No Longer Strangers

ECPA Top Shelf Book Cover Award Belonging has never come easy to me. Growing up, there was my mutated national identity to deal with-my not-quite-American, not-quite-Indonesian soul, restless in both countries. Later, when I came out as a celibate gay Christian, I found I didn't fit into the church as easily as I used to. I've often wondered what it means to belong to others even when I can't manage to blend in with them. The way Jesus tells it, if we give up on belonging in order to follow him, we'll find ourselves belonging anyway. We might not belong the way other people do, with normal homes and normal families and normal ways of fitting in. But we'll belong in a way that's a hundred times better. We'll be fully in place because we know we are out of place. We'll belong like aliens. Maybe you're caught in the same tension as me, wanting to fit somewhere even as you're permanently out of place. Maybe you feel like an alien. If so, let's be aliens together.

Gregory Coles (PhD, Penn State University) is a writer, speaker, and worship leader. His first book, Single, Gay, Christian, was a 2017 Foreword INDIES Award Finalist. He lives in central Pennsylvania, where he recently completed a PhD in English from Penn State.