UniteBoston

Bridging Divides Across Christians for the Flourishing of the City

There Are No Walls in Heaven: What Peacemakers in Belfast Taught Me

Rev. Kelly Fassett shares reflections from her recent trip to Northern Ireland, where she saw the quiet courage of reconciliation in a land torn by religious and political violence. From walking the Peace Walls, to meeting faith leaders who have given their lives to forge friendships across enemy lines, Kelly explores what these lessons mean for the American Church today.

“A divided Church has little or nothing to offer towards leading a divided people into the way of peace.” —Fr. Gerry Reynolds, Priest at Clonard Monastery in West Belfast

Last month, I had the incredible privilege of traveling to Northern Ireland with a group of fellow Americans in a cohort with Global Immersion. We had traveled there to study peacebuilding efforts in a country marked by decades of violent conflict. It was there where I learned a new word: “themens”— Irish slang for “them.” It’s a word of suspicion and othering, and a posture of inner hostility towards “those people.”

We first heard it in Divis, from Steven Hughes, pastor of St. Peter’s Youth Center. We had spent the morning walking along the Peace Walls—some of them up to 21 miles long and 20 feet high—originally built to reduce violence between Irish nationalists and British unionists.

We learned that between 1968 and 1998, in a period that came to be known as The Troubles, there were more than 3,700 people killed and 50,000 injured in a series of bombings and shootings throughout Northern Ireland. This particular stretch of the walls was known as “Murder Mile,” where much of the violence was concentrated between two groups of people divided by their religious and nationalist identities: mainly Catholics on one side and Protestants on the other. While the physical violence has dissipated, as you walk along these walls, mural after mural stand like tall scars declaring, “you must never forget.”

In the youth center, Pastor Steven began to share his story. He had grown up in the worst of it—seeing bombs explode and friends killed, even as a six-year-old. “Bombs and shells were as common as bird songs,” he told us.

Yet witnessing that violence is what drew him to youth ministry. Even after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of violence by establishing a power-sharing government and recognizing both British and Irish identities, the walls had to be made taller because people kept throwing objects over them.

But Steven believed reconciliation was possible: “It’s hard to throw stones at someone you know,” he said. His mission? To create space for young people from both sides of the wall to meet and grow up together.

Building Friendships Across the Wall

Steven partnered with a Presbyterian pastor named Tracy that he had met from the Shankle community on the other side of the wall. It took them eight years to build enough trust to start a joint youth group, where youth from both communities began meeting weekly, alternating between centers. They taught a holistic curriculum, including Christian values, trauma healing, leadership principles, and upholding human dignity. 

Pastor Steven leads the Ambassadors for Peace Programme, which has 33 young people from the two communities. 

This joint effort began to change the local community. Steven described that formerly, twenty five to thirty youth per year from this neighborhood were ending up in jail. Now, that number has dropped to just one every four years. Where only 3% of the community had a degree, that number has risen to 10%.

“There Are No Walls in Heaven”

Over ten days, I heard this theme repeated: reconciliation happens through relationships. At Clonard Monastery, a red-brick Catholic church just steps from the peace walls, we heard about “Unity Pilgrims,” an intentional initiative pioneered by Fr. Gerry Reynolds for Catholics to regularly visit other Christian denominations’ services to build friendships and cross-denominational understanding.

Fr. Gerry believed, “A divided Church has little or nothing to offer towards leading a divided people into the way of peace. In the Northern Ireland conflict, divided churches have cost lives.” He often repeated the phrase, “the walls of separation do not reach to heaven.” 

Prayer cards about the Unity Pilgrims from Clonard Monastery

At Black Mountain Shared Space, a community center built on the fault line between divided neighborhoods in West Belfast, we met Shamus (Catholic) and Mark (Protestant), who decades ago were literally shooting at one another, yet had a reckoning when they realized they wanted their children to grow up in a different type of world. Shamus described that what changed him is “trust, and relationship with someone on the other side.” 

