We at Spring of Life strive to be an inclusive community. I recognize this is hard and complex work that requires honoring and valuing the image of God in every person. We seek to welcome everyone across the divides of race, gender, age, partisanship, language, culture, sexual orientation, and more. We acknowledge that it is harder to be a diverse and multicultural community than it is to be a monocultural and homogeneous church.

I encourage us to remember, there are many in our community for whom these conversations about immigration and deportation have direct impacts. I have heard stories of people in our local community being deported as well as others who live in fear of family members being deported. How do we respond to that as followers of Christ?

In the simplest terms, Christians are interrupting the worship of other Christians. This situation reveals how deeply polarized we have become even as faith communities with different values. I know all of the people involved would say “Jesus is Lord” and we are following Jesus in really different ways. For me it raises questions like, “who is more faithfully following God? or who wins the confrontation?” I would say that no one wins when worship is being interrupted, no one wins when a pastor is prevented from entering the church he pastors. No one wins when Christians duke it out in the comment section on social media or leave one star google reviews for another church. Our Christian witness for people far from God comes at the expense of all this fighting.

This executive order seeks to prevent bias not persecution. Bias is “prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.” Some would say there is pro Christian bias while others would contend the opposite is true. I don’t claim to be a referee, but I think we all see how different Christian communities are responding to this political moment.

This tragedy is a failure of witness for the church. When the church fails we as Christians need to resist the temptation to sweep it under the rug and instead own it. The best way I know how to respond to failure is through confession and pardon.

Amendment 4 is a ballot measure inviting Florida voters to choose how we handle the question of abortion in our state. This is a complex issue that is difficult to distill into a simple yes or no vote.