Atheists helping a church? Would a church let them?

For a while now I have wanted to be able to ​allow broaden the people who are able to serve on different committees of the church. For instance, I would love to have an atheist or an agnostic on an Evangelism team. I have no idea if that would ever be possible because generally atheists are not interested in helping churches. 

But really I think a sell that would be just as difficult to do is to convince the church to allow an atheist or agnostic or even a non-member to serve in different areas of the church. ​

All of this comes out of a renegotiation that ​I really have no idea how to engage non-Christians in religious conversations. I have no connection to the atheist community or even really understand all the arguments against organized religion. I get that organized religion has a history that is bloody - but all of humanity has a history of blood. I get that parts of organized religion provoke hate even today, there are also a large number of organized religions that provoke love. I get there are some intellectual arguments against the logic of the existence of a deity and yet I understand that most of Christianity is not logical at all (love neighbor, die to self, non-reciprocal altruism, turn the other cheek, violence is never good, etc.). 

I would love to have non-religious in our church to help build bridges. I only wonder which would be the harder group to convince - the non-members or the members? ​

Jason Valendy

Husband, father of two boys, pastor in the United Methodist Church, and guy who is interested in the desert mothers and fathers. The idea of Orthocardia is the pursuit of having a “right heart” over the pursuit of having a “right belief” (orthodoxy) or a “right action” (orthopraxy).

www.jasonvalendy.net
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