We then traveled to Corymeela, a retreat center on the beautiful northern coast of Ireland, which was founded as a safe place for encounter, meeting and dialogue. Here, we engaged in a four-day Dialogue for Peaceful Change training and met another peacebuilder, Rev. Harold Good. Harold had played an influential role in convening opposing parties during the Troubles towards the decommissioning of weapons. He gave us simple but profound advice: “Activate your kitchen table. Talk, truth, trust, and tea—these are the ingredients of peace. Build trust one person at a time, then bring them together over a cup of tea.” Listen to his humble wisdom below.

I felt so honored to meet some of Ireland’s most renowned peacebuilders. From left to right: Rev. Harold Good, Colin Craig, Rev. Shona Bell.

What About Us?

As I reflect on the experience, I am holding a lot. I confess that what I saw in this conflict in Northern Ireland feels like it could be a window into America’s future, just as much as it is a mirror of America’s painful legacy of exclusion and violence. I see us early on in the conflict cycle we learned about, with widening ideological siloes and growing vitriol, marginalized groups being scapegoated, governmental power being used to intimidate and coerce, and underlying tensions that at times are erupting into violence.

I’m learning that reconciliation isn’t just about physical walls—it’s about the walls we build inside. Pastor Steven reminded us: “When you talk about ‘themens,’ remember you’ve got three fingers pointing back at yourself. It’s not something that happens out there, but ‘in here,’” and he pointed right to his heart.

He’s right: the real work lies in removing “themens” not just from our language, but from our hearts—because once we label someone as “other,” it becomes all too easy to dehumanize them, mistreat them, demonize them, and ultimately justify violence against them. UniteBoston is calling this inward posture of hostility “righteous hubris,” and has identified it as one of the main barriers to Christian unity and the oneness Jesus calls us Christians to embody.

Many leaders we met went from perpetrating violence to building peace because they had lost loved ones and didn’t want the conflict to endure into perpetuity, especially for the sake of future generations. I kept wondering – What will it take to turn America around? How might we learn to love – or at least respect – the person on the other side of the wall? 

A Revolutionary Teaching: Enemy Love

What if we took seriously one of Jesus’ most radical teachings—not just to love those who are like us, but to love even our enemies (Matthew 5:43–44)? As Dan White Jr. puts it, “Enemy-love is not peripheral to the way of Jesus—it is the very center. If your version of Christianity does not compel you to move toward your enemy with empathy and curiosity, it may not be Christianity at all.” 

In Christ, hostility is torn down. Righteous hubris removed. Republican and Democrat, Jew and Gentile—there are no “themens” in the kingdom of God. When we root our belief and actions in the imago Dei—that every person is made in the image of God and carries inherent dignity and worth—we’re invited to see others not as adversaries, but as beloved siblings. 

What if we truly saw each person that way? I am beloved. You are beloved. We are beloved. How might the world change if we recognized God’s image in those we fear or oppose, and understood that ultimately what affects them also affects us? (1 Corinthians 12:25–26). That’s the kind of church the world is longing to see.

The peace walls are lined with graffiti, but this woman is working with the St. Peter’s Youth Centre to create this 3D mural with Scripture on it, a visible witness of the transformative power of the gospel to turn ashes into beauty (Is. 61:3).

A Final Word from Pastor Steven

Before we left, I asked Pastor Steven what advice he’d give us as Americans. He paused, then said:
“Get rid of your guns. Fight for relationship with the person who is ‘the other.’ Because you don’t want to have decades to clean up the mess.”

His words were simple, yet profound—a challenge not just to disarm physically, but spiritually. In a world so quick to divide, label, and defend, Pastor Steven reminded us that the path of peace begins with relationship. It begins with choosing to see the humanity in those we’ve called “the other.” Who might that person be for you?

In these tenuous times, we don’t have decades to wait. Let us walk with Jesus and one another to pursue reconciliation and forging friendships across lines of difference, in our neighborhoods, our churches, and our own hearts.

And so, we pray:

Lord Jesus, 
who on the eve of your death,
prayed that all your disciples may be one
as you in the Father and the Father in you,
make us feel intense sorrow over the infidelity of our disunity.
Give us the honesty to recognise, 
and the courage to reject,
whatever indifference towards one another, 
or mutual distrust,
or even enmity, 
lie hidden within us.  
Enable us to meet one another in you.
And let your prayer for the unity of Christians,
be ever in our hearts and on our lips,
unity such as you desire and by the means that you will.
Make us find the way that leads to unity in you, 
who are perfect charity
through being obedient to the Spirit of love and truth.
Amen. 

