Church Involvement
Many of my friends have dropped out of church. Some over hurtful experiences. Some over lack of commitment. Some????? Who knows. They may not be able to put their finger on it. Many Church folks figure they have backslidden.
It is a shame that we have equated Following Jesus and Church Activity. Much of the time if a person stops involvement in Church, we assume they are no longer following Jesus. That may or may not be the case.
It is true that many people need the formal structure of the Church to walk with Jesus. Others who identify with a church go for fellowship.
But there are others, like me, who follow Jesus outside the Church. Don’t get me wrong, I still attend church. I like the friends I have made there. I find my pastor’s sermons thought-provoking and challenging. But I am not deeply involved in the other activities of the church, most of which I support and think are valuable. But I am not involved in. That is by choice!
When I was a pastor, I was deeply involved in “activity”—doing stuff and trying to keep others involved. I am afraid that sometimes I substituted activity for following Jesus. It isn’t always the same.
In my retirement years, I reflected and decided that rather than church activities, I would focus on those outside the Church. Jesus led us to focus on International Students and others new to America. Some were Atheist, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Communist, some nothing. A few were Christian, but often different from our Western brand. Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Ethiopian Orthodox,and African Pentecostals. Christian, but very different from our US Evangelical style background.
We saw an open door of invitation. They were young people far from home, in a different culture. We befriended them. We simply ministered to them all— helped them with their struggles. We let them know we were Followers of Jesus. We asked questions about their beliefs, talked about ours. Invited them to attend church services with us and, without being pushy, let the Holy Spirit do His work.
Some responded in Faith, many did not visibly. We trust that a seed was planted that will, in the future, sprout and grow into maturity. If it didn’t change them, it often changed us.
At one time, churches focused on sending missionaries. Jesus told us to take the Gospel to the world! Now, it seems he has sent the world to us. People from parts of the world that we have sent Missionaries to are now coming to us.
Don’t get so busy in church that you miss out on taking the Gospel to your neighbor who is “different” from you. God may have sent them specifically to you.
In recent years, American society has fractured, disclosing wide divisions within our country. As a part of that, I have found myself looking now at the person covered in Tattoos, the ones in the AA and NA meetings, the felon, those on the margins of my culture, and the immigrant differently. We often live in the same society but in different worlds.
Jesus said, “Go”. He knew that breaking cultural barriers was difficult, but he still said, “go”.
Maybe we need to see some situations as invitations rather than barriers. We might find that the biggest barriers are within us.