Belong (part 4)

When people are looking for a place to call their church home, a huge factor is feeling like they fit in. Ultimately, they want to feel like they belong.
We can all relate to this.

Unfortunately as I have conversations with my peers and read the content of their posts and blogs on the internet I get the sense that there are more and more people who do not want to belong at all.

There are obscene amounts of people who have been hurt by their churches. They have been ignored, insulted, bullied, shamed and in various other ways, abused.

That is a problem.

Maybe the bigger problem is that people don't belong to the church any longer.
I'm not trying to throw these hurt people under the bus. The violators are the ones who should take responsibility and seek reconciliation... right?

To catch up and get some context I would encourage you to read parts 1 and 2. Basically these posts are working from and ideal point of view that the relationship between the individual and the church is a loving one and so the "belonging" is desirable and can be trusted.

In part 3 I conclude that to truly belong, one must take ownership.

Let me illustrate in a couple of ways.

I subscribe to Netflix. A couple of years ago they shifted their focus from movies to TV shows. There was an uproar. If I am merely a subscriber of a service I could get frustrated and cancel my subscription. Others (like me) liked some of the television shows that were being featured and continued to subscribe.
This is the nature of the relationship. We evaluate the services we receive and decide to be members or not based on what we get for the fee we pay.
How would all of this change if I was one of the owners of Netflix. I am still concerned with the product, but my focus is less on if I am being served by it, and more on if others are being served. As the owner I am committed and always want things to get better.
As the customer I am finicky and when I don't get what I want I will leave.

Church membership has two paths. You can take ownership or you can become a customer.

I knew of a man who left the church because his mother was very sick. For years she prayed for healing. For years the church prayed for her healing. She was never healed. Someone from the church said something to this old, sick woman, they suggested that maybe she hadn't been healed because she didn't have enough faith.
Ouch!
The woman was hurt and her whole family was hurt.
They left the church.

What should they have done?

I will just write this... if they had a keen sense of ownership they could still say "Ouch!" They could still be hurt and upset, but the ultimate reaction would not be to hightail and leave. It would be to seek out the brother or sister who hurt them and seek reconciliation.

I think that people assume that if they leave, people will change. That is far from the truth. If you leave, people will assume that you don't really love Jesus (not saying that's a right or fair judgement, but it is the most likely). If you love the church and are involved with a church where there may be some problems, don't walk away, help the church change for the good. If you are the only one seeing it, maybe God is calling you to be a prophet to His people.

The least we can do is belong to the church and that means that we are members of Christ's body and belong to each other. The least we can do is identify with the church. I belong to you and you belong to me, we are the church. God is calling us to be joint heirs with Christ and share in the ownership of the church. The least we can do is stop being customers and consumers and start being owners.