Tag Archives: church

Thoughts on Club Membership

Imagine you belong to a club, quite a big club internationally, but locally relatively small, maybe between 50 and 200 people. You meet every week, and your meetings are open to everyone, members or not, but most of the attendees are members and you all know each other. Someone visiting your meeting sticks out like a sore thumb.

Now imagine you are someone who DOESN’T belong to the club but thinks you might want to. You know that the only way to meet anyone in the club is to attend a meeting, but it seems to be a pretty exclusive club, and the thought of going alone makes you nervous. Nevertheless decide to try out a meeting. You find out when the club meets and you screw up your courage, and you go to the meeting all alone. You arrive and someone greets you at the door, very friendly and welcoming. “This is cool,” you think. You find a seat and sit through the meeting, participating as fully as you can. At the end of the meeting, you stand, along with everyone else, gather your things, and look around for someone to say hello to. You’re hoping someone will take the initiative. Everyone is talking, laughing, seemingly fully engaged with others. You walk around. You notice there is free coffee and tea. You realize this will give you something to do, making you less conspicuous, and so you take a cup, sipping it. You look around for people to talk to. After a few minutes, you give up and start very slowly toward the door, tossing the cup in the trash along the way. You make eye-contact with as many people as you can. Some smile. Some look away. No one approaches you. No one speaks to you. Eventually you reach the door. A nice man opens it for you and smiles, maybe even says, “Come again!”

But you won’t come again. Or if you do, it’s because you are very determined to get to know this club and you are far braver than most. Because the few minutes before and after the meeting were some of the loneliest and most uncomfortable you can remember.

This is the typical experience of single people, especially single women, visiting an American or European Christian church. Maybe you figured out early on that this was where this post was heading. Maybe it fits your experience. Or maybe you can’t imagine that this is true.

I can assure you that I have not overstated the experience. Over many years of moving, within the USA and in Europe, I’ve been victim to it countless times. Now I am watching a precious new believer deal with it. Go back to that description of the experience and imagine you are a new believer and you know very little about how this is supposed to work. Go on, do it.

Now imagine you are the same new believer who has ALREADY, after only like a year as a Christian, been hurt in one of the few non-Roman Catholic Christian churches within 30 miles (that’s a different post; I’ll write it eventually), and the church where you have been visiting is the least friendly one your long-term believer friend has ever seen. Literally NOT ONE PERSON spoke to us the last time we were there. The first time, at least the greeter did.

Christians, this is hard for her. It is hard for me and I know going in that it is the common experience. Being so conspicuous is terribly uncomfortable, and it is much harder for the new person to walk up to a stranger than it is for the one who belongs. For my friend, it is extremely difficult and supremely confusing. Aren’t we supposed to be the most loving people on the planet? Aren’t we supposed to be trying to save the world? Isn’t that what Christ teaches?

Why does this happen? Am I so intimidating? Is she? Do we give off an unapproachable vibe?

Even if we are intimidating or unapproachable, why don’t you who belong screw up your own courage and come and say hello? We’ve made a supreme effort to visit your church ALONE or with another single woman. The periods when I have been a member of a church, I did make an effort to speak to new people, whether there alone or not, but especially the women who were there without a man. I used to act like it was my responsibility to say hello to them, and guess what? It was! And it is yours, Christ-follower.

After nearly forty years of following Christ, I know a lot of real, genuine Christ-followers. Most of the Christians I know would agree with me that this is abhorrent behavior on our parts. Nevertheless, it happens. Christian, pretend you are the face of Christ to that person, that your behavior will affect, either positively or negatively, his or her perception of Christ. Because I assure you, it will.

I don’t know how to wrap this up other than to tell my fellow believers, TALK TO VISITORS to your church. Be genuine. Just be yourself. Ask them if they live in the area. Point out or introduce your spouse or best pal. Invite them to a small group to visit. Tell them you hope they return. They might be seekers ready to judge every Christian based on this experience. They might be new believers desperately in need of discipleship. They might be as rich as Bill Gates and ready to contribute generously to the building program! Or they might just be hurting and broken, like we all are, and need to know that Christ makes a difference somehow. You have a real power to influence that person for the cause of Christ. Exercise it well.

