He Gets Us and Jesus—Love Extends to Everyone
There’s a particular kind of fatigue that comes from feeling unwelcome, misunderstood, or perpetually on the outside looking in. You can see it in the way people scroll past one another, in the sharpness of conversations that used to be simple, and in the loneliness that can sit behind even a busy schedule. He Gets Us is built around that reality. The campaign says it began in 2021 as a response to loneliness, division, and anxiety, with the idea of sharing stories about Jesus in unexpected places to spark curiosity and conversation.
That origin story matters, because it tells you what the project is trying to do. It’s not primarily asking people to sign up for a platform. It is inviting people to consider Jesus, his life, and his teachings, and why he matters today. In other words, it is trying to widen the circle at the point where many people already feel narrowed.
And at the center of that circle is a simple, stubborn claim: Jesus’ love extends beyond the categories we use to sort people.
A campaign that points to Jesus, not a party line
One reason He Gets Us can feel both familiar and disarming is that it is connected to Christianity but does not present itself as a vehicle for a single church, denomination, or faith viewpoint. The campaign says it is not affiliated with any single individual, political position, church, denomination, or faith viewpoint, even though it is “about Jesus” and thus connected to Christianity.
In practice, that means the message tries to focus on Jesus himself rather than on who gets to speak first, who gets to win arguments, or which institution gets to claim the loudest authority. The campaign is led by Come Near, Inc., a nonprofit, and He Gets Us, LLC is wholly owned and managed by Come Near, Inc. That structure matters because it reflects an emphasis on the mission rather than a personality brand.
He Gets Us also says its stated aim is to reintroduce people to Jesus and highlight themes such as love, forgiveness, understanding, kindness, and service. Those themes sound almost too broad until you watch what happens when a community forgets them. Then love becomes suspicion, forgiveness becomes weakness, understanding becomes a demand to agree, kindness becomes performative, and service becomes a slogan instead of a practice.
What the campaign is aiming for, at least on its own terms, is a different set of instincts.
Why “unexpected places” can change the conversation
There’s a quiet truth about curiosity: it doesn’t show up on command. You don’t just decide, “Now I will become curious about Jesus.” Curiosity often arrives through friction, through surprise, through the moment when a message shows up where you didn’t expect it. The campaign says it shares stories about Jesus in unexpected places to spark that kind of attention.
If you’ve ever moved through a public space and felt your guard go up automatically, you know how rare it is for anyone to lower that guard just because a person is speaking politely. But if a story meets you casually, or meets you repeatedly, in a context that does not demand https://hegetsus.com/ you agree immediately, you may find yourself pausing without knowing why.
That pause is not trivial. It is where dialogue can begin. It is also where people can discover that the question they’ve avoided is not actually a threat. Sometimes it is a door.
He Gets Us has been widely associated with major cultural advertising, including Super Bowl spots. The campaign itself says it has brought Jesus into major cultural spaces, and AP reported that it ran Super Bowl ads in 2023 and 2024. Whether you personally enjoy that kind of advertising is a separate question. The underlying strategy is simple: meet people where they already are, and let the story do the heavy lifting.
There is risk in that approach, of course. Broad reach invites broad reaction. AP reported criticism that focused partly on perceived tension between the campaign’s inclusive public message and some financial supporters’ backing of conservative causes, including anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ efforts. The existence of that criticism is a real part of the public conversation around He Gets Us.
Still, the central aspiration from the campaign remains: to reintroduce people to Jesus in a way that draws out themes like love and understanding, not division.
Love that does not require sameness
The slogan energy around He Gets Us can make it easy to overlook a more demanding idea underneath. If love extends to everyone, then love cannot be limited to people who look like you, think like you, vote like you, or carry the same private stories. Love has to be robust enough to enter places where you would normally feel uncomfortable.
