Are You Part of the Family?

I love the old hymns and that chorus always rang so loud in my heart. Join heirs with Jesus is something that always sounded exactly like right where you wanted to be. Looking back at this as an adult I take note of the 1st verse and the words that say “It’s because we’re a family and these folks are so near; When one has a heartache we all share the tears, and rejoice in each Victory in the family so dear.

I feel like somewhere over the past few years that our lives have gotten so busy that we do not really take these words to heart when we sing them. Our lives are so hectic these days that we hardly stop and ask why when someone asks us to pray for them. Before my dad’s mom passed away I remember she would always get aggravated if you stopped by her house and were on your way somewhere else. For a long time I did not understand why she was upset, I would think well at least be happy we stopped by. Now that she is gone, I realize she just wanted you to stop by without a timeline, without having to rush out the door, without seeming like it was just a visit to check some box. In some ways I feel like we have grown the same way with church. We are merely passing through.

God calls us to be family but in the past decade we have seen the rise of mega churches with multi-site campuses and while there is nothing wrong with this style of church; it does not always lend itself to a sense of family. I grew up in a small church and have seen all different shapes and sizes of churches during my time travelling the world. I have been to small churches and big churches alike that miss the mark on community. In my opinion the larger the church is the more the members have to work to create a true sense of family. In my experience what I have noticed in larger churches is that you have, for lack of a better word, cliques inside the church and those inside the clique are great at taking care of each other but sometimes have a hard time accepting someone new inside their clique. It is a natural occurrence that people are attracted to people who have the same interest as them and this is true in churches as well as society. The hard part for Christians is that we have to open ourselves up to those that do not share the same hobbies and interest that we have. The entire church should be a family, not 2 or 3 different cliques making up 2 or 3 families inside the church.

As I said smaller churches are not exempt. I have visited small churches that I honestly believe did not even recognize a visitor was sitting in their pews. We have to engage our visitors and make them feel like they are just as much a part of our family as the church member we see every week. Do you know why the majority of church visitors feel uncomfortable during the “hand-shake” fellowship at churches? It is because they feel left out. Church members use this time to catch up with each other instead of engaging the new visitors and making them feel welcomed. Imagine moving to a new neighborhood and being invited to a BBQ at your neighbor’s house but once you get there, no one speaks to you. No one introduces themselves to you, no one greets you. Do you feel like a welcomed member of the neighborhood or just an outsider?

All that is well and good but if we are not treating our regular members like family, we will never engage our visitors in that manner. Do we really hurt, when our Christian brothers and sisters are hurting? When is the last time you shed a tear for someone else’s sorrow? When is the last time you lost sleep because someone else was having a difficult time? I am not talking just about the ones that go to the same church as you. Do you see Christians hurting throughout the world and feel actual pain for them. Do you see their struggle and struggle with them? It is easy when it is someone we have known our whole lives but what about looking at this on a larger scale. The Family of God is not limited to your church or your community. It is the Family of Christians throughout the world. Christians at time struggle with this because what we don’t see and what doesn’t directly affect us sometimes goes right past us. If we want the world to take us seriously when we say that we are a Family, then we have to act like a Family, even when it makes us uncomfortable.