So Just Imagine . . .

"— A church where Baptists and Catholics, Pentecostals and Unitarians, Presbyterians and Quakers, [fill in your group and some other group here], all show up at the food pantry with something to feed the hungry and then do not get into an argument — at least until everyone is fed.

"— A church where women are truly equal to men, and never patronized.

"— A church where straights and gays worship together as children of God.

"— A church where the mission budget is as large as the operating budget.

"— A church where children are cherished in practice, not just in theory.

"— A church where conscientious objectors are considered as heroic as soldiers.

"— A church where following Jesus is just as important as worshiping Christ.

"— A church where trying to discern what Jesus taught us about God is more important than arguing over what the church has taught us about Jesus.

"— A church where the clergy are on neither a pedestal nor a chopping block.

"— A church where the music is as diverse as the humans who make it and the creation it celebrates.

"— A church where we earn our tax-exempt status by giving space back to the communities we serve in ways that create community and bring people into true fellowship with one another.

"— A church where learning is not subversive and science is not the enemy of faith.

"— A church where fear is never an instrument of religious conversion or conversation.

"— A church where the enemy is not death but rather our failure to truly live.

"— A church where the waters of baptism, no matter how they are administered, trap us all in the irreversible claim of God upon our lives.

"— A church where the best possible education for every child is a moral imperative, requiring that we join forces to adopt and assist our most troubled schools, lest we fail our mandate toward 'the least of these.'

"— A church where we tend the small garden we have been given and do not participate in the murder of creation.

"— A church where everyone encourages one another, never assuming that when someone says she is 'just fine,' she means it.

"— A church where beauty is the effortless manifestation of inner peace.

"— A church where being rich means having everything you need instead of everything you want.

"— A church where there is no acceptable alternative to hope, no substitute for joy, and no excuse not to offer the same unconditional love to others that has been so freely lavished on us.

"This is the Underground Church.
Are you ready to join?
How about this Sunday?
Come as you are."