Messy Advice... | Committed But Not Connected

Speaker: 00:00:00

This one's for anyone who's ever shown up, served faithfully, and

Speaker: 00:00:04

still feels like a guest at someone else's potluck. Let's be

Speaker: 00:00:07

honest, we don't talk enough about what it feels like to show up

Speaker: 00:00:10

faithfully and still feel like you're on the outside looking in.

Speaker: 00:00:14

Like there's a secret signal, some invisible nod that says,

Speaker: 00:00:18

you're in, and you keep looking for it, but it never comes.

Speaker: 00:00:22

You show up to serve, smile, and still somehow feel

Speaker: 00:00:26

like a guest at someone else's family dinner. Nobody's rude,

Speaker: 00:00:29

but nobody really sees you either. And eventually, you start

Speaker: 00:00:33

wondering if the welcome was for you at all or just the people who already

Speaker: 00:00:37

knew where to stand. This is messy advice for people who care,

Speaker: 00:00:41

for anyone quietly wondering if loving the church is the same as actually

Speaker: 00:00:45

feeling loved by it. I'm your host, Johan, on the edge

Speaker: 00:00:49

of helpful, learning that acknowledging those on the fringes might

Speaker: 00:00:52

be the most spiritual thing you could do all week.

Speaker: 00:00:56

Today's question is painfully honest and deeply relatable.

Speaker: 00:01:00

Let's get right into it. I'm committed to my

Speaker: 00:01:04

church. I show up. I serve. I care,

Speaker: 00:01:09

but I still don't feel like I belong. What do I do with

Speaker: 00:01:12

that feeling, and does it mean that I'm doing something wrong?

Speaker: 00:01:17

Hey. If you've ever wondered whether being left out means you're out of place, and

Speaker: 00:01:21

that's probably most of us, then this episode is for you.

Speaker: 00:01:24

And it's for you anyway because there are others around you that do feel left

Speaker: 00:01:28

out. According to a 2023 Carta study, forty

Speaker: 00:01:32

six percent of Canadians who attend church regularly say that they've

Speaker: 00:01:36

struggled to feel a sense of real connection or friendship in their faith

Speaker: 00:01:39

community. Forty six percent. Turns out

Speaker: 00:01:43

showing up isn't the same as feeling seen. And a lot of us are

Speaker: 00:01:47

standing in the pews thinking the same quiet thing. Why does

Speaker: 00:01:50

this still feel lonely? We show up. We serve.

Speaker: 00:01:54

We stay longer after the service, but we still wonder if anyone

Speaker: 00:01:58

would notice if we didn't. So what do you do when you're

Speaker: 00:02:02

committed but disconnected? Present but

Speaker: 00:02:05

still peripheral. Sometimes finding community feels

Speaker: 00:02:09

like trying to sit at a lunch table that's clearly full while

Speaker: 00:02:13

everyone insists there's always room for more. That's a tough

Speaker: 00:02:17

feeling. Picture this. You're at a ministry event.

Speaker: 00:02:20

Everybody's laughing, catching up, clearly

Speaker: 00:02:24

in some ongoing group thread that you're not a part of, and then

Speaker: 00:02:28

someone says, oh, you haven't heard the story? And you

Speaker: 00:02:31

fake laugh like you're in on the joke. You're physically there, but,

Speaker: 00:02:35

emotionally, you're folding chairs in the back of your own

Speaker: 00:02:38

belonging. Let's take a look at a scripture passage. Let's

Speaker: 00:02:42

get biblical. Biblical. We're looking

Speaker: 00:02:46

at Luke 19, the story of Zacchaeus and the tree.

Speaker: 00:02:49

Zacchaeus was not the guy people invited to sit at their table.

Speaker: 00:02:53

He was short, socially awkward, excluded,

Speaker: 00:02:58

and let's be honest, he was a tax collector, which in that

Speaker: 00:03:01

context meant he had the moral reputation of a broken

Speaker: 00:03:05

photocopier and the relational warmth of a wet sock.