He Gets Us’ FAQ page states that Jesus loves LGBTQ+ people and that everyone is welcome to explore Jesus’ story. That statement is not just a headline. It is a litmus test for whether a message is willing to speak plainly about welcome, rather than hoping “good intentions” will handle the hard edges.
You can approach that claim with different levels of agreement or disagreement, but either way, it forces a serious question: what does it mean for Jesus to love people who do not match the dominant culture’s preferences?
In Christian terms, it points to the idea that Jesus’ love is not conditional on perfect alignment. Love does not wait until a person cleans up their life, edits their identity, or hides their questions. Love meets people honestly where they are. The invitation, then, is not merely to accept a label, but to explore a story with seriousness.
There’s a practical consequence here. If love is truly for everyone, then hospitality cannot be selective. It has to extend to people who might bring conflict, misunderstanding, or grief into the room. It also has to extend to people who might disappoint us, because disappointment is part of being human.
The difference between messaging and presence
It can be tempting to evaluate a campaign mostly by what it prints or broadcasts. But stories about Jesus land differently depending on whether they are paired with presence and follow-through. He Gets Us, according to its own materials, publishes resources focused on Jesus and topics like relationships, bias, mental health, and hospitality.
Those topics are not random. Relationships are where love becomes visible. Bias is where kindness gets blocked before it even reaches a person. Mental health is where people discover whether a community knows how to respond without fear. Hospitality is where welcome becomes more than a slogan.
Here is the trade-off that comes up in real conversations. When you try to reach people through public messaging, you can expand awareness quickly. But you cannot replace local, relational care. Advertising can open a door. It cannot walk the person through and stay there with them when the fear hits. That is why any “love extends to everyone” message has to find ways to become personal, not just visible.
In my experience, people who are skeptical about campaigns like this are often not arguing against Jesus. They are arguing against the possibility of being used. They have seen messages that say the right words while practicing something different behind the scenes. So they ask for integrity. They ask for consistency.
The best response is not defensiveness. It is clarity and a willingness to let Jesus’ life set the standard for what love looks like.
Jesus in the public square, and the meaning of “reintroduction”
He Gets Us describes itself as inviting people to consider Jesus, his life, and his teachings, and why he matters today. The phrase “reintroduce” is telling. It assumes that many people may have heard about Jesus before, but not in a way that feels relevant or true to his character.
That distinction matters. Some people grow up hearing Jesus as a warning or a weapon. Others hear him as a distant religious figure. Still others hear him filtered through political controversy, church politics, or personal disappointment.
Reintroduction is an attempt to clear the fog. It tries to offer Jesus as a person you can approach: someone whose love is tangible, whose forgiveness is not a performance, and whose understanding is not limited to the comfortable.
And it tries to do it without requiring you to agree with everything immediately. The campaign says everyone is welcome to explore Jesus’ story. That language gives people room to be honest about their questions.
If you’ve ever tried to reach out to someone after a painful experience, you know how much trust depends on pacing. Pushing too hard can create resistance. Offering a respectful invitation can create openness. The “unexpected places” approach is a bet that the right story, at the right moment, can soften the reflex to resist.
Love, forgiveness, and the hard work of understanding
Themes like love and forgiveness can sound like they belong on posters, but in lived experience they demand something more.
Love, for example, is not merely a warm feeling. It is action. It is patience with someone’s learning curve. It is refusing to treat someone as disposable. It is the choice to see a person as more than their worst day.
Forgiveness is even more demanding. Forgiveness does not erase harm. It does not pretend the damage didn’t happen. It is a different kind of response, one that refuses to let bitterness take over the steering wheel of your life.
Understanding is where many conversations fall apart, because people often use “understanding” as a synonym for approval. He Gets Us, as described by its own stated aims, highlights understanding and kindness. In a faithful reading, that points to a willingness to listen, to recognize complexity, and to respond with empathy rather than contempt.
But understanding has boundaries. It does not require you to endorse every behavior. It does not require you to ignore consequences. It does require humility, and humility can be slow.
