“SBNR” – A Starting Point?
Amy Thompson Sevimli, assistant to the bishop in the ELCA’s Metro DC Synod, writes at Call & Response that people’s identification as “spiritual but not religious” can be a starting point for faith-filled conversation, if we listen first:
I firmly believe that the best way we can connect people with God in Christ — and with the way we worship that God in church — is by first listening to their spiritual story and only then telling our own. Often, they are more willing to listen to us than we are to them, usually not bored by us but fascinated by our faith and our willingness to give voice to it in a day when many are not. Spiritual but not religious is not an impediment to that conversation but an invitation if we are willing to accept it.
