The "Not-So" Love Languages

One of my favorite jobs while in the Army was facilitating retreats for our Soldiers and their families. Facilitating these retreats was an absolute blessing and I always seemed to learn more about my own relationship during these meetings than anyone else. Plus, I got to go to some really cool places.

We used multiple different resources for these retreats but one of the best relationship tools that we used was Dr. Gary Smalley’s “Five Love Languages”. When it comes to relationships and communication this book is right on point in so many ways.

Don’t worry, I did not decide to turn this into a relationship blog, well at least not that kind. I guess it is a relationship blog in a way; Christian relationships with the world would be a great tagline. This weekend I was thinking of the Five Love Languages and thought to myself what about some “Not-So” Love Languages that Christians can speak and how do they affect the church. A few came to mind and I am sure there are more but I will spend the next few blogs discussing the language that Christians can use to push people away from the Church.

I think one major language that Christians can speak that make people feel unwelcome is the language of exclusion. A church that speaks the language of exclusion is full of cliques and groups defined by status. I have travelled the world and have visited more churches than I can count. Here is the kicker, if I am being brutally honest I have spent way too many Sundays not being connected to a church and there is no excuse good enough for a Christian to not be in church but if the fear of exclusion is keeping Christians out of church just imagine what it is doing to non-believers. I have spent so many Saturday nights and Sunday mornings stressing over what to wear or whether or not I was going to fit in at the new church I was going to visit this week. I could tell you stories of the churches I have walked into and not been greeted by a single person or the time that no one held our hands during the time of “hold hands and pray” during the service. I have gotten looks for not having on a tie and gotten those same looks for wearing a tie. Sometimes that fear is paralyzing. We go online and look at pictures to see what everyone else is wearing so we can try to blend in to the crowd. We walk in the doors of this church and in the lobby we see all the different groups of families in their circles talking and maybe we catch someone’s eye but they go back to their circle. Are they talking about us? Did we come in the wrong door? Are we heading towards someone’s seat?

What has church become that we have to fear walking in its doors? Where do these attitudes and behaviors come from? Instead of offering our seat to a guest we hope they don’t accidentally sit there because it would inconvenience us to find another seat. Are these the things Christ concerned Himself with? I really don’t think so and I think the Church could be doing a much better job of reaching out if we lost the language of exclusion. Christians, next week at church find a stranger and go learn three things about them; who knows you might have something in common, even if they aren’t dressed like you. Make the effort to welcome someone and really make them feel welcomed. If we want to open our doors to the unbelievers we have to do a better job of making them feel welcomed. As I alluded to earlier if we cannot even welcome other believers then why on Earth would a non-believer want to come and see what we were all about.