Speaker: 00:03:09

So what does he do? He climbs a tree,

Speaker: 00:03:12

literally. While the crowd presses in close to Jesus,

Speaker: 00:03:17

Zacchaeus has to scale a sycamore just to get a glimpse of

Speaker: 00:03:20

him. No one's making space for him. He's

Speaker: 00:03:23

curious, but completely on the outside. And

Speaker: 00:03:27

here's the moment. Jesus walks by,

Speaker: 00:03:31

looks up, and says, Zacchaeus, come down.

Speaker: 00:03:35

I'm coming to your house today. He doesn't pull him out of the tree to

Speaker: 00:03:39

lecture him. He doesn't ignore him. He doesn't wait

Speaker: 00:03:42

till Zacchaeus apologizes or gets his theology sorted.

Speaker: 00:03:46

He invites himself in. Let's eat.

Speaker: 00:03:50

Let's be together. Jesus doesn't just see

Speaker: 00:03:54

Zacchaeus. He dignifies his presence. He

Speaker: 00:03:57

chooses him publicly in a crowd that had already decided that

Speaker: 00:04:01

he didn't belong. Maybe the story of Zacchaeus is for

Speaker: 00:04:05

all of us who stood at the edge of the group, wondering if there's

Speaker: 00:04:08

room, who've metaphorically climbed a tree just to see if Jesus

Speaker: 00:04:12

would notice. The answer, he does,

Speaker: 00:04:16

and he calls you by name to dine with him. Jesus

Speaker: 00:04:20

doesn't wait for Zacchaeus to belong by community standards. He makes

Speaker: 00:04:24

him belong by calling him by name, and that's still

Speaker: 00:04:28

true for us. But you might be wondering, how does this solve the

Speaker: 00:04:31

problem of me getting into the group? Well, the fact is

Speaker: 00:04:35

that each and every one of us are sometimes on one side of that

Speaker: 00:04:39

group or the other. Sometimes we're on the in crowd.

Speaker: 00:04:42

Sometimes we're on the outside looking in. So here's our

Speaker: 00:04:45

opportunity to be like Jesus. We're in that in

Speaker: 00:04:49

crowd. We can call those on the outside by name and

Speaker: 00:04:52

invite them in. It starts with us, and this becomes

Speaker: 00:04:56

the mutual transformation where we set the culture of inviting

Speaker: 00:05:00

those in and calling them my name. Feeling like an outsider

Speaker: 00:05:04

doesn't mean you're spiritually broken. It makes you honest.

Speaker: 00:05:08

Belonging starts with being seen, and sometimes the

Speaker: 00:05:12

first step is choosing to see someone else.

Speaker: 00:05:15

That person lingering at the edge of the room, they might be feeling

Speaker: 00:05:19

what you feel too. What you're missing, you might be the

Speaker: 00:05:23

one who can offer it. So if you're feeling like a guest in a

Speaker: 00:05:26

space you've committed to, don't give up. And maybe this

Speaker: 00:05:30

week, be the person who notices someone else on the fringe.

Speaker: 00:05:34

You know exactly how that feels, so start there.

Speaker: 00:05:38

Hey. And if you got a question or if you wanna get in on the

Speaker: 00:05:42

conversations with a like minded group of people, join us on our Care

Speaker: 00:05:45

Impact podcast group on Facebook and start a

Speaker: 00:05:49

conversation. And you can visit our website at

Speaker: 00:05:51

karenpak.ca if you just wanna get in on the know on

Speaker: 00:05:55

what we're doing. Until next time, keep loving, keep

Speaker: 00:05:59

laughing. And if you ever stood awkwardly near a circle of church

Speaker: 00:06:03

people waiting to be included, we've all been there.

Speaker: 00:06:06

And one honest smile might be more powerful than you think.

Speaker: 00:06:10

And remember to stay curious.