I remember hearing Brennan Manning
speak when I was in college, and one of the things he shared was
advice that he received from a woman: “Be who you is, ‘cause if
you ain’t who you is, then you is who you ain’t.” That’s good
advice, but it’s harder to put into practice than we often admit.
It’s not just teens who cave in to peer pressure. Nor is it just
the world that is trying to fit us into its mold. The church can be
just as tough some times.
Last year I started reading Hugh
Halter’s book Sacrilege,
but I couldn’t finish it. I still remember one illustration he used
of a couple that started coming to his church. He said in essence,
“They were sitting alone in the sanctuary waiting for ‘church’
to start, not realizing that church was what was happening in the
hallway and fellowship hall.” While I agree that fellowship is
important, so are worship, prayer, and teaching. However, I also have
to point out that fellowship happens in different ways for different
people. Not everyone enjoys crowded, noisy rooms. In fact, I’d say
that true fellowship is minimal when you have to struggle just to
hear one another. Smaller groups are more congenial in many ways.
There is a
tendency within the church to pursue a one-size-fits-all approach to
programming. Although it varies from church to church, many leaders
think, “If this program works for 33% of the people, then all we
need is to repeat this three more times.” So when we think about
how to get more of the church members actively involved, the
discussion goes one of two ways: either do more of the same, or
slightly tweak what we’ve got to make it more appealing to a larger
number of people.
There is often a
lack of understanding of the huge diversity of people in the Body of
Christ. I think some part of this is due to the negative attitude
that many Christians have toward psychology, and thus they decline to
accept the observations that psychologists and sociologists have
accumulated about individuals and social interactions. Being an
introvert and highly sensitive person, I’ve experienced firsthand
how often events are planned for the most social people in the
gathering. I’ve been made to feel not only like a minority, but
like a “defective” person because I don’t enjoy the same things
that others do.
When people come
to Christ, they aren’t shoved into a cookie cutter to make them all
look, sound, and act alike. Timothy had to be reminded not to let
people look down on him because of his youth (1 Timothy 4:10). And
when Saul was confronted by Christ and became Paul, he didn’t lose
any of the fire or zeal that he’d had when persecuting Christians.
When he said in 1 Corinthians 9:22 (ESV) “I have become all things
to all people,” he didn’t mean that he abandoned his personality
or his unique giftedness, but that he didn’t want anything to stand
in the way of the Gospel. It seems like many churches take the
opposite approach: if you’re like us you’re welcome, but if not,
find somewhere else to go. (I think this is the point Halter was
trying to make in his book, but he seemed to go about it by bashing
all that the traditional church holds dear.)
There are
certainly times when we all have to go out of our comfort zones, try
new things, and perhaps find a new interest. (I wonder though whether
the majority would be as anxious to try silence and solitude as they
are to convince the introverts to be more social.) It’s easy to
make excuses not to do things, but God sees through every excuse to
the heart beneath.
I would suggest
a few things that might help us all:
1) To the social
butterflies and extraverts who make up the majority of our church
membership and leadership, seek the opinions of the minorities among
you. If a particular segment of the body is not involved in the
planned activities, ask them why that is. Doing more of the same old
thing is not going to suddenly change their minds.
2) To the
quieter, less social people among us, remember that no one is going
to read your mind and know what you’d like. Make your opinions
known when you can. Just be aware that as a minority, sometimes you
have to go along with the majority opinion even when you’d rather
not.
3) To all of us,
make the effort to establish and develop close relationships with
individuals. Evangelism and discipleship generally happen one-on-one
or in small groups, not in large groups or church socials.
We need the unique contributions of
each member.
“God arranged the members in
the Body, each one of them, as He chose. If all were a single member,
where would the Body be?” (1 Corinthians 12:18-19).
© 2015 Dawn
Rutan