— Fr Gerry Reynolds, who wrote this prayer for the Unity Pilgrims, inspired by the work of Fr Paul Couturier (1881-1953), a strong believer in the power of praying for Christian unity; and Brother Charles of Jesus (Blessed Charles de Foucauld, 1858-1916), who was martyred when living as a hermit in the Algerian Sahara. 

Practical Next Steps

  1. If the Church has been part of the problem, then it must be part of the solution. This is the heart of our work at UniteBoston—we seek to stand as a public witness to our churches and city, demonstrating that the Way of Jesus is to cross divides and seek out the Imago Dei of all our neighbors across typical lines of difference. We’re launching the Beloved Community Lab this fall—an experiential pilot cohort for Boston-based Christian leaders to learn and grow together as ambassadors of reconciliation. If this stirs up something in you, please prayerfully consider this opportunity and/or share it with a pastoral leader you know. Click here to learn more about the Beloved Community Lab.
  2. I highly recommend listening to this powerful sermon where my colleague Megan Lietz from Abundant Life Church preached last month from Acts 11 on the uniting work of God to bridge cultural and religious boundaries. 
  3. In our polarized climate, violence in thought and action can show up in surprising places – It is vital that we pastor the instincts in our own hearts in order to follow Jesus as the Prince of Peace. I want to offer this blog as a transparent reflection and spiritual practice inviting us as followers of Jesus to do the hard work of examining what lies beneath.
  4. Last, I recommend this blog about turning enemies into friends by my friend and colleague Lexi Carver, who shares incredible wisdom from her time in Northern Ireland and Clonard Monestary about how the Church can be a force for peacebuilding rather than violence.

Guides in the Darkness: A Disability Pride Month Reflection

What if the people most familiar with darkness have the most to teach us about how to walk through it?

This Disability Pride Month, we’re honored to feature a guest blog from Maggie Austen—attorney, advocate, and member of The Garden Church—who invites us to consider what the disability community has to offer the Church and the world in times of grief, loss, and uncertainty. Drawing from Scripture, personal experience, and the shared wisdom of disabled and marginalized voices, Maggie reminds us that light doesn’t always come in a flash—it’s often found slowly, tenderly, together.

Below, Maggie reflects on the spiritual skills born of navigating a world not built for you, and how we might all learn to survive—and even thrive—when the lights go out.

Content warning: This piece discusses grief, loss, and death.

As someone who is legally blind, I’ve learned that navigating darkness – both literal and metaphorical – is a skill. The disability community has wisdom to offer about surviving difficult times, finding community in grief, and discovering light gradually rather than demanding it immediately. This Disability Pride Month, let marginalized voices guide you through the darkness we’ve been practicing in our whole lives.

July is Disability Pride Month, and as someone who lives with disability, I’ve been reflecting on what our community has to offer the world – especially during dark times.

This past Sunday, our worship leader Caleb McCoy preached on Ephesians 5:8-20 about living as children of light, letting God’s love shape every part of us as we leave behind old ways and walk in what is good, right, and true. One of his analogies resonated with me in an unexpected way: he mentioned how we’ve all stubbed our toe trying to navigate to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

If you’re not into Jesus and have never heard of Ephesians, stay with me – this isn’t really about theology. It’s about what marginalized communities can teach all of us about navigating hard times.

My instinctive reaction was: Actually, no, I don’t.

As someone who is legally blind, wandering around in the dark is surprisingly easy for me. The way my eyes work means darkness is sometimes more comfortable than light. My parents and others in my life have often walked into the kitchen to find me elbow-deep in chopped vegetables and immediately started turning lights on. It almost never occurs to me to do so myself.

Of course, this isn’t exclusively true – right after the sermon and my mental celebration of being great at operating in darkness, I did in fact stub my toe going to bed. But the irony got me thinking about something deeper.

Learning to Navigate Darkness

People with disabilities live life with our scars on our sleeves, navigate a world that wasn’t designed for us, and we know intimately what it means to find our way when the path isn’t clear. And I believe this is where the disability community – along with other marginalized and oppressed peoples, whether Black, poor, female, or queer – has something profound to offer: we can be guides in the darkness.

