for the sake of the gospel, God’s glory, and our joy. Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community calls for Christians to embrace, rather than avoid, the necessity of grounding their faith in a local church context, however uncomfortable/awkward/frustrating it may be. What if we learned to love churches even when—or perhaps because—they challenge us and stretch us out of our comfort zones? This book argues that believers who accept the uncomfortable and even awkward aspects of Christianity in the context of the local church—believing difficult truths, embracing sacrifice, pursuing holiness, and loving the people around them—are the ones who will see the church grow most significantly and the gospel advance most powerfully. Brett McCracken is a senior editor for The Gospel Coalition and author of Hipster Christianity: When Church & Cool Collide (Baker, 2010), Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism & Liberty (Baker, 2013), and Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community (Crossway, 2017). He has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, CNN.com, The Princeton Theological Review, Mediascape, Books & Culture, Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Relevant, IMAGE Journal, Converge, Mere Orthodoxy, ERLC, Canon & Culture and Q Ideas. He speaks and lectures frequently at universities, churches, and conferences. A graduate of Wheaton College and UCLA (M.A. in Cinema & Media Studies), Brett is currently pursuing a master’s in theology at Talbot School of Theology. Brett and his wife Kira live in Santa Ana, California and are active in their local church, Southlands, where Brett serves as a pastor/elder. Brett loves movies, particularly those by Terrence Malick (or those with a Malickean sensibility). Other things Brett enjoys: Marilynne Robinson, the Inklings, Kansas Jayhawk basketball, the Kansas City Royals, reading and writing in coffeeshops, history, art museums, food, hiking, traveling, planning trip itineraries and making things better by editing.