Kindness and service, meanwhile, are where slogans become measurable. You can claim love in public. But you reveal it in what you do when no one is watching, when it takes time, when it costs something, and when the person you are helping is not immediately charming or grateful.
That is why the campaign’s emphasis on service is not incidental. Service is a form of love with a pulse.
The conversation can include disagreement, not just applause
Because He Gets Us has public reach, people talk about it publicly, which means it inevitably becomes a proxy for larger arguments. AP reported criticism tied partly to perceived tension between the campaign’s inclusive public message and some supporters’ conservative causes, including anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ efforts. That criticism shows how easily “inclusive message” and “supporter alignment” can feel disconnected.
In situations like this, it helps to separate two questions that often get blended:
First, what does the campaign claim to be trying to do? It says it is about Jesus, it aims to reintroduce people to Jesus, and it highlights love, forgiveness, understanding, kindness, and service. It also states that Jesus loves LGBTQ+ people and that everyone is welcome to explore Jesus’ story.
Second, what do different stakeholders do behind the scenes? The public reports mention financial supporters and their backing of certain conservative causes. Even when a campaign insists it is not affiliated with a particular political position, people still evaluate credibility through the broader ecosystem around it.
Those are not easy questions. If you are concerned about hypocrisy, you will want transparency and consistency. If you are defending the campaign, you will want to keep the spotlight on what Jesus is actually inviting people to do and become.
A Jesus-centered approach can handle disagreement without collapsing into hostility, but it asks for maturity. That maturity includes the willingness to say, “I hear the concern,” while also refusing to pretend the message is meaningless.
For Christians, the goal is not to win arguments. It is to embody the kind of love that can endure complexity.
What “welcome” looks like in daily life
He Gets Us’ resources include topics like hospitality, bias, relationships, and mental health. That matters because the word “welcome” gets tested in ordinary situations.
Welcome can be as small as the tone you use when someone enters a conversation confused or hurting. It can be the decision to ask a clarifying question instead of making a quick judgment. It can also be the choice to create space for grief, since grief can make people behave in ways that look irrational to outsiders.
If you work with people, volunteer in a community, or spend time in churches, you know how often the “hardest” people are actually the most vulnerable people. They may arrive guarded. They may speak sharply. They may interrupt. They may struggle to trust.
A welcome shaped by Jesus’ love does not force those people to perform calmness before they are accepted. It helps them feel safe enough to be real.
There are practical ways to build that kind of safety, even when you disagree with someone’s conclusions:
- Start with curiosity. Ask what they are experiencing, not just what they believe.
- Choose words that invite honesty, not defensiveness.
- Make room for mental health realities without turning every discomfort into a crisis.
- Practice hospitality consistently, not only when it is convenient.
- Treat forgiveness as a process, not a press button.
Those steps are not a substitute for a theology. They are how a theology becomes visible.
When the message meets real skepticism
One of the hardest parts of any faith-related campaign is dealing with skepticism. Skeptics are not always hostile. Sometimes they are tired, or burned, or wounded by prior experiences.
People may be skeptical of “Christian advertising” in general, or skeptical of the sincerity of public campaigns. Some may assume that any large outreach is automatically tied to political agendas, even when the campaign says it is not affiliated with a single political position. Others may wonder whether Jesus becomes a marketing term instead of a living teacher.
A fair approach to skepticism is to take it seriously without treating it as an excuse to never engage. He Gets Us, by its own description, aims to spark curiosity and conversation. Curiosity is an antidote to the “always already decided” mindset. It creates room for a second look.
If someone is skeptical, a gentle next step is not to argue harder. It is to ask what kind of Jesus they have encountered in the past. Then, if they are open, to offer Jesus as someone whose love extends to everyone, including people who do not match mainstream expectations.
