Regrettably, I think at different times I’ve been guilty of every single item on this list. Are you holding back community?

Here’s the first five…

1. Keep Conversations Short
2. Always sit in your “assigned” seat
3. Avoid New People
4. Come in Late
5. Leave immediately after the service (or early)

See the rest of the list and Adam’s commentary at 10 Ways to Avoid Building Community Within the Church .

I want to let you in on a little secret; I’m a sinner. I know, you’re shocked. It indeed pains me to shatter your pristine perception of me, but it’s true. I sin frequently; daily; probably hourly. Most days I break the law by speeding. I curse too much and pray too little. I too often neglect my health and my neighbor. There is unforgiveness in my heart for past wrongs. I am prideful of my intellect and covetous of others’ athleticism. Technology is too often an idol and I struggle to be a good steward of God’s finances in my life. I’m simultaneously liberal and legalistic. Hopefully I haven’t scared you off, as I just wanted to be a bit transparent before I dive into the heart of the matter.

People are messy and ministry is messy. To my next pastor, I’m already praying for you, cause I got issues.

Dear Christian: We Love You Conditionally

In the past few days, I’ve sat down with two different pastors to learn about their churches. Each time we came around to what makes a church “family”. For me, it boils down to one thing: unconditional love. Not fluffy, huggy, plastic smiles and “I’m fine” fake love. But more of a “let me hold your hair while you vomit” kind of love. A love that is solid and can be counted on. A love that can comfort and a love that will discipline when necessary.

All my mentioned messiness above is just a portion of that which is unspoken. My youthful past and pre-christian adulthood are even worse. Twenty-five years of running away, debauchery and a general disregard for consequence. But throughout all of it, I knew who my family was, where home was, and that they and it were always welcoming to me. Their love comforted and disciplined.

We so often use the term “church home” and “christian family” yet most people in most churches are strangers to one another. I honestly believe that most church-goers don’t desire to know one another. At least not the true person. The pristine veneer, sure. The sinner, absolutely not. Because they too are a sinner and they fear their fellow churchgoer would shun them if their sin was revealed, just as they shun others. Sadly, that is often the case.

Even beyond our current sin, it’s amazed me how often one is shunned for past sin. God has done an amazing work drawing me out of the unrepentant lifestyle I used to live and I am humbled to share my testimony with people that it may somehow glorify Him. But many Christians I’ve met recoil when they hear it. Not because they hate hearing about sin, but rather because someone in their midst lived that kind of life. Suddenly I am under suspicion for the life I used to lead, before I was reworked by God. If the church can’t love someone who has been cleansed by God’s grace, how can they love someone who hasn’t?

Dear Seeker: Get Clean, Then Visit

Men smarter and more eloquent than I have written volumes on loving, reaching and serving those that don’t know Christ. Libraries are filled with books on evangelical methodologies and programs. We have Romans Road and the Evangecube, but we too often lack mercy.

Five years ago I hated the homeless and I could spend 30 minutes enumerating the reasons. Along with the homeless, we can add alcoholics, drug-users, and the lowest-income groups. Then I started going to church where I was told to love them. Well, at least act like I love them so they will want to know Jesus and clean up their life. It took Jesus wrecking and rebuilding my heart for me to actually learn to love them, without motive. God placed me in leadership with a homeless ministry and the object of my hatred became that of my mercy and love.

Of course the financially least among us are often the easiest to show mercy towards. It seems so much harder when it’s the rich flamboyant gay neighbor or the middle-class mother with 3 kids by 3 dads who changes boyfriends seasonally. When’s the last time they got invited to your backyard cookout?

I shudder to think of the pain the church inflicts as it looks down it’s long pious nose, expecting our neighbors to change first and be loved by us second. If our love is genuine and active, oh how the light will shine.

1. Pursue me : Being pursued by a church can be either helpful or scary. The helpful form is for a church to be responsive and to make a genuine effort to connect. The scary form of pursuit is when it turns into stalking. Churches will spend thousands of dollars to send a missionary around the world or for a local marketing campaign, but don’t return an email from a seeker or follow-up with an attender who’s absent from activities. If someone shows interest in Christ and the church, go after them. If someone is already part of your church, don’t let them fall to the wayside.
2. Take me out to eat : An excellent idea if I ever heard one. Both pastors I met with in the last week offered to buy me lunch. I took one of them up on it. A good conversation over the breaking of bread is a lost art. At minimum in my last church anyone that requested info we’d offer to take out for coffee.
3. Ask about my story and show genuine interest : The few pastors I’ve met recently have done a pretty decent job of wanting to know my story, at least as it related to my church background. What was missing was a genuine interest in my whole story, not just the part that applied to their context.
4. Find out how I’m really doing and pray for me : “I’m good” is the most frequent lie out of people’s mouths, especially on Sundays. Search your heart; do you really care how someone is doing? Are you prepared if instead of “things are good” someone says “my life is falling apart”? Don’t let me get away with “I’m fine”. If I share a prayer need, pray for me right then and there. Ask me to do the same for you.
5. Show interest in my hobbies : Knowing how someone chooses to spend their free time can be immensely useful. Is their hobby something others in the church share that would allow for connections to develop? People tend to exercise skills in hobbies they may not otherwise get to use. Those skills can likely also benefit the church.  You don’t know if you don’t ask.
6. Help me get involved and see that I do : As someone who started volunteering at age 11, I frequently lament to my friends the difficulty in getting involved. Most churches or non-profits I’ve contacted, who are begging for volunteers, absolutely drop the ball on getting me connected. Having managed volunteers in a couple different organizations, this is indeed a continuing struggle. People do want to make a difference, make it easy for them to do so.
7. Seek my input : After I attended church on Sunday the pastor took me out for lunch and asked me to tell him everything I’d change about his church if I had a year to recreate it into an outward-focused church. Now I’m not suggesting you ask that question of all your visitors. It was a bold and humble step for this man who is working hard to revitalize a small waning church. However, you can provide a culture where people in the church are comfortable providing input on how church is “done” and how the city is being reached. If you do so, I assure you that you’ll reap positive results.
8. Invite me to hang out with your friends : This suggestion by Andy stood out to me above all others. One of the many buzzwords in the church is “relationship”. One of the most lacking things in churches today is relationship. Life is best lived in community and one cannot be sharpened or sharpen another in isolation. Don’t just send someone off to a connection class, invite them into your life.
9. Tell me your story and how God transforms : As much as I love to share my story and testimony, I also want to hear yours. Knowing how God has transformed your life gives me hope about how he can transform mine. It is very easy to insulate oneself in leadership from sharing. But having a two-way dialog is the difference between friendship and counseling.
10. When I’m sick, check up on me : Most people I hang out with (guys 20-35) aren’t going to take you up on an offer of assistance if they are sick. Still I call just to make sure they are alive and see if they need anything. Being sick is no fun and it’s even worse when no one seems to care. Just whatever you do, don’t offer assistance that you aren’t sincerely and happily willing to provide.

