I had an experience again that I feel like I have been having more and more. Something happens, either with a product I have purchased or else in the process of shipping something to me and something goes wrong. Maybe it is significant but maybe not. I go online to see if there is an easily found answer, only to find that there isn’t. Eventually, I decide it is important enough to try every path I have, even if it isn’t that big a deal.
I put my name and number on a list to get a call from a real person. Usually, they are overwhelmed and so it will be a while. Fine, I can wait. They call and I am greeted by a robot who asks me if I actually want to speak to someone and then tells me there is another long wait. Eventually, they pick up and tell me, after I give them all the information, that there is nothing else they can tell me. It feels like, more and more, the customer service strategy is to be so confusing and so disordered that people give up.
Most of the time, I don’t even care really what the truth is, I just want someone who should have the information to tell me what is going on. It is so easy to give up at the slightest roadblock and there are so many of them these days, it seems.
I worry that this kind of thing can happen in the church. People who have been in church every Sunday of their lives can sometimes forget (or never knew) that just the act of someone showing up is already a huge step in faith. For me, who am pretty well committed to the church, it would take a lot to derail me. However, if someone is trying something new and is not even sure they want to start this new thing, any roadblock, no matter how small, can stop progress in its tracks.
We used to live in a world where basically everyone knew the basics of Christian faith, whether they took it seriously or not. We can’t do that anymore. We cannot assume that anyone that we meet has any background in faith or in the church. It might be they are yearning for something more and don’t know what to do.
If someone finds themselves asking spiritual questions for the first time, they might not go to the “right” source to get their answers. They might just go to the first person they can think of who might know. If they know you go to church, it might be you. If you can’t help them, they might give up rather than keep pressing. Can you share what your relationship with God means if someone wanted to know?
If everyone already knows something, it is likely that we never talk about it because nobody is confused. The only thing is, a new person won’t know and, more importantly, they won’t know to ask. If they violate some unspoken rule and they feel judgment, even if it seems small and not that big a deal to someone who has been here for a while, they might bail before they embarrass themselves any more.
There are plenty of people in our communities who are not in the habit of participating in a faith community. Try to put yourself into their shoes. What obstacles do they need to overcome to be part of a congregation? Who needs to invite them? How can the people of God take them under their wing long before they ever set foot into the church building? How can we be disciples who make disciples? How can we serve others the way Christ served us?