Dear Church People…

Dear church people,

I want to share something with you that is on my mind. We have big issues outside of our little church community; we have wars, persecution of Christians, and churches, and our church and little town very well could be next, but we are too distracted to see all of this. We can’t even hear the preacher preach because the church pews are too hard, the carpet has stains, there is carpet and not tile, the curtains are blue, the pulpit is not centered, and the list could go on. We are supposed to be praying for people, helping people understand what we believe, and why we believe it. Teaching them about how wonderful God is, and the sacrifice he made for us. Instead, we limit ourselves to the few walls of a building and we allow ourselves to forget what is truly important. Yes, we are supposed to take care of the church, and do the upkeep of it, we are Stewards of the Building and what God has given us. Absolutely, but we tend to get too much into a routine, and we take it too far, so far that it blinds us of our other responsibilities, and our own relationship with Jesus.

When people [children and young teens especially, but also adults], see and hear church people complaining about the tiniest things being out of place more than love and compassion about Jesus then they might begin to believe that the speck of dust on a pew is more important than God who gave us life. As church people we tend to look at the specks that other people have, before we look at the logs of our own. If we/church people are putting that thought into people’s heads, then that could eventually lead people away from the church.

Of course we should continue to clean up the church, yes it does tend to get into a mess when young kids are kids and they forget to clean up behind themselves, but we must do our best to remember that the building is not more important than God. Now I’m, sure you’re thinking that we would never allow a building to become more important to us than God, but it does happen, and most of the time we don’t even realize it.

Now you are probably wondering what we could do to fix this issue because we don’t want to be the reason people leave the church, well here are a few places where we should start:

Change our perspective, put yourself in their shoes, we all have so much going on all the time, so maybe we should step back and see life through someone else’s eyes.

Pray to God about it, this is The Best First step, even though it is listed Second. ask the lord to show you his will in the situation, ask him to show you his heart, and what he would have you to do.

Fellowship more. Fellowship fosters an environment to grow in love and compassion when you love one another more you see people’s flaws less. [1st Peter 4:8] It is also important for us to remember that love is patient, kind, and forgiving, so let’s be patient kind, and forgiving to one another as we all grow in our relationships with Jesus.