Being Involved

Rarely a day goes by when I do not engage in or overhear (I'm not really an eavesdropper) a conversation about faith, the practice of faith, and/or church. While many times the conversations center around the happiness and fulfillment that comes from being involved in church or how the foundation laid by the church has been so stabilizing during difficult times - many of the conversation focus on the opposite: Church has not been the force they were hoping it to be. The people of the church let them down. As much as they really want to have a vibrant and honest faith, they 'don't get' much from it. All of things brings me to the non-rhetorical question - what keeps people from being involved in church?

I have some ideas.

1. They feel the church is judgemental. Sometimes churches can be judgemental, there is no denying that. Even when churches are trying to be faithful to the teachings of Christianity, it can come out condemning one thing while ignoring another. Our faith does teach us that there is right and wrong. And our faith grounds us with the ability to know what is right and wrong (the 10 commandments quickly come to mind). But which of us is not broken? Which one of us has not fallen and failed? All of us. The moment we become judgemental is the moment we indict ourselves with pride. At St Timothy's we strive to achieve spiritual clarity as to what is loving and holy through humility. We will never say - "We are the winners and those who disagree are losers!" We will strive to always remove the logs from our eyes before addressing the sawdust in another's eye (Matt. 7:1-5). We will not pull the weeds that are standing amongst the wheat (Matt. 13:24-30.

Number 2.....check back tomorrow...stay tuned!