Building Community Within The Church
A couple of years after finishing college, I decided to move to France to teach as an English assistant in elementary school. While I spoke French passably, it was definitely a transition to suddenly having to communicate with everyone in the language after not practicing since my last college class. It took me a month to feel comfortable enough to brave attempting to go to a church in France.
As I got ready on that first morning, I was worried. What if my clothes, which were perfectly acceptable to wear at my church in the U.S., were too casual or too dressy? What if they did that thing where the pastor tells you to introduce yourself to someone you don’t know? What if there was some ritual that I wasn’t familiar with, and I ended up sticking out?
I managed to calm myself down and make the short walk from my apartment to the church. I’m not going to pretend that everything went perfectly once I got there. I felt completely awkward, but everyone that I talked to was welcoming, and before the service started one person told me I should go to the young adult group that met once a week. Once again, it took me some time to build up the courage to make an appearance at the group, but again, I felt completely welcomed (and not just thanks to the French custom of greeting every single person when you arrive at a gathering).
Throughout the rest of the year, I continued going to church on Sundays and to the young adult group on Fridays. We worshipped together and had meals together. When we sang worship songs at the young adult group, they intentionally chose songs that had the same melody in French and English so I could follow along. The members invited me to game nights and came to pick me up since I didn’t have a car there. They showed me around smaller towns outside of our city that I would never have known to visit otherwise.
The entire experience helped to strengthen my faith in Christ —partly because if I hadn’t felt welcomed there, I probably would have avoided going to church at all and would have let the disciplines that keep my faith strong lapse during that year — but also because the community there showed me a glimpse of what a group of believers can be like at their best.
When I go to church in the U.S., I feel like I belong, but there aren’t normally major differences between the rest of the members and me. At the church in France, I stuck out as soon as I walked in the door and even more so when I said anything at all. Instead of being worried whether I looked right or sounded right, the people there were willing to share their worship of God with me.
I’ve always loved reading Luke’s writings about the early church in Acts. The description given in Acts 2 is especially appealing:
“They worshipped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity — all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved” (Acts 2:46-47, NLT).
That sounds like a group of people almost everyone would want to be a part of. The best part is that those words don’t even refer to some exclusive club but instead to a group that anyone could join.
I’ve moved around a lot since I returned from my year abroad, and I’ve been lucky to be a part of many churches where the members welcomed me and supported me outside of the church walls. However, I know that for some people, this isn’t the case. There are people who don’t feel comfortable attending churches, and it hinders their walk with God.
I also know that I personally haven’t done a great job of making others feel like they are part of a loving community. Not that I’ve actively tried to make people feel like they don’t belong, but I haven’t gone out of my way to make them feel like they belong either.
There are some excuses that I could make. Since I have moved so often in the past, it can be difficult to know who’s new at church. I’m not particularly outgoing, so it’s tempting to leave the welcoming portion to those who excel at that. My kitchen is messy often, and I would feel awkward inviting someone I don’t know well over for a meal.
None of those excuses show the real issue, though, which is that I just haven’t made it a priority to make others who come to my church feel like they belong in the community of faith. I know there are people who do a great job at welcoming others as brothers and sisters in Christ, but I haven’t been one of them, even though I’ve vividly experienced the tremendous effect that feeling welcomed can have on a person’s faith.
I wonder how much more impactful churches would be for everyone if the people who know they belong there made more of an effort to be like the early church in Jerusalem that Luke described in Acts. What if the words “great joy” and “generosity” were the words that described every single gathering of Christians?
I’d love to give you a three-step plan, maybe with a catchy acronym, as a take away for how you (and I) could commit to being more welcoming in the church, but I don’t have one. Instead, I’d encourage you to spend time praying that you are able to see the opportunities that arise for you to support those who are looking for a home in the Christian community, and then act.
What are ways that others have made you feel welcome in church, and where might you be able to do those things for others?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth is an educator at heart. So far this has taken the form of a camp counselor, a museum assistant, and currently a middle school teacher. She loves to watch people grow and learn. You can read more of her writing at her blog Chronicles of a Southern Belle