This is a dark season politically, globally, and for me personally. On June 13th, my Nana passed away at 84, after a full and adventurous life and 64 years of marriage to a man who adored her, following a short battle with pancreatic cancer. My retired guide dog, a 13 year old German shepherd named O’Bella, is struggling with numerous health conditions, and I am struggling with anticipatory grief and how to best care for her in this final season of her life.

Living in the disability community for the past five years has made sickness and death all too familiar. COVID-19 brought forward conversations about pre-existing conditions and ventilator priority protocols that meant friends with chronic illnesses and disabilities affecting their respiratory systems became increasingly cautious and afraid. So while much of my healthy, non-disabled community found creative ways to socially distance during peak pandemic, the disability community stayed online and inside – still finding ways to “meet” and be together from afar. In 2020 and ‘21, my Facebook and Instagram feeds became memorial walls of disability activists and community members passing away – whether from COVID, limited access to care, or tragic coincidence.

Content creator Molly Burke recently shared a similar experience of navigating darkness during the California wildfires – the power went out and they were packing to potentially evacuate. She was unphased; navigating darkness is not new to her. While her boyfriend used his cell phone flashlight to try to light a candle, draining the battery they couldn’t charge, she could find and light the candle with no flashlight at all.

So in 2022, when my Aunt Elizabeth, my Pop Pop (Nana’s beloved), and my dear friend Bob all passed away in October, November, and December respectively, I wasn’t prepared, but I was primed. I had a community of people who understood the complexities of grief. Their posts, liturgies, songs, and prayers from the past two years had given me a library of comfort to turn to. I had learned ways to metabolize grief that didn’t leave me stuck under the covers for weeks or neck-deep in a party-sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. And I had a faith community with leaders who embraced practices of lament and held grief circles that created spaces to just be in the darkness together. Instead of ignoring the darkness, I learned to walk through it in community.

Perhaps most importantly, I learned the power and importance of telling our stories – not polished, tidy versions like AI-generated TikTok reels, but authentic, complicated moments. The disability community doesn’t shy away from the messy reality of living with chronic illness, navigating grief, or dealing with systems that weren’t built for us. We share the real stuff: the stubbed toes after bragging about navigating darkness, the days when the covers feel safer than the world, the simultaneous grief and relief when a beloved guide dog’s suffering ends.

Rethinking the Light

I think sometimes Christians believe our faith means there’s a glowing sword (yes, I’m imagining a lightsaber now) we can brandish upon invoking the name and power of Jesus. My disabled, broken, bruised, sacrificial Jesus just doesn’t seem to work at my beck and call.

I believe Jesus is a light in the darkness, but I think it’s more like the way rhodopsin in our eyes eventually adjusts to the darkness and starts seeing the light that was there all along. (Thanks to my roommate Elizabeth Bonnice for this rhodopsin reference – after a long chat in our kitchen over a glass of wine, I was able to detangle some of my thoughts for this piece.) The adjustment takes time (like breaking in a new pair of shoes – going back to Caleb’s sermon analogies for a moment). The seeing happens gradually. And sometimes, we need guides who are already comfortable in the dark.

A Challenge for Disability Pride Month

This month, my challenge to my Christian comrades is this: stop weaponizing Jesus’ light. I’m not asking you to stop hoping that darkness will flee or praying for dawn to come (or even police your vocabulary). But while we sit in the darkness of the world today, remember your disabled and marginalized neighbors. This wisdom is especially needed now, as wars around the world continue to be mass disabling events, while rhetoric from leadership continues to scapegoat us, and policies further marginalize and oppress. 

And for my friends who don’t share my faith – the invitation is the same. In these dark times, consider what wisdom might be found in the voices of those who’ve been navigating darkness all along.

Maybe we have something to teach you about surviving in the dark. Maybe we’ve developed skills, communities, and spiritual practices that can help you navigate when the lights go out. Maybe our scars aren’t just marks of what we’ve survived, but maps of where we’ve learned to find our way.

