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Inside v. Outside.

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Ric Strangway

Inside v. Outside.

It’s weird how it works. Sometimes you’re in and sometimes you’re out. Sometimes you’re part of something, and sometimes you feel like you’re the last person on earth to belong. It’s like you’ve got a disease that could go viral and everyone is avoiding you. Sometimes it just feels like you’re on the outside.

Have you ever thought about church like that? People have lots of reasons why they think the church is just for “insiders,” and many of them are true. But my question is, have you ever thought of why so many people feel like that?

They come into church, and everyone looks like they know what they are doing. They know who to talk to, when to stand, when to sit and they kind of questions you can ask (and more importantly, the kind of questions you don’t ask). They just know. They belong. They are on the inside so they get how things work.

The “outsider” doesn’t feel like that. In fact, the feeling itself is very uncomfortable. Chances are fairly high that as they come in they are looking for clues, windows of opportunity, where they feel they can “fit in” a little. Like they kind of belong. And if those opportunities aren’t there, then it’s likely they won’t wait around.

So here’s a question. What would a church need to look like if there was no difference between an insider and an outsider? If there was no line separating the two? If the person coming from the outside felt as received and cherished as the person who had been there for years?

Let me make this a little more personal. What would it look like for you and me to be the kind of person who lives that? How would we have act? How would we treat people? Who would we spend our time with on Sunday morning? Who would we leave with to go have lunch?

My prayer is that we would continue to become the kind of community that Jesus envisioned. Where the lines of difference and separation are overcome with hands that reach out in love and grace.

Let’s continue to be the church. Let’s continue reach out, to receive, to love.

Let’s continue in Jesus’ name.

- Ric