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What is Not Church?

It’s cooking a meal together where we also talk about Jesus and stuff. About once a month, we cook a crowd-sourced meal and serve it at an event we call Sunday Supper. These suppers are open to anyone who wants a hot meal. Check our Instagram or Facebook (@notchurchathens) for the most up-to-date info. You can also find a list of items to donate that our friends on the street usually need.

But to explain more….Not Church is a group where you can come and wrestle with your religious or spiritual stuff, ask honest questions, build supportive community, and serve others. We cook a meal for about 50 of our homeless neighbors because we’re trying to love and share the gifts we have. It’s welcoming because that’s how Jesus did things. It’s built on honest questions because that’s how we find answers (or more questions). It’s “not” church because “real” church has too much baggage….and because we thought it was funny. You don’t need to call yourself a Christian or adhere to any particular creed. This is a place for pilgrims, explorers, and wanderers.

We’re serious about welcoming the people that churches haven’t always been super cool to, so we wrote this statement of our values:

“Not Church is committed to ministry that celebrates the diversity and full personhood of every human being: all sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions, races, ethnicities, social classes, ages, languages, and nationalities are affirmed here as welcome and beloved by God. 

Or, to put it more simply, God loves and accepts every person. It is our belief that, by emulating God’s transformative love for each of us, we can gather around a table of fellowship where all of us are neighbors supporting one another in our shared journey of grace.”

If you want to get in touch, send us a DM on Instagram.