Belonging Before Believing? Believing Before Belonging?

Which is it?  The emerging say belonging is everything, the traditionalists say believing is the only way to be a part of this community.  I believe there is a third way to a deep community, and I see it in the life of the Son of God.  Did people belong before they believed Jesus was the Son of God?  Yes.  Tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, sick people, drunks, and self-righteous people all were invited and were attracted to Jesus.  Many followed him daily.  One man in particular stands out to me.  He was the rich young ruler.  The rich young ruler believed with all his heart he was in the inner circle of community with Jesus.  He had been following Jesus.  But Jesus showed the man, that though he was in the community, he had not yet committed himself to believing in Jesus.  He still trusted in his money.  The man's reaction includes him leaving the community altogether, and he is no longer part of the community.  Further, the gospel accounts of Jesus' ministry is split into three time periods.  The first part chronicles Jesus ministry to his disciples, the second narrates Jesus travels to the south towards Jerusalem, and the third charts his entrance into Jerusalem.  In the first part of his ministry he trains his disciples to know exactly who he is and what he's about. It's in the second section you see Jesus surrounded by the tax collectors, prostitutes, sick, etc. But in the third section, Jesus begins to ask the community, "but who do you say that I am?"     I pray that our community at West Valley will be deep community where people will belong before they believe, but where we are not ashamed of the only source of life and joy and will travail and labor until we see Christ birthed in the lives of others.  There is a third way between stuffy, rejecting, traditionalism and shallow, watered down, post-modernism.