Two minute read.
It is true, I believe that, you and I were created to BELONG!
But as we look out at Life, we can become troubled by how shallow friendship, connection, and community seem to be. While BELONGING isn’t easy at times, we begin to try and understand. It’s a lot more than just showing up. It’s a lot more than social engagement.
Our desire to BELONG can, over time, become far less than what God dreamed for us.
When we disconnect ourselves from God’s best we’re left with only what we can come up with – a poor substitution for the original.
I am a pastor at a Micro Church in Mt. Pleasant, SC. Micro’s are typically progressive as our calling is more about CONNECTING with people, somewhat like Jesus did.
So the concept for us at Life Community Church is to work hard at sharing who Jesus was, how Jesus went around with 12 Disciples along with another group we’ll call women because that was apparently His approach not to mention the metaphor between Him and the Religionist who had little to do with women.
WOW! Let us take a breath or two after those four and a half lines without a period.
Okay, back to Jesus! And why He was so focused on the OUTSIDERS, those folks who came to Him like no others had.
Jesus used the What word with some awesome metaphors so that even the adults with little understanding found themselves pointing at the Religionists and laughing at those guys with their summa cum laude.
So, back to 2023. Matthew Raley writes this:
In order to see the power of community, the individual will have to embrace belonging.
Now, I think I know WHY real people today may have some problem with this. There are so many Christians who have already decided that they simply are not going to hang out with people who are not like the rank and file at THEIR CHURCH!
If we are going to see as Brother Raley wrote, the power of community, it will only happen with you and with me, and with them, when we embrace belonging.
What does that require of US? Well, we can come up with something I guess? But if we look upon Jeremiah in the OT and Jesus in the NT we might have the answer.
In Jeremiah 30:22: So you will be my people and I will be your God
In John 15:16: You did not choose me but I chose you
We need not come up with something to do necessarily. We have only to embrace what it means to belong!
The Key Point is: We Belong to God, in Jesus, with Others
Together We Can!
God’s Peace – MC
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