{"id":6170,"date":"2024-08-13T02:22:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T02:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6170"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:31:58","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:31:58","slug":"only-individuals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6170","title":{"rendered":"ONLY INDIVIDUALS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was reminded today that it&#8217;s hard to guess where any particular individual is in his or her faith journey.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had a long conversation with a sweet and personable woman today and she defies categorization.<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>She has Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, and Mormon branches in her family tree.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n<li>She and her husband raised four kids and have never been members of a church.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Now, as a grandmother, she would like to find a church where the preaching is &#8220;passionate&#8221;.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>She watches The Chosen and listens to the local Christian music station on her car radio.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>She always gives up something for Lent.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n<li>A few months ago she decided to download a prayer and Bible study app called Hallow. She spends about 30 minutes each morning listening to Scripture and Bible teaching.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n<li>And, finally, she would like to be baptized sometime soon because she &#8220;doesn&#8217;t want to go to hell&#8221;!<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What an unusual cluster of beliefs and practices&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When it comes to people and their religious beliefs, there ultimately are no categories. Only individuals.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was reminded today that it&#8217;s hard to guess where any particular individual is in his or her faith journey. I had a long conversation with a sweet and personable woman today and she defies categorization. What an unusual cluster of beliefs and practices&#8230; When it comes to people and their religious beliefs, there ultimately [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6171,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6170\/revisions\/6171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}