Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Church feels lonely because...

My mom posted this on Facebook and I thought I'd share, "Joyce Meyers made a good point this morning while teaching out of 1 Corinthians 4:4. She said “church in general feels lonely because the regular church people tend to cling to their already established friends, and they tend, without realizing, leave the new folks out. They don’t take the time to get to know the new people because they are too busy within their own circle of friends. If the new folks are slightly different, they’re shun. After awhile, the attempt of trying to fit in wears off and people feel lonely and leave the church."

So often if a lonely person says, "I'm lonely" the church will respond by self righteously quoting scripture that says, "You have to be friendly to make friends", but if you actually read the scripture in context it does not mean what they always imply that it means!

Lonely people are usually VERY friendly because they are on the hunt for more friends. It's those who have friends that are unfriendly because their cups are already full! :-)

People who have been in the same church their whole life, or are part of a church full of their family and friends may not understand how lonely church can be, but for anyone who has had to start over and join somewhere new, they know how lonely it can be and sometimes they eventually stop going to church altogether because they can't break through and get tired of trying.

1 comment:

Lori Logan Vance said...

Yikes, this is so true! I admit that I have a tendency to stick with the people I know at church. This encourages me though to reach out to someone I don't know and be friendly to someone who isn't already a friend. Thanks for sharing this!