belong.

I had a conversations with my parents in the car the other night that made me think about a conversation I had a long time ago with Ryan. I think the thought is valuable so I'm going to share it with you now. 

We often use the tactic of "finding a place of belonging" to reach out to people in order to get them to come to church. A lot of times the idea of belonging to a community is what gets most people in the door and eventually it is why they stay. The thing is - every member of a congregation needs that sense of belonging. The pastor, the board members, those people that you think were probably birthed at church, every person joins the community of a church body, in part, for a sense of belonging. And yet, so many people feel like nobody knows them or recognizes them when they come to church. So many feel like they don't truly belong. In fact, it was Ryan that told me he felt this way many times on Sunday mornings and my heart hurts a little to think that some people walk in the doors of church in the morning who go there every week and feel the same way...every week. 

Ryan said something to me in that conversation that made me realize the potential danger, I guess, of the situation. He said, "No one at church makes me feel like I belong there." Then I thought, if we're all standing around church thinking that we don't belong then who is supposed to be making us feel like we belong? The point is, it is easy to spend a lot of time within a church body finding ways that other people aren't doing a good job of being a part of a church body. We all seem to think that it isn't our responsibility to be the one giving that sense of belonging; that church is for only me. And then I think, what have I done to make someone feel like they belonged at church lately? I just wonder if I spend so much time stewing about everyone around me doing a lousy job at loving me that I don't do much in the way of encouraging anyone else. 

It can't be only one person's job, you know? It's not just the worship team or the group leader's or the pastor's job to be the people that say you belong within this community. Wouldn't it be amazing if we all stopped stewing on Sunday mornings and just looked someone in the face and said, I'm so glad to see you today? Maybe this is stupid and something that is really "duh" to other people, but it was a really great reminder to me that I'm capable of making someone feel like they belong and I would have to imagine that by doing so the feeling would be reciprocated. So, I'm really going to try making a habit of doing so. 

*I apologize for the "we's." It isn't my preferred way of addressing church. Just couldn't think of another way to approach it. Peace yo.