I saw two stories a few weeks ago that kept showing up in my news feed on my phone. Both interviews are from two ladies, one being an actress Meagan Good, whose husband is a minister in the church and the other an actress and singer, Adrienne Bailon, whose husband is a gospel singer. Now both of these ladies are Christian women who I personally truly like and admire and are the true definition of being sassy, sexy and saved. Now, I’m bringing them up because they both were interviewed and gave their experience about not feeling welcomed when they come into the church and have pulled back on their church attendance because of how they were not treated so ‘Christian-like’ when they are there. Reading both these ladies interviews online made me feel a number of ways. I felt, angry, I felt disappointed, I felt sad and a little hopeless. Now, I have grown up in the church all my life and unfortunately this is not a new topic. Which brings up many questions like, ‘Why?’ and ‘What can we do about this?’ The Why can be a number of superficial things that don’t matter, but we make it matter when we put ourselves first and not God and his principles and his standards. If we keep putting our own standards and thoughts of others above God we will lose drawing people to Christ and Christs’ message will be muddled or lost. So what do we do?
- Get back to Basics – Deuteronomy 11:1 Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. We need to get back to the Bible. Alot of the times traditions and clichés can overstep what is more important and what is the most important is following the commands of the Lord. Cause the second we step away from his guidelines we fall and can bring down others when we do so. So we need to remember its all about Christ.
- Don’t Overlook the Small Stuff – 1 Peter 4:9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. This second step actually connects a little with the first in getting back to the basics such as being hospitable to those coming into the church. We always hear about us wanting to be used by God and wanting to God to do something extra-ordinary in our lives and want to preach or speak in tongues. Cause those are the things that people can see. Those are the things that people can really look at in awe. So the small things get overlooked, the small parts of the whole body of Christ that are so important in the church and with each person in the church. Don’t look past the spirit of hospitality. Love. Kindness. Gentleness. Take a step back and lets start looking at ourselves to see if we are following the fruits of the spirit.
- Show Genuine Love No Matter What – 1 Peter 3:8 Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Last but not least. Show genuine love. Cause clearly with these two women speaking about their experiences shows that we need to seriously get back to being a better church and remember that church is not the four walls but the people in the church. Everyone who is coming into the church is coming there for something. They may not know what that something is, but they are coming there for an experience. And the people there are apart of that experience. You and me. Treat others how you would want to be treated. Lets do better so stories like these can start to go away altogether.