Sometimes I realize that I live in a protective, liberal bubble, and mostly, I’m pretty glad about that.
This past week, we received a number of harassing emails, Facebook messages or comments and a vile phone call. Most amusingly, we got a number of 1-star reviews on Google. If you want to know how I feel about all this, make sure to listen to my Easter Sermon from last Sunday [sermon starts at 45:53].
I want you to know that we take this all seriously and have researched this to confirm that almost all of these people are not in Phoenix–they just see an Instagram post and want to yell into the abyss (which I don’t pretend I understand, but whatever). But I have to say that we got quite amused by the Google Reviews, and we responded to them, knowing that the people who are looking for our community will appreciate the very things that the haters named: that we have a female-identifying Minister, that we fly the Pride flag, that we stand for Black Lives Matter and that we are “woke.”
It is a sign of just how polarized we are in this country that they believe that posting a review will make people turn away from us, when we know it will do exactly the opposite.
Again, we are taking all this seriously, but it has been good to find some humor in this as well. If you want to see for yourself, go check out our reviews, our loving and generous responses and add a review of your own.
I am so proud to be your Minister and so proud of the values that we represent.