Welcoming Transformation: The Unique Nature of Acceptance in the Church

Photo by Pearl

The first visit to a new church marks a sense of hope and anticipation—that this may be the place where you can seek to live like Jesus in a welcoming community with other disciples. At least, that is what we hope newcomers feel as they walk through the doors of the churches we pastor. 

There is beauty in ensuring that newcomers and long-time attendees alike know they are welcome. However, our concern for the church at large is that our attempts to welcome have become culture-based, rather than transformation-based. We (the authors) have no interest in proclaiming who is or is not worthy of sitting in the pews of a church sanctuary. What we have vested interest in, however, is a message of acceptance leavened by a message of transformation.

Transformation is the grace of God working in cooperation with the human will to shape and form us into the likeness of Jesus. Transformation reclaims the Imago Dei within the human heart, setting aside ego, pride, and natural dispositions for the sake of becoming the person God invites us to be. 

It is misleading to say that God accepts us the way that we are. He does not. He could not. Only through Jesus are we acceptable before God. It is in our brokenness that we can boast of the glory of God, because, though we were unacceptable to Him, God made it possible for us to enter his Kingdom. That acceptance is not dependent upon us, our abilities, gifts, gender, theological education, sexuality, or attempts to be moral. Acceptance is through the grace and gift of Jesus. Further, even after God has accepted us through Christ, He does not leave us. He continuously invites us into a life marked by transformation. Thus, we wonder if the church might better be served by a message of welcoming transformation. 

Transformation and accountability are connected, but sometimes accountability comes without relationship. In such cases, we may see too little grace and too much shame. This form of “transformation” can create walls and boundaries in areas that were not meant to be. Transformation without relationship has been used to control people rather than help them experience God’s sanctifying grace in their lives. As Christians, the call to transformation does not come without a relationship. Our God left His throne above to be in relationship with those He invited into transformation. He did not proclaim transformation at a distance; He proclaimed it around tables and in boats and walking down the road. True transformation and acceptance take place in the context of relationships.

Acceptance and transformation are not just good ideas. We see them throughout Scripture. Take, for example, the woman caught in adultery in John 8. Jesus looked upon her with love and grace. He told her, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11 NLT). Jesus did not just stop at acceptance. He did not turn to the Pharisees and teachers of the law and say, “What’s wrong? I accept everyone.” Because He loved this woman, He welcomed her to a transformed life where she would experience the goodness of the life He desired for her.

This is not a one-off story in Scripture. We see it throughout the Bible. Israel provides a key example. The people of Israel were radically accepted as those with whom God chose to reside. But God also offered them the Torah, consisting of laws intended to make them a set-apart people. God said, “You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own” (Leviticus 20:26 NIV). In other words, they entered a covenant with God, and that covenant involved not just acceptance, but expectations. When His people turned away, God did not abandon them, but He also didn’t shrug and resign to them “living their truth.” Instead, He sent prophets to preach a message of transformation: “Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices” (Ezekiel 14:6 NIV). 

In the New Testament, when the apostles were contemplating how to accept Gentiles into the Way of Jesus, they did not uphold all the Jewish laws, nor did they just accept the ways of the Gentiles. Instead, they set standards of holiness: “abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood” (Acts 15:20 NIV). Transformation by the Holy Spirit offers the promise of holiness of heart and life. 

The same hope of transformation rests with us today. The church is invited to respond continuously to God’s welcome into His Kingdom. She may begin living into a call of welcome transformation in a few ways: 

1. Acceptance and transformation come with an ask. 

Acceptance into the Kingdom of God comes with the responsibility to follow Jesus in his ways. Church leaders may fear asking something of those who step through their doors. In her book Not Done Yet: Reaching and Keeping Unchurched Emerging Adults, (IVP, 2020) Dr. Beth Severson indicates that churches with a culture of enthusiasm for participation demonstrate higher rates of effectively reaching people. Scripture testifies that God invites us to participate in His mission to restore a hurting world. Creating an ask for churchgoers honors God’s invitation for restoration. 

2. Acceptance and transformation happen in relationships. 

The God of the universe extends Himself to each person, seeking to draw near to us so that we may know and be known by Him. The power and work of God transform our lives. As such, as we seek to be involved in a transformative community, relationships encourage, correct, and inform us about the Christian journey together. 

3. Acceptance and transformation are not passive. 

We may be tempted to view church as a place where we sit and listen. But more than that, church is a place to encounter God’s presence. God’s final acceptance of us is made possible by Christ’s death on the cross. In turn, we engage with God by remembering His invitation of salvation for us. It is true that God does the heavy lifting in our transformation, but we cooperate through a willingness to allow the Holy Spirit to shape and mold us. 

4. Acceptance without transformation is cheap grace.

In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession” (Touchstone, 1995, originally published 1937). When churches promote acceptance without transformation, we propagate a gospel of cheap grace, preaching a love that makes us feel whole, but does not actually make us whole.

5. Acceptance without transformation withholds God’s transformative power.

Many of those who walk into the doors of our church for the first time feel like sick people walking into a doctor’s office. They know that something is wrong and need someone to offer them healing. When we preach acceptance without transformation, we are either saying: 1) God cannot heal you, 2) God does not want to heal you, 3) We do not care enough about you to offer you God’s healing, or 4) There’s nothing really wrong with you. People know they need to be transformed. The church knows who can transform them.

In summary, the church should be a community of acceptance, but acceptance predicated on the idea of transformation. We are inviting others into a community in which they will be made holy by the merits of Christ and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Acceptance without transformation is not the Christian Gospel.

Hunter G. Bethea serves as Associate Pastor at Mulder Church in Wetumpka, Alabama. 

Allyce Fogle-Logue is an Associate Pastor at Hicks Memorial Methodist Church in Pennsylvania.