How is it possible to stand amongst so many friends yet feel so lonely?
I could make it easy. I could put on the ‘Sunday’ act at church - turning up on a Sunday morning and going through the smiling routine, the ‘how has your week been?’ routine, the ‘what activities are you involved in?’ routine. It could be easy to go through the motions….sing the songs, make notes in the sermon, close my eyes to pray.
But it’s not me.
I am not an extrovert. I keep myself to myself. I don’t feel comfortable expressing myself in that way. I understand what church is for and why it’s important to go to church. Why does becoming a christian mean I have to change my personality to fit in?
I am fortunate to go to the church that I go to. The teaching is excellent, the vision is outward looking, the leadership are faithful and serve their congregation whole heartedly.
Why then is turning up on a Sunday so hard?
I get frustrated by the people who come and talk to me because talking to different people is a good thing to do. They don’t genuinely care how my week has been or they would listen fully instead of looking around the room while I answer them.
I get frustated by the people who talk about church as a being a family. Where have these people been for the last two months when they know life has been a little bit harder for us? Is it only the people who are the ‘personalities’, those who go to homegroups, those who help with church activities who are the ones who can be helped.
I get frustrated by those who think that you have to be seen doing activities and be involved in groups to be serving your church.
I get frustrated by the cliques, the culture and the unwritten rules that dictate my life even though I know they are not necessary.
Don’t get me wrong – I am far from perfect and am not putting myself on a pedestal to look down at others. The church needs different personalities, but I feel that I need to change to fit in to this culture that has formed. And it is this culture that also alienates me from my friends who are not christians. These non christians are the ones who to me are more real about who they are, are genuinely interested in helping and who respect my beliefs. I am alienated from them because I am made to feel like it is wrong to spend more time with non christians than christians. I feel like I shouldn’t go out after work with my friends unless I am there to evangelise.
Maybe I expect too much from christians. I don’t expect anyone to be perfect – all of us fall far shorter than what were were meant to be. Maybe I have a naive view of christianity. Maybe I do need to change.
It’s so easy for all of these feelings to override the true meaning of days like to day – a celebration of when the only person ever in history was resurrected to make the way open to God for all who will live for him.
And so it continues to be a struggle. There doesn’t seem to be an easy answer.