 

 

A Hidden Treasure

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend, and it went a little like this:
“Fifty,” I said.
“What?” my friend responded incredulously.
“Yeah, fifty.”
“No way.”
“That’s what this pastor I met last night said.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Me, too, but that’s what he said. And he’s a pastor!”
My friend shook her head in disbelief. I was simply grinning from ear to ear.

Let me give you some background, and then I’ll let you in on what we were talking about. Maybe you’ll guess before then.

When I moved to Europe a little over three years ago, one of the main worries I, a reformed Protestant, had was finding a church where I felt at home. I mean, isn’t Belgium Roman Catholic? Isn’t all of Europe? It used to be, of course, but as most people know, 21st Century Europe is pretty secular. There are tons of Catholic churches but they are mostly just for baptisms, weddings, and funerals, and for the inspiration of architects, artists, and people like me, Jesus lovers who get all excited about sacred art and the history of Christendom. I especially love the big Catholic church in Soignies, near where I live, with its clean, straight lines and dramatic outline against the sky, but as a Protestant, it’s not really an option for me as a “home church.”

Fortunately for me, there is a good Protestant Contemporary Service on the base. I love the English-speaking service with its familiar music and jeans-and-untucked-oxford liturgy. It reminds me a lot of the churches I’ve been a part of over the years in the U.S. By now, I’ve been singing with the worship team for a couple of years, and I enjoy the gathering of believers there. The chaplains we have right now are top-notch people who preach the Word. I actually only visited a couple of other churches, both aimed at Americans. I never even visited any of the French-speaking services nearby mainly because I figured I’d look and feel like and outsider.

I also surmised that there weren’t many local Protestant services, especially after I looked online and found only two or three. Adding to the mystery, of course, is the fact that you just don’t see any Protestant churches as you drive around. It isn’t like the U.S., where you drive a few blocks and oh, hey, there’s another church, and it certainly isn’t like my hometown of Wilmington, NC, where there are so many protestant churches in the downtown area that there is an entire poster devoted to “The Steeples of Wilmington.”  Even if there were a lot of them, they wouldn’t be all that obvious. Unlike the large and often breath-taking Catholic-owned buildings, Europe’s Protestant church buildings look like storefronts most of the time, or they are tucked away back in the corner of some residential area. The one I attended with friends in Grenoble, France is a sort of storefront, but nestled back behind some other buildings. And the one I attended on Friday night is similar, but more like a converted out-building behind some houses. But what the two buildings really have in common is much less tangible and far more valuable. They are repositories of the love of God.

I’ve met lots of really nice people since I’ve been in Belgium, but Friday night I met family. I attended a music service in an evangelical Protestant church. They had invited a Canadian worship musician to come and sing and deliver a message and the little building was filled to bursting to listen to this talented fellow named Luc Dumont (there will be a post about him, next). And every person I met, every single one that I talked with and sang with treated me like I belonged. Right there. With them.  I didn’t feel like an outsider at all, even though I was clearly the only American in the room, and my French is not as good as everyone else’s, and no one there, except my friends who invited me, knew me from Adam. But there, in that nondescript building, I met the international family of my faith, and it was like finding a treasure that had been buried in plain sight. I practically floated home afterwards.

So what were my friend and I talking about?  We were talking about Protestant churches in a tiny little area of Belgium, the itty-bitty Mons area in the French-speaking region of Hainaut. Now I’m pretty happy in the Protestant Contemporary body of believers on base, and I don’t expect to go anywhere anytime soon. I’m happily surprised to find out, though, that if I wanted to, I could visit a different body nearly every Sunday for a year. I’m not going to do that, of course, but I expect I’ll visit one or two here and there, just to get to know some more members of this big, unexpected, francophone family, and uncover another bit of this treasure.

Fifty. Five-zero. Five-oh. Pretty big family I’ve got over here all of a sudden.