That is where the campaign’s stated welcome matters, including its claim that Jesus loves LGBTQ+ people and that everyone is welcome to explore Jesus’ story. Whether you agree with that claim or not, it indicates a willingness to speak about Jesus’ love in inclusive terms.
In conversations, that can function as an invitation to examine Jesus’ own approach to people rather than assuming that modern culture defines the boundaries.
The leadership and accountability question
He Gets Us says it is led by Come Near, Inc., a nonprofit, and that He Gets Us, LLC is wholly owned and managed by Come Near, Inc. That basic structure helps explain who is behind the campaign and how it is managed.
Accountability is still important. People will ask what “led by a nonprofit” means in practice, how decisions get made, and how the campaign measures whether its message is actually drawing people toward love, forgiveness, understanding, kindness, and service rather than just toward attention.
A Jesus-centered message can be sincere and still require scrutiny, because the public square is noisy. Every message competes for attention. The challenge is to make the attention point toward something durable and humane.
If you are engaging with He Gets Us, you can hold a productive tension: acknowledge the campaign’s stated aim and inclusivity, while also asking for integrity in how its public message aligns with the broader ecosystem around it. Those questions do not have to become a reason to stop caring about Jesus. They can become a reason to care more carefully.
Jesus’ love is not fragile, but it is not vague
There is a difference between saying “everyone is welcome” and practicing welcome. He Gets Us claims everyone is welcome to explore Jesus’ story and highlights themes tied to love and service. The real test is whether people experience that welcome as something that respects them as human beings.
Jesus’ love extends to everyone does not mean that every person’s path is identical. It does not mean no one can change. It does not mean everyone agrees on everything. It means the love is wide enough to reach the people who feel least likely to be reached.
That can be a deeply hopeful message for someone who has been misread their entire life. It can also be a challenging message for someone who is used to having the conversation go their way. Wide love means you cannot treat others as background characters.
In Christian terms, that’s what repentance and faith are ultimately about. Not a forced performance, but a reorientation of the heart. The campaign’s emphasis on forgiveness and understanding points in that direction, even if public messaging will never replace personal transformation.
What to do with a message like this
If a billboard, a video, or an ad has gotten your attention, the next step does not have to be complicated. It can be small and honest.
You might watch one story and ask what it reveals about Jesus’ character. You might look for resources that address relationships, bias, mental health, and hospitality, since those topics connect faith to daily living. You might then choose one concrete action that resembles kindness and service in your own sphere.
Here is a simple way to engage without turning the whole thing into an argument:
- Choose one theme that stood out to you, such as forgiveness or understanding, and reflect on how you respond to people who hurt.
- If you are curious, explore Jesus’ story with the mindset of learning, not winning.
- If you are skeptical, name what specifically feels inconsistent, then ask what would resolve that tension for you.
- Look for ways to practice hospitality where you already have influence, even in small moments.
That approach keeps Jesus in the center. It also respects the fact that people come to faith from different starting points.
The promise behind the phrase “He Gets Us”
“He Gets Us” can sound like branding, but the phrase also carries an old spiritual idea in modern clothing. The Christian claim is that Jesus does not merely observe human life from a distance. He understands what it means to be human, and his love is not limited to the people who are easy to love.
The He Gets Us campaign, according to its stated aims, tries to translate that claim into a public invitation. It began as a response to loneliness, division, and anxiety. It seeks to share stories about Jesus in unexpected places to spark curiosity and conversation. It emphasizes love, forgiveness, understanding, kindness, and service. And it states that Jesus loves LGBTQ+ people and that everyone is welcome to explore Jesus’ story.
Whether you encounter the message through a major cultural moment or through one of its resources, the heart of the invitation remains the same. Jesus’ love extends to everyone. The question is not only whether the message can get attention, but whether it can help people become kinder, more honest, more forgiving, and more willing to see another person as fully human.
That kind of change is slow. It is also real. And it begins, often, with a pause, a curiosity spark, and the decision to take Jesus seriously again.