It’s kind of become a trend to contrast religion with relationship in churches. Religion is generally defined by the tendency to live by a list of rules, whereas relationship is just what it sounds like — to live in relationship with God through Christ.

I was thinking through the years of ministry I’ve experienced and realized that over and over again, when we are being religious, we are generally fruitless. And when we operate out of a relationship based in grace, we see fruit. It is my opinion that the fruit we are seeing at Curwensville Alliance is partially because we’ve abandoned dead religious tradition in favor of healthy pursuit of God. If you want to hear a good talk on this, there’s one at Willowcreek called Go Outside.