Once a week. Only at church. I like my church and I like the people inside it. I even have a general idea where many of them live, but I have only seen the inside of a couple of their homes because, like most of the churches we have attended in our 40 years of marriage, members seldom get together in each others' homes unless they are related. We are friendly, but we are busy. And we are not living in the supportive interdependence believers are supposed to have. There is not time in the "handshake" interlude to share struggles with money or marriage, anger or pain, besetting sins or emptiness. There is not time to be anything other than "fine" on Sunday morning. Our outsides are all fine, but God is not terribly interested in our outsides.
Some of us women have been exploring ideas for ways to motivate the church from being a fine place, to the real place God intended it to be. Recently I have joined some women in our church in a prayer group for those who are fine with not being fine. Tears welcome. No masks required. And we pray in a home. We pray for our prodigals. We confess our fears, our feelings of failure, and our unfailing love for them. And that is just one of many areas of need. We need to visit the lonely and sick, the grieving, frazzled new moms, the discouraged. We need to bring a casserole, a smile, listening ears, encouragement. And we cannot do all that on a fine Sunday morning. We, the church, must find a way to match those walking a dark path with those who have come through one and know that it leads to a walk that is deeper, richer and too wonderful to be merely fine.
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