Many of you are familiar with the “He Gets Us” campaign and its premise that Jesus understands all of our frailties, fears, faults, and dysfunction. I think they got that right.

But in other ways, I think they’ve missed the mark.

The people originally behind the multimillion-dollar campaign drew clear and dangerous lines around those people that they don’t think Jesus gets, and their exclusion included the LGBTQ+ community. If there is one thing I’m certain that Jesus does NOT get, it’s exclusion and judgment.

At upRising, we know that God loves us, and yes, gets us, and we believe that our faithful response to God‘s love is to love God and our neighbors well. It’s easy to get discouraged these days by all that’s happening around us, so we lean on God and each other to help us live with more trust, joy, hope, and faith.

We know the church gets lots of things wrong, but we’re trying to be a different kind of church. We take seriously the invitation to follow Jesus, and we believe that the Bible, when read through the lens of love, has a lot to teach us and a lot of hope to offer us.

If you’d like to learn more about us, please send me an email, check out the rest of our website and our FaceBook page, or visit us for Saturday or Sunday worship.

Always in Hope,

Rev. Karen Woodworth

Sr. Pastor

[email protected]