GUEST-POST: A DIscipleship of Discomfort

[Reimagine Curator]

The One True Gospel Disrupts Our Comfort Guest Writer: Pricelis Perreaux-Dominguez Nijay K. Gupta    Preface Hey friends, Nijay here. Welcome to the ONE TRUE GOSPEL series. Everyone has a “gospel,” some big ideology they want to preach, some salvation they want to offer, some “truth” they want to present. This series is a clarion call for the church to return to the one true gospel, the heavenly gospel kingdom that is led and represented by our one and only Lord Jesus Christ. Today’s guest post is written by my friend, Pricelis Perreaux-Dominguez. Pricelis is an Afro-Latina truth-teller and space builder committed to helping the Body of Christ be sanctuaries. She’s the founder/ceo of Full Collective and creator of the annual Sowers Summit in NYC. She is the author of ‘Being a Sanctuary: The Radical Way for the Body of Christ to be Sacred, Soft, and Safe’, and her next book, ‘False Peace’, is coming out in August 2026 (available for pre-order now!). She holds a Master’s in educational leadership and social work and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Biblical and Theological Studies at Denver Seminary. Pricelis is an Associate Pastor at Renovation City Church in The Bronx, NY, where she lives with her husband and son. I am delighted to welcome Pricelis to Engaging Scripture to reflect on how The One True Gospel Disrupts Our Comfort ~Nijay The One True Gospel Disrupts Our Comfort Guest Writer: Pricelis Perreaux-Dominguez Anything good can become corruptible. What I mean is that most things intended for good can be misused, misunderstood, or misaligned from their original intent. Look at the Bible: it intends to show us who God is, to give us access to the story and life of Jesus, and to provide a tool to disciple us and help us disciple others as we walk through this life. But historically, it’s been used to enslave, manipulate, steal from, harm, confuse, and derail some people. Its intent was good, but anyone can use it for a goal far from its original purpose. True Contentment and False Contentment—and Holy Discontent Contentment is like that. I remember when I really realized the gift of being content. Before having my son, I was always on the go. Whether traveling or just filling my days with things I felt would ‘fulfill’ me or be the equivalent of ‘living my life to the fullest,’ I learned a great deal, particularly with Christ, when my son came along. Something in my body, mind, and heart shifted, and I no longer looked for what I thought was ‘living my best life’ based on the standards I had before; instead, I found a beautiful contentment in my ‘best life’ being a different kind of life that motherhood required. It didn’t constrain me but liberated me to walk in contentment in Christ. But not all contentment is good. Some of it normalizes things God didn’t intend, like division. We could convince ourselves that we aren’t content with the division, but complacent about it, but I don’t think that’s true at all. Complacency is apathy towards something, and contentment is peace with it. We aren’t apathetic about the current division in the church and the world; we are at peace with it because we’ve normalized it so much that we accept it and feel we can’t do anything about it. But perhaps God is inviting us into discontent about division to reach real contentment through newfound unity among brothers and sisters in Christ. Perhaps through His gospel, that brings true freedom, we will encounter the very thing that would disrupt our contentment in the division we have accepted as our reality. Because a divided church is not a liberated one. And we can’t introduce others to liberation while walking in a collective boundness. This is where I think the other good thing that has become corrupt comes in—comfort. Our chains are tied to our desire for comfort. Because it can be uncomfortable to have a conversation with someone who disagrees with you. It can be uncomfortable to go to church with someone who voted differently from you. It can be uncomfortable to choose forgiveness and dignity when someone disrespects or dehumanizes you in the comments section or on their post. It can be uncomfortable to have theological differences with someone who isn’t open-minded. But discomfort is not a threat or a bad thing. The gospel itself calls us to discomfort, not in a way that diminishes our dignity but in a way that invites us to a liberation by way of dying to ourselves and following Jesus. A Discipleship of Discomfort I’m sure the disciples of Jesus during his earthly ministry were uncomfortable with not knowing where they would sleep each night or where they would go each day. Maybe even the female disciples felt discomfort at first when they encountered Jesus, who dignified, included, listened to, and elevated them - something that they didn’t experience everywhere among their brothers. Discomfort can sometimes be a door to being discipled by