I’m not saying that chopping vegetables isn’t easier with the light on, or that darkness isn’t challenging to navigate. The season of grief I am in – and quite frankly have been in – has been exhausting. I am still learning to embrace moments to hide under the covers (rather than sign up for one more well intentioned commitment), indulge in the decadent pastry when I just need a little something sweet in my day (instead of shame myself into another kale salad), to be kind to my body (instead of expecting it to roll with the punches), and to not push community away in favor of independence or isolation. It is not easy, it is messy.

But when we stand next to a mountain with a friend, the mountain does not seem so tall. When we stand in the darkness with someone who can chop veggies with the lights off and who lets guide dogs help them cross chaotic city streets at midnight, the darkness might not seem so dark after all.

We’ve been practicing this our whole lives, learning to navigate when the path isn’t clear. Let us be your guides.

What might that look like practically? Invite people with disabilities to serve on advisory boards and decision-making committees. Ask us how we feel about policies that affect us, rather than deciding for us. Support disability-led organizations and activism financially and through amplifying our voices. Listen to our stories (plug for JustBook-ish and DotOut’s Disability themed Dot Stories event on July 17th) – the real, messy, complicated ones – rather than the inspiration porn versions. And when the lights go out in your own life, remember that some of us have been finding our way in the dark all along.

This Disability Pride Month, I invite you to listen to the voices of disabled people in your communities, to learn from marginalized voices, and to discover what wisdom might be found in the darkness – not as a place to fear, but as a place where we can learn to see differently.

And to read more from Maggie, check out her earlier blog post written during Disability Pride Month last year. Drawing from Luke 14, Maggie asks: Would those Jesus calls us to invite—the poor, the disabled, the overlooked—feel truly welcomed in our churches today? In this reflection, she shares a personal story that challenges us to extend God’s welcome to those society often excludes as well as practical advice for church leaders for how they can DO disability justice.

“Disability Justice and the Church” by Maggie Austen

Building Beloved Community: A Journey of Unity, Truth, and Transformation

A year ago, a group of thirteen Christian leaders gathered under the shared hope of building something that could help the Church become more whole. Month by month, conversation by conversation, we started co-creating a discipleship experience for those longing to see reconciliation in the Church and the world. Our work together birthed the Beloved Community Lab—a hands-on curriculum for Christian leaders to come together across lines of difference to learn and practice unity, justice, and reconciliation in their leadership contexts.

We met monthly, each time bringing our full selves to the table. Our conversations were deep and vulnerable, marked by prayer, laughter, and the hard, necessary work of reckoning with the barriers that keep us from living out the oneness Jesus prays for. One standout moment was a case study exploring tensions between the Church and the LGBTQIA+ community. We examined two parallel narratives: one naming the harm and hubris often perpetuated by the Church, and the other acknowledging the pain and posture of resistance within some parts of the queer community. These conversations required courage and humility—and they reminded us of the work of holding truth with compassion that was central to Jesus’ ministry.

The journey wasn’t just intellectual—it was formational. “Participating in an ecumenical cohort gave me an opportunity to build friendships with Christians who are different than me,” shared Dr. Elizabeth Woodard. “This is of vital importance in being the diverse, beautiful Body of Christ in the community.” Others, like Pastor Sophia Kim from First Korean Church in Cambridge, reflected on how the experience fostered healing: “It helped me realize I wasn’t alone… We weren’t just gathering for discussions—we were creating a space where it felt safe to put our problems on the table, and to support one another as we sought God’s Kingdom together—in Jesus’ way.”

(Above, Pastor Jihyon (Sophia) Kim shares her testimony of participating in the cohorts at our spring “Fortify” Fundraising Party)

We concluded our cohort with a retreat in New Hampshire that deepened our learnings and close out the year together. Each group took time to present the “building blocks” they had developed for the Beloved Community Lab through embodied experiences that stirred mind, heart and imagination. One of our members shared her gifts by cooking an incredible meal, and we gathered around the table as a community—eating, singing, praying, and celebrating what God had done. We even sung songs around a makeshift “campfire” made out of stringed lights because it was too rainy to be outdoors. It was a glimpse of what unity in Christ could look like: a mosaic of voices, perspectives, and traditions seeking to love God and neighbor well.