All of these together boil down to one simple message: Show That You Care.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.‘

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Jesus goes on to tell the “righteous” who call him “Lord“, but do none of these things, they “are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Up until recently the thing that was most striking to me about this story was that the cursed proclaimed Jesus as Lord. They are even called “the righteous”. We see this clearly explained to us in James 2 and the mantra that “faith without works is dead“.

But what may be even more striking is the personal nature of the mandate. “YOU gave me something to eat..YOU gave me something to drink…YOU invited me in…YOU clothed me…YOU looked after me..YOU came to visit me.” As Jesus looks upon the peoples of all nations separated to His right and left, He tells those on His right “YOU” did these things I have commanded and here is “YOUR” reward. I’ve never really doubted the personal nature of the command; that each of us is to do these things. But how? Honestly God? Each of us is to visit people in prison? Each of us is to nurse the sick? Can’t I just donate money to someone somewhere to do these things? Isn’t feeding the hungry and nursing the sick the job of welfare and Medicaid? It’s my tax dollars paying for it. So I’m good right?

In his book Irresistable Revolution, Shane Claiborne writes:

I’m just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, “When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me,” or, “When I was naked, you donated clothes to the Salvation Army and they clothed me.” Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity. He seeks concrete acts of love: “you fed me, you visited me, you welcomed me, you clothed me.

Nor am I convinced He is going to say to me, “When I was hungry, you organized a food drive and collected canned goods and non-perishables, donated by people who paradoxically proclaim my name, yet shunned me on the street, then you gave those to the regional food pantry to redistrubute to organizations that programatically and dispassionately fed me. Way to go, here’s your inheritence.”

There is more likelihood of me hearing, “When I was hungry, there was a time when you fed me, you welcomed and encouraged me, sat with me, prayed with me and hugged me as a brother, but then you changed. You grew distant. Even though you knew where to find me, you did not come. Suddenly it had become too inconvenient and uncomfortable. From a distance you donated out of your abundance. You spoke diplomatically and proudly about how you were making a difference in the lives of ‘the poor.’ You developed programs and implemented practices that assured a safe barrier from having to personally and radicaly love and serve me. You chose observation over obedience and detachment over devotion.”

I honestly don’t know if the mandate is for every Christ-follower to do each of these things. Perhaps the intention is that as a community, as one body, these things are being attended to in a personal and compassionate way. That there is a unified purpose and servanthood. We know that some are called towards certain areas and away from others. The apostles recognized it wasn’t right for them to wait tables, because they knew it would neglect their ministry duty. But within their community they made certain it was done. The body was united and fulfilling it’s purpose in Christ. They were never detached from the real needs of people or distant from seeing them met.

Even though I have never been without a home and a bed to sleep in, there was a time when I knew poverty and hunger and the guilt and desperation of having to steal to eat. There was a time not so long ago, where God broke through my snobbery and comfort to bring me into friendship and closeness with the homeless, the afflicted, with prostitutes and drunkards. It was during this time, after my heart had warmed, that my eyes were opened to the truth of my own absent earthly father and his last years filled with homelessness and alcoholism. Then I disconnected into that distant and diplomatic place. Into a mindset where the “least of these” are a demographic inconvenience best “dealt with” from afar.

Elsewhere I read someone lamenting about how the rich drop off things they don’t need to be sorted and given to needy individuals who feel entitled to them. Neither ever coming in contact with one another; neither ever being transformed. Each walking away with a sense of pride for what they have done or what they have received.

Most of us feel a warm fuzzy when we pull our cars up to the convenient and overflowing Salvation Army dumpster at K-Mart, depositing our ill-fitting and out-of-fashion clothes. We silently praise ourselves when we write that bigger-than-normal check to that distant charity helping those kids somewhere, because we really feel the pain and sacrifice of having to wait until next month to get that new gadget.

Are these types of giving in themselves wrong? Yes, if we are fooling ourselves that they are all that is necessary. Jesus, during his time in flesh having nowhere himself to rest his head, requires more of us. He requires “concrete acts of love” that are engaging and personal. If we are already living out Matthew 25 locally, daily, and relationally, then by all means let us send support elsewhere and in every way. If we are not, then we stand on the left, confused goats proclaiming with our mouths and forsaking through our inaction.