Too Private for My Own Good

Being a private person makes being apart of a community difficult. I’ve lived in my home for about three years. During this time, I’ve only learned one of my neighbors’ names and I’ve only exchanged casual greetings with my closest (in physical proximity) neighbors. This isn’t because the neighbor to my left is a spiteful person who borrowed my leaf blower and never returned it, nor is it because I’m a hermit. It has more to do with the fact that I haven’t made the effort to get to know my neighbors. You see, I live in a neighborhood, but I don’t live in a community. I care about my neighbors in the way I care about people on the news. If something bad happens, I feel bad, but I move on.

Sadly, my home situation is analogous with many people’s experience with church. They come to church on Sunday, exchange casual greetings with the other members (and a hug if things get really spiritual), sing some songs, pray, and go home.

This routine is, unfortunately, all too common.

This is unfortunate because people who do this miss out on one of the greatest purposes of the Church: community. A community offers its member the opportunity for friendship, support, and guidance. Notice the word offers; an offer is the option to choose to partake in these benefits. But many people choose to come late and leave early. Many people choose to only show up during services. When they do this, they unknowingly forego one of Church’s greatest treasures.

A true community, at least in the ecclesiastical sense, is a group of men or women leading a common life according to a rule. As Christian’s we share the infallible rule of Christ. But too often we don’t share our personal lives with each other in the name of privacy.

And we wonder why we don’t have any real friends at our Church, and we wonder why no one noticed that we were not there last Sunday. We should really be wondering how we could offer others what we want from a community: things like hope, friendship, and understanding.