Several participants shared how deeply this experience impacted their faith and leadership. “This cohort helped me see and know God more fully because of the insights and perspectives of this diverse body of believers,” said Katelyn Hannan. “They expanded my imagination for how I can love my neighbor—especially alongside the whole body of Christ as a collective witness.” Additionally, Pastor Sarah Gautier, pastor of Living Stones Boston, reflected, “The beauty of this journey was affirming that every part of the body is necessary in the work of unity… In our affirmation of one another’s belovedness, we saw the body of Christ come alive to new possibilities across differences.”

For many, the experience has already left a lasting impact. “The relationships I built in this cohort have already been transformative, impacting my ministry and my life in general,” wrote Rev. Tom Reid, pastor of Newton Presbyterian Church. “Thank you, UniteBoston, for your creativity and inspiring witness to the work of the Church here in Boston.” Kat Hampson, pastor of Riverwalk Church, adds, “This journey with my cohort has been life-changing. I have come to cherish these individuals, who were very different from me, as dearly beloved friends and siblings in Christ. Together, we have learned to listen to each other’s stories, seek deeper understanding in how we each engage with God and the world, and share our hearts for God and His Kin-dom.”

As we look ahead, we are excited to refine and expand this curriculum so that others might experience what we have—a journey that moves beyond surface-level unity toward deep reconciliation and repair. “Reflecting on my time in this cohort,” one participant shared, “one of the most significant lessons I learned was how to navigate disagreements without building walls of quiet judgment, but instead build stronger bridges of understanding.”

The Beloved Community Lab is a journey of spiritual formation—shaping participants into peacemakers and ambassadors of reconciliation, growing into the life and way of Jesus. We call this a “lab” because it combines core theological concepts with real-world application through case studies, interactive exercises, and spiritual practices.  

We believe that if we want to see a different kind of world and a more embodied Christian witness, we must become different kinds of people. It is an experiment in Christian unity that seeks to change not just what we know, but how we live.

This fall, UniteBoston is launching a pilot group to experience the curriculum in community—and we’d love for you to consider joining us. If you want to grow in learning how to lead your community in the peacemaking, reconciling Way of Jesus, we invite you to come be part of this next chapter. Click here to learn more! 

Serving Christian Singles – Without Using the Word ‘Single’

Today, we are honored to feature a guest blog post from Rebekah Kerstetter, founder of Christian Singles Boston and a long-time advocate for helping churches serve singles with greater intentionality and care. Rebekah, a former UniteBoston Neighborhood Dinner Coordinator in Medford and a member of Highrock Church, shares a powerful story of how a small act of volunteering led to a decade-long journey of listening to and learning from Christian singles. Read on for practical insights and bold suggestions for how the Church can become a more welcoming and connected spiritual family for everyone.

I never expected to found a Christian singles ministry in 2014, or to launch an ‘alternative to online dating’ platform 10 years later. It all started innocently when, as a young mom, I volunteered at my local church to do whatever small jobs I could while my kids were napping. The church chose to put me in charge of entering the data from the weekly visitor cards (before QR codes!). 

After a few months, I began to notice a surprising trend. Almost 40% of our first time visiting adults to the church marked ‘single’ on their visitor cards, but very few single adults stayed involved. I began doing research online, only to find out that this trend was not just true for our church, it matched closely with national statistics.

To me, this didn’t make sense. Christian single adults visiting a church were people brave enough to come alone, knowing it might be hard to break into conversations with no extroverted partner to fall back on. They were also dedicated enough to come to church without children or another spouse being the reason why, and they were also exceptionally motivated to find connection. What could cause such strong dedicated Christians to lose hope? I wanted to learn why. I began talking intentionally with Christian singles and asking to hear their stories. 

One Boston woman told of a time she drove two hours every Sunday to assist in the childcare at her church. Though she never served to get praise, she spoke of how, even after months of serving, she felt she had barely met anyone, and that when parents came to pick-up their children, they didn’t know her name and often didn’t even look her in the eye. “It just didn’t feel like a family.” Other singles I spoke with, even those who desired a Christian marriage, said it was hard to simply make a same gendered friend let alone find an opposite gendered friend. Finding friendships with other singles was hard, period. Sometimes it was because there were so few singles in a congregation or sometimes, even if there were many singles at a church, there were simply no avenues to connect. When I asked why friendships with married friends didn’t seem like enough, I heard about how time and time again, despite deeply loving their married friends and even serving in their weddings, these cherished friendships struggled as their friends got married and had children. For better or for worse, the truth is that often only singles have a similar enough schedule with one-another to grow deep connections. Even when a single is busier than a married person, their schedule still tends to have a unique type of flexibility that helps them connect well with other singles. We need unity and relationship with all parts of the body of Christ.