Jesus. In the case of the current church, maybe God is inviting us to disrupt the comfort of being in homogeneous spaces and churches. Maybe he’s trying to disrupt a theology we believe in but don’t have biblical grounding for, because it was taught to us, even though it isn’t actually in the Bible. Maybe he’s trying to disrupt our Sunday schedules and church programs to make more room for the Holy Spirit. Maybe he wants to disrupt our comfort with hiding behind screens and creating reaction videos of someone we wouldn’t personally reach out to in real life, or leaving comments on posts with things we would never say to the person’s face. Maybe he wants to disrupt our comfort by the way we stand on stances and sides so strongly that we forget the souls behind the sides we are against. Maybe he’s trying to disrupt our comfort in wanting to center our churches, theologies, and communities around the idea of sameness when scripture doesn’t call us to that, but to oneness. Maybe he wants to disrupt the comfort we have found in the false peace we live in, where division is accepted and amplified. Maybe he’s trying to disrupt our comfort so we wake up from our content sleep and move toward the real, unified gospel message - that all image bearers have worth, and Jesus communicated that on the cross, giving us all access to liberation through His death and resurrection. Not just some of us or us individually, but he did it for all of us. Audre Lorde says it like, ‘I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.’¹ The Hard, But True Road to Freedom and Unity “Free people, free people,” and free people should care about others’ freedom. Because that is what the gospel, the one true gospel, gives us access to. A freedom that is meant to be used for His glory and service unto others, as we see in 1 Peter 2:16 (AMP), “Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover or pretext for evil, but [use it and live] as bond-servants of God.” We are meant to use this freedom to overcome what would otherwise be a stumbling block to loving our neighbors - every single one of them, because the gospel message of togetherness disrupts the contentment we have found in division and the comfort we have found in sameness. And embracing that disruption is what will lead us to walk together in the one true gospel. But it starts with some of us. Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”² We don’t need to wait for unity to become everyone’s agreed-upon idea or next action step. We just need a few of us not just to want it, but to be committed to pursuing it. This means we walk through self-evaluations of our lives and anything that perpetuates division in it. This means we consider our relationship with forgiveness, dignity, justice, mercy, gentleness, and empathy, and how it’s expressed through our lives. This means we might need to repent of ways, thinking, or actions that have caused or perpetuated division in any kind of way - whether from a comment or post, a sermon, or a way we live. This means we take praying for the church seriously. This means we need to cling to hope tightly and be mindful of what we consume. The enemy is always finding ways to discourage our hope in unity, but we must hold strong to the stories, testimonies, and communities that have shown us the beauty of God’s heart and His church while we choose to allow our contentment and comfort to be disrupted. There’s something about the book of Deuteronomy and how all 34 chapters of it have a consistent message of ‘remembering’. Remembering is a tool we can use to disrupt our contentment and comfort, because there are testimonies in our life story that will always remind us of the one true gospel, even if current news, our feed, and maybe even our personal life want to convince us of another narrative. We must resist despair and division and allow God to disrupt us. We do this by remaining together and remembering who Jesus has always been, who He still is, and who He will be. Among us, His Church, as the Almighty Alpha and Omega, as it says in Revelation 1:8 and 12-13 (CSB), “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” - Verse 8 “Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me. When I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was one like the Son of Man, dressed in a robe and with a golden sash wrapped around his chest.” - Verses 12-13 Yes and amen until He comes again. __________________________________________________________________________ Check out Pricelis’s books Share Engaging Scripture (with Dr. Nijay K. Gupta) is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Upgrade to paid 1 Audre Lorde, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984), 132.   2 Margaret Mead, quoted in Donald Keys, Earth at Omega: Passage to Planetization (Boston: Branden Press, 1982), 79.     You're currently a free subscriber to Engaging Scripture (with Dr. Nijay K. Gupta). For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.a