As a follower of Jesus I have been passionate about evangelism and disciple-making for three decades. I have been appointed to five different settings as a pastor during that time, and I have worked with and consulted with many more congregations in different communities. I always get the same answer when I ask an introductory question in any church fellowship - "What's the greatest strength of your church?" Church folks always say, "Well, we're a friendly church!" And usually they are right. The kicker is that "friendly" has lots of definitions. Most churches are a particular kind of "friendly." Generally, it's the kind of "friendly" that any of us would experience at a good family reunion.
If your family does reunions regularly and you like them, they are a friendly experience to you. It's a gathering of people you know, even if you haven't seen them in a while. They are people with whom you have a shared history and shared traditions. It's easy to pick up conversations and subjects of interest, even if episodes are separated by up to a year. There's a comfort level in seeing the same set of faces. Births are celebrated and deaths are mourned, all as part of the family fabric. Family reunions give us a sense of belonging and identity. From this anchored base, the rest of the world can make more sense to us. Family reunions feel "friendly." When most churches describe themselves as being friendly, it's this sense that they mean. We are friendly to those who are already in the "family" or who are coming into the family via birth or marriage.
Now, imagine showing up as a total stranger to a family reunion. I'm not even talking about the experience of marrying into a family and having to go through the awkward time of "passing muster" with your spouse's kin and acclimating to this new group. Think of what it would be like to come into such a setting with no built in contact, just showing up. Do you think that would be a friendly experience? I doubt it. It's not about people being mean or intentionally unfriendly. It's just awkward. Here's the hard part. For the vast majority of people who summon up the courage to attend worship in North America, this is what it feels like to show up at a worship service. It's like crashing someone else's family reunion.
Just this morning I was reading Psalm 68 in the Bible. In the New International Version, verse 6 starts out, "God sets the lonely in families..." Do you hear that? If a person who is relationally or spiritually lonely comes to our churches, Jesus followers,
God sent that person! The burden is not on them to find a way to graft into an already set family-reunion system. The burden is on us to break open the closed family system and to make the needs of the stranger more important than our own comfort and internal "friendly" feeling. To do otherwise is to run contrary to the flow of God's own heart. This is not an easy task for churches. It's runs against a natural tendency. I'm very blessed to be a part of a church doing all it can to open its borders to people who are seeking. We can tell you that it's a constant challenge. But it is the effort an energy required to fulfill Jesus' command of Matthew 28:19. Beyond that, it is the source of blessing beyond compare, to be about God's business of setting the lonely in a family that fully adopts them and embraces them in the name of Jesus.
I'll see you around the next bend in the river.
