Relational Comfort

There is a small diner I frequent often in our town for lunch.  From the moment you walk in you feel as if the calendar has moved back 40 or so years.  I love this place.  It is filled with conversation, laughter, the sizzling of meat on the grill, everything you think of when you think of a diner.  Everything, including the cheesy signs and the bar with stools.  But the thing I love the most is that no matter who you are, you are welcome.  I watch the employees as they joke, sing, even pat the old timers on the back in a way that says, "I value you."  So I keep coming back.  There is comfort here; comfort food, comfort in conversation, a place where the worries of life are dropped on the doorstep.






There is a noticeable difference between being welcoming and feeling welcomed.  









This makes me think about our churches.  Why are places in the world more comfortable to people than the bastion of hope that the church is supposed to be?  Is our church a place where one would be welcomed, and not just welcomed, but a place where they can drop their worries and find comfort?  Do we as believers break out in joyful song and those around us can, and will, join in the fun?  Do we even know how to have fun?

I have been a part of fabulous churches where all these yearnings have been seen and are lived out week by week.  I have also been in churches that were dark in spirit.  Sure there were smiles, but you knew it was plastic.  If we are truly the light of the world, if we truly have the hope that changes lives, then why can't we be like a local diner?  Why can't we, in our churches, be that place that when someone enters they feel welcomed.  There is a noticeable difference between being welcoming and feeling welcomed.

Maybe your church has this figured out.  Maybe you are part of a community that outsiders flock to. If so, awesome!  Keep up the good work.  Continue to be the ambassadors of Christ to your community.  If not, let's take a valuable lesson from this diner.  It is not the food.  It is not even the environment that draws people here.  It is the people.  It is the relationships that start being built the moment you walk in.

Maybe, just maybe, it is time for our churches to invest in people.

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