Dear
Edinburgh,

There’s a lot to say, so let’s start with the most important thing.

You are brilliant. The best city in the world. The best place to live, and to make a life. Nowhere else gets it right quite like Edinburgh does.

You are deeply and truly loved, from the top of Blackford Hill to the bottom of Leith Walk, and from the noise and bustle of the Mile and the Mound to the quiet beauty of Cramond and the Forth. But you’re more than a postcard, more than a weekend visit, more than the Festival and the Christmas markets and all the landmarks that people come from all over the world to see. Not that things are perfect, of course, but even the most hard-hearted Edinburgher has to admit that we’ve got it pretty good.

Because even though she’s beautiful, the thing that makes Edinburgh so special is her people. The ones who were born here and the ones who arrived last Tuesday. The parents doing the school run on barely any sleep. The students, studying hundreds of miles from anyone who knows their middle name. The baristas, the nurses, and the cabbies. From the people who do all their shopping at Valvona & Crolla and Broughton Market, to the people who pitch tents and lay sleeping bags along Princes Street because they’ve got no other option. Every life helps make Edinburgh who she is, and so every one of you means the world to us.

At C3 Edinburgh, we’re mostly a church of people from ‘somewhere else’, but we’ve all experienced the big welcome that the people of our city embraced us with. And because this city has such wide open arms, we couldn’t call ourselves a church for Edinburgh if we didn’t do the same.

And we’ll be honest with you about why. We do it because of Jesus. He met people exactly where they were. No performance, no entry requirements, no cleaning yourself up first. Jesus made people feel like they belong, and He still does. And it’s Jesus that we’re aiming for. He changed everything for us, and we just can’t hold onto that quietly.

Because life can get pretty lonely sometimes. Even in a brilliant city like this, you can be surrounded by thousands of people and still feel completely unknown. But we don’t want any of you feeling like you don’t have a community to belong to.

We don’t want anyone to feel like they have to carry their life on their own.

And so we want to welcome each of you with the same open arms that were offered to us. No matter where you’ve started, where you’re at, or where you think you’re heading, there’s a village and a people and a home for you at C3 Edinburgh.

You don’t owe us a thing for reading this. But if something in it landed — if you’re curious, or worn out, if you’re wondering about visiting us on a Sunday morning, or if you’ve seen someone around town wearing one of our T-shirts or a hoodie, and that’s how you’ve found yourself here, don’t feel like you need to be a stranger. Because we’re all yours, Edinburgh, and we always will be. Whether we ever meet or not.