February 24, 2024 Speed-Meet with ChristianSinglesBoston.org

After studying churches for the past fifteen years with singles as my focus, I found the below 4 steps to be exceptionally effective at building community when done in concert together – for Christian singles as well as for everyone. And it makes sense. When a church learns how to embrace a person who walks in alone, sits alone and often leaves quickly after church to avoid standing alone, a church has learned how to embrace everyone. Here’s what I’ve seen work:

1. Create consistent, casual spaces for connection.
Go beyond the 10-minute foyer conversations for attendees. Host monthly volunteer lunches, after-service socials, or dinner nights for everyone. People are far more likely to connect when the environment invites it.

2. Put a range of voices on the platform.
When someone who attends church sees singles sometimes give announcements or share from the stage, it communicates: You belong here too. It also helps visitors to know another single who could be a touchpoint.

3. Empower those gifted in hospitality.
Assign volunteers to welcome others personally at social events like lunches and help them to join into conversations with others. Also have hospitality volunteers scheduled during Sundays too – not only at the front door – but in the lobby & sanctuary to notice those who are not yet engaged with others and gently say hello.

4. Make volunteer care a priority.
Check in regularly with volunteers during a Sunday morning. Have assigned friendly people getting to know their names, introducing them to others or offering to bow their heads with them in prayer. Because singles so often volunteer at church, this small step goes a long way.

It’s important to note here, that there is nothing innately wrong with using the word ‘single’ in a church ministry or setting. It depends on each local church. The good news is that implementing these four steps in combination, even without using the word single, seamlessly helps singles to connect with one another. Lastly, it is very likely that new Christian singles will join the church for fellowship soon. Why? Because when Christian single adults begin choosing to stay at the churches they visit, it’s a healthy natural growth. Coincidentally, I learned these four principles at a church I attended in the North East that was listed in the 100 fastest growing churches in America. Access to an authentic and welcoming community is priceless and singles are often the first to spot it.  

Being part of a church body means that this is family, and we need one another. It means that we need to think about hospitality and how we can care for all members, singles, married, divorced, all abilities and demographics, and we think about who is missing from the table. Not only this, but over time, as singles get to know others across Boston, it builds an organic network of Christians that strengthens the broader Church!

Learn More:

– For Church Leaders: See Rebekah’s tips for how to engage singles in your church or ministry, including how to build authentic community, how to advertise to help Christian Singles find you and how to help singles in your church navigate dating or support those who never wish to marry. 

– For Christian singles: You’re invited to join the Christian Singles Boston community using this link. They are hosting a Christian Singles Sunset Cruise Around the Boston Harbor on Aug 10 and many other events too! 

Hit Hard: One Family’s Journey of Letting Go of What Was— and Learning to Live Well with What Is

Today, we’re excited to celebrate Hit Hard, a powerful new book by Harvard chaplains and long-time Cru staff Pat and Tammy McLeod. After their son Zach suffered a traumatic brain injury during a high school football game, the McLeods were thrust into a journey of “ambiguous loss”—grieving the son they once knew while embracing the son who remained.

With deep honesty and hope, Hit Hard offers a moving testimony of how we can pick up the pieces, redefine expectations, and trust God for hope in the midst of unresolved pain.

This book will resonate with anyone facing loss—from brain injuries to addiction, divorce, foster care, or Alzheimer’s. Read a snapshot of Tammy’s story below!

P.S. There is a sale going on THIS WEEK for their book re-release – Get the ebook for only $2.99 or the paperback for the low price of $9.99 from July 7th through July 13th!

The dreaded phone call. “Get to the hospital quickly. Doctors need your consent for emergency brain surgery for Zach.” 

Our sixteen-year-old son was playing in a football scrimmage that night. What? 

When we arrived at the hospital, the surgeon told us that our son’s prognosis was death to full recovery or anything in between. We signed the paperwork, kissed and prayed for our unconscious son, and nurses wheeled him into the operating room. 

