Growing up in Church I always noticed that everyone that went to my church was just like me. Of course they were not exactly like me. But to be honest most of them came from the same type of family, had the same type of social status and similar experiences, they were just older, younger or a different sex. Odds are that you too went to a church that was full of people that were just like you.
I really didn’t notice because that was just my life, that was just how my church was. It was later that I realized that almost every church is like that. So as I began to ponder this phenomenon, and I instantly jumped to making excuses, because God forbid that there is something wrong with my church. I once heard this excuse and ignorantly agreed, “Our Church will only reach a certain demographic, we can reach out but ultimately we will only reach middle class white America.” Looking back I cannot believe how closed-minded and non-Christian this thought is. Or an even worse mindset is “This is our church and those type of people will come in and mess up our building and steal things.” I know that this seems silly and you think that no one would say this but I have heard it.
The Church has sadly become one of the most exclusive clubs in America. We require membership to get special privileges, we are leery of outsiders, and we exclude people we are not comfortable having around. This type of thinking is missing the point of what churches are about. We should care more about the people that may mess things up, or cause discomfort than those people who have made the church their home. This was the example of Christ.
In his book Messy Spirituality Mike Yaconelli says this: “According to his critics Jesus “did God” all wrong. He went to the wrong places, said the wrong things, and worst of all just let anyone into the kingdom. Jesus scandalized an intimidating, elitist, country-club religion by opening membership in the spiritual life to those who had been denied it. What made people furious was Jesus “irresponsible” habit of throwing open the doors of his love to the whosoever’s, the just anyone’s and the not-a-chancers like you and me.”
Isn’t it time to start upsetting the right people by allowing those who are different and not the status quo into our churches? Isn’t it time to spend valuable time and resources reaching the people in our community that are poor, a different race, crazy, notorious sinners? Isn’t it time to invite these people into our churches instead of making our churches an elitist group that is untouchable? I write this not as abash of the church but as a plea for change in the way that we perceive our church bodies. In everything we should remember that we are the light to the whole world not just to a world full of people like us.
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