I grew up around people who looked like me but never felt like I belonged. My own culture felt like a jacket that never quite fit. I wore it because I had to. But it always felt tight in the shoulders, awkward at the seams.
By Dr. Tim Orr
I don’t remember the moment I realized I didn’t fit.
It wasn’t one traumatic event. It was a thousand small moments—a joke I didn’t find funny, a conversation I didn’t know how to enter, a way of being that felt foreign, even though I was supposedly “one of them.” I grew up around people who looked like me but never felt like I belonged. My own culture felt like a jacket that never quite fit. I wore it because I had to. But it always felt tight in the shoulders, awkward at the seams.
The strange part? I felt most at ease, most understood, among Black communities. The language, the music, even the faith, the way people carried themselves with pride and pain, resilience and joy resonated deeply. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I see it now: I was drawn to something that echoed the gospel more honestly than I used to.
Looking back, I now understand what God was doing.
He was preparing me for a calling I couldn’t yet imagine: to help others cross cultural boundaries—not as tourists but as ambassadors of Christ, to step out of the comfort of the familiar and into the vulnerability of listening, learning, and loving others across differences.
Today, that’s what I do. I train people to reach beyond their own culture to connect with others meaningfully, especially those from cultures they don’t understand or even feel uncomfortable around. And what I’ve found is this: most people struggle because they’ve never had to leave their cultural home.
They’ve always felt safe in their own skin, their own neighborhood, and their own traditions. So when the gospel calls them to go—to love, to serve, to embrace someone “other”—they freeze. It feels like too much.
But here’s the truth I’ve come to believe: the gospel never calls us to safety. It calls us to Christlikeness. And Christ didn’t stay home.
Jesus left heaven, entered a culture not His own, and became like us to save us. And not just that—He crossed every social and cultural boundary in His ministry. He touched lepers, spoke with Samaritan women, healed Roman servants, celebrated faith in Gentiles, and dignified children. He had nowhere to lay His head. And in all of it, He revealed the heart of the Father—a love that is always moving toward the outsider.
If we follow Jesus, we don’t just admire His love; we embody it.
But embodying it is hard—unless the gospel is internalized at the deepest level.
For years, I knew the gospel in my head. I could articulate the doctrines. I could lead a Bible study or preach a sermon. But it wasn’t until I began to really see myself through the lens of God’s grace—a man chosen, adopted, sent—that the gospel started to reshape how I saw others. I stopped seeing people as “projects” or “differences to manage” and began seeing them as beloved image-bearers, just like me.
That changes everything.
I no longer need others to be like me to love them. The cross has already settled that. I don’t need cultural sameness to feel safe. My identity is in Christ, not in where I’m from or who accepts me. And once you truly know that, you can walk into any room—any culture—and be at home.
Not fitting in was painful. I won’t romanticize it. There were lonely moments, seasons of self-doubt, and even resentment. But now I see that God was doing something deeper. He was forming a restlessness with cultural Christianity and a hunger for kingdom unity in me. He was preparing me to empathize with outsiders, be a bridge between worlds, and equip others to go where they never thought they could.
And maybe that’s you.
Maybe you’ve felt like you don’t fit. Maybe you’ve always wondered why God made you the way He did. Maybe you’ve felt the ache of not belonging. What if that ache is not a curse but a calling?
What if God is shaping you, like He shaped me, to show others the kind of love that crosses cultures, barriers, and assumptions? a love that starts not with fitting in but with being found in Christ.
Because in Him, we are all at home.
Tim serves full-time with Crescent Project as the assistant director of the internship program and area coordinator, where he is also deeply involved in outreach across the UK. A scholar of Islam, Evangelical minister, conference speaker, and interfaith consultant, Tim brings over 30 years of experience in cross-cultural ministry. He holds six academic degrees, including a Doctor of Ministry from Liberty University and a Master’s in Islamic Studies from the Islamic College in London.
In addition to his ministry work, Tim is a research associate with the Congregations and Polarization Project at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University Indianapolis. His research interests include Islamic antisemitism, American Evangelicalism, and Islamic feminism. He has spoken at leading universities and mosques throughout the UK—including Oxford University, Imperial College London, and the University of Tehran—and has published widely in peer-reviewed Islamic academic journals. Tim is also the author of four books.