Zach survived the surgery, but a portion of his brain did not. 

During four months of acute rehab, he learned to walk again with a brace, to say a few words, and to do activities of daily living with help, but seventeen years later, he still has little short-term memory or speech, and right-side weaknesses of all kinds. 

Zach chokes easily and can fall if someone doesn’t hold onto his gait belt every minute. He lives in a group home and needs one-to-one care twenty-four hours a day. He will never be able to work for a living, marry, or have children. You can meet our beloved Zach here:

@notaloneinambiguousloss

Meet our beloved Zach! We love him and his community who supports and loves him as well. #hithard #awareness #ambiguousloss

♬ original sound – Tammy McLeod

Ambiguous Loss 

By the two-year anniversary of Zach’s injury, after trying every available intervention, I realized he would not have a strong recovery. 

I poured through grief books only to realize that loss to death differed from our type of loss. I asked others if they knew any books dealing with our sort of loss, but no one did. 

I finally called the librarian at Zach’s former rehab hospital. The next day he emailed that the term for our loss is ambiguous loss and sent articles by Pauline Boss who coined the term. 

I immediately devoured the articles and then ordered her book.

Boss describes two types of ambiguous loss. One is when the person is physically absent, yet psychologically present in the minds of loved ones. Examples include those missing due to war, natural disasters, kidnapping, divorce, adoption, or immigration. 

The other type of ambiguous loss occurs when a person is bodily present but is not the same emotionally or cognitively. Examples of this loss include people affected by Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, addiction, severe mental illness, or debilitating brain injury.

Every sentence, every paragraph resonated with my pain. Ambiguous loss validated my conflicted feelings over our situation: In so many ways Zach was gone, but he didn’t die. What kind of grief is that? Ambiguous loss. Finally, our pain had a name. 

Boss wrote about how people who are closely attached and become separated through ambiguous loss, suffer a trauma even greater than death.

Someone understood. 

Zach and I had been so closely attached, connected through music and deep discussions and praying for and with each other. No wonder his situation felt like a trauma even greater than death. 

And more. Grieving people often talk about the importance of closure. I had sensed that in our type of loss, there wasn’t and shouldn’t be closure. Couldn’t be closure. Zach was still with us.

Boss confirmed my belief. To pursue closure was a fruitless and impossible endeavor. Instead, I learned that we needed to learn how to hold two opposing ideas in our minds at the same time—having and not having. 

@notaloneinambiguousloss

If you guys would like the full version, comment down below for more! #ambiguousloss #revisingattachment #music #awareness #yourebeautiful #CapCut

♬ original sound – Tammy McLeod

Ambiguous Loss and Relationships

Living with ambiguous loss is incredibly stressful. There are many reasons why this is so, but one is that it can be tough on relationships. Many marriages don’t make it through ambiguous loss. 

Rather than holding two opposing ideas in our minds at the same time, my husband and I tended to fall off on one side or the other of “having and not having.” This set up the conflict in our book Hit Hard: One Family’s Journey of Letting Go of What Was and Learning to Live Well with What Is.

In addition to dealing with our own grief and trying to communicate with each other through the loss, we also had three other children and wanted to help them deal with their pain.

Then there were our friends. Since there are no public ceremonies to acknowledge ambiguous loss and its fallout, or honor the memory of the loved one, friends were unsure how to respond to the endlessness of our unique form of loss. Should they grieve with us, or pretend life was fine now that Zach had lived through it all? 

We hope that through our story you will experience the nearness of God in ambiguous loss and learn how to be resilient in it. If you are not experiencing ambiguous loss at this time, we hope our story will help you to help others navigate the rocky terrain. 

Learn more:

  1. We want to highly recommend everyone pick up a copy of their book  Hit Hard: One Family’s Journey of Letting Go of What Was— and Learning to Live Well with What Is. Their book is on sale for Amazon Prime Day. Get the ebook for only $2.99 or the paperback for the low price of $9.99 from July 7th through July 13th!
  2. Follow Pat and Tammy’s journey on TikTok @notaloneinambiguousloss, or Instagram and Facebook @patandtammymcleod


Give to Further Christian Unity

DONATE!