A few years ago my sister-in-law bought me a T-shirt that said, “Jesus loves you… but I’m His favorite.” Please, before you send me any flame-mail, read on…

I have noticed how in the church we like to play favorites; we have those we like to hang around with and there’s nothing wrong with this, unless it’s to the detriment of others.

I remember speaking to someone, about three years ago, who had attended one of the Sunday morning services of the church I was pastoring at the time. A few days later I bumped into him and asked him what he thought of the church. He told me that the church was typical of most churches he had been to, in that he came, sat, listened, and left, without so much as a simple greeting. He said that after the service he got a coffee and stood around waiting for someone to talk to him, instead they all gathered in their little groups and totally ignored him (I did say hi and talk with him a little while before he left). He finished by saying he wouldn’t come back to a place he just didn’t feel welcome.

Similarly, a woman who had been going to another church for about 2 months just stopped going. She visited our church and when I spoke to her she said that she didn’t understand the church environment; try as she may no one, in any church she had visited, was willing to even give her the time of day. She said she felt so alone in a place that she thought was supposed to be filled with love and acceptance.

Personally I have experienced this first hand – walking into a church and not feeling welcome. I have been made to feel an outcast and that I didn’t belong. I know what it means to be left out of the conversation. While speaking to the two people mentioned above I asked both of them what they saw as lacking and they both (independent of one another… they didn’t know one another) told me that the church was lacking friendship. “Sure they are friends, you can see that by just looking at them.” said the woman. “But it does seem that they have no more room in their closed off little groups, other than the odd greeting here or there.”

Closed off little groups. Have our churches really become this way? I must admit there are those I would rather hang around with, people I have more in common with. However, I do try and speak to as many people as I can on a Sunday morning. But I have noticed (from experience as well as observation) that in many churches and Christian circles we are pretty closed off to newcomers and even the quiet shy types. (For the past year I have had the privilege of attending a couple of really welcoming churches… but it seems that this is not the norm.)

Jesus at times has also been criticized as having a closed off mentality – He had an inner core of twelve disciples and would oftentimes only spend time with them. The thing is He was training these guys. Not only that, but He did have a large following outside of this inner group; men, women, and children who followed Him. And if one reads the accounts of Jesus in the Gospel we see that He always had time for others. He was always welcoming, caring, and loving towards everyone He met – except the odd time when He had a run in with the religious types who could care less about their fellow person.

One of my seminary profs told me that it’s all of our responsibility to make people feel welcome into God’s family… and this extends into our church life. Too often we stand around chatting to those we get on with, many times ignoring those who we don’t think we’ll get on with. Maybe it’s because they don’t dress or act the same way. Maybe they don’t watch or listen to the same things. Maybe it’s because they’re dirty or overly dressed. Whatever the reason, if someone has attended our church, Bible study group, breakfast meetings, or wherever, we should do as Jesus did and make any newcomers or the quiet shy types feel welcome. And hopefully they’ll find the acceptance and love that all of us are looking for.

Christian St John M.Div, BChM, ACS
March, 2010

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