You really can trust Jesus with your whole life. You can come just like you are. God loves you just the way you are. It’s true, if you hang out with Jesus long enough, you will change. But neither you nor I knows what that change will look like or how it will go before it happens. And it won’t happen because God is displeased with you or actually doesn’t love you just the way you are. God really does love you just the way you are. It’ll happen because the Holy Spirit guides you and grows you into what makes you the most happy, most whole, most true to yourself. Find a faith community and a pastor who will let that process work out by the free move the Spirit, with no overlaid or underpinned agenda. If you’re in north Wake County, NC, our church Vineyard North is just such a place. 

To the extent that the church has a mission it is to be the church. Not to do this or that. Not to make the world incrementally better. But to be the community brought about by the Spirit’s ongoing mission of convincing people to trust Jesus, do what Jesus did, and renounce all claims to power. The mission of the church is to be the church. If we can accept this mission the world will be exposed as the world in the process. If we can really entrust our lives to Jesus, others will be convinced to do the same. It takes time and patience and a mindset that is mission focused on not being missional.