I don’t know if you have ever watched “The Trailer Park Boys”. One episode had a profound effect on my thinking.

Julian, Ricky, and Bubbles are losers in life, living in a trailer park. They resort to petty crime to sustain themselves (mostly growing marijuana or stealing). These things often put them in jail for short times, but they are let out to fend for themselves. They are alcoholics and druggees.

One Christmas, a local church invites them to their Christmas service. They show up drunk and disruptive — and police are called to escort them out.

On on hand, people of faith cannot be too accommodating to The Trailer Park Boys. And yet, if there is no outreach and reasonable expectations from the church, the Boys don’t get the benefit of exposure to another way of life. I am confounded on how Christians and others need to put some distance from “other people.”

About ten years ago, a friend of mine went through a divorce. She had to leave her church of many years as she was no longer comfortable in their midst.