Meahl Memories

Here's goes nothing!

I haven't posted on this blog in over five years.  I was using it mainly to post stuff we were doing as a family, and it just seemed silly since I would also post on Facebook and was scrapbooking. 

However, I've recently been wanting to write out my thoughts about books I was reading or what was going on in the news and/or culture, and Facebook doesn't seem like a good place to do that. First of all, their algorithms filter so much of what I see there, and there are so many ads. Secondly, Facebook just seems to be a firestorm of nastiness much of the time.

So, I decided to resurrect this blog with no pressure to post pictures or even have anybody read or comment on it. I'm just going to put stuff here that I want to think about or that I want to able to find again in the future.

So, I'm going to start with some posts about a book I started reading a week or so ago called A Church Called Tov by Scot McKnight and his daughter Laura Barrington.  I've been looking forward to reading this book since hearing them talk about it several times.

Before I post anything about the book, I'm going to copy and paste here a post I put on Facebook in September, mostly so that I can remember my thoughts and feelings about attending a new church.

This past Sunday we visited a new church. We had done our research, and the church's website ticked a lot of boxes for us (weekly communion, emphasis on discipleship and community, etc.). I loved everything about the service. I was close to weeping when the time was taken to pray for the specific needs of the people. There was no clapping after the sermon as if it were a performance.

HOWEVER, the only people who ever said a single word to us were the greeters at the door who said good morning. I am still trying to process this. I am trying to make allowances for COVID and how it has changed things, but this is just not acceptable. Members and regular attenders need to invest more than just a hello. People must be willing to have conversations with new people.

To be honest, we never would have stayed at our last church for this exact same reason if it wasn't for one couple (no longer even at that church) who learned our names the first week and remembered them, who called us by name, and said more than a word or two to us every week. Even that wasn't doing it for us until that same couple found a place for us to serve 14 months after we started attending there. In my opinion, it should NEVER take that long to feel like your church is your family. It shouldn't matter whether or not you knew a single person at that church before you started attending. The body of Christ/church is supposed to be a family.

After we became settled, we tried every week to talk at length with people we didn't know, people who were sitting alone with no one talking to them. And this wasn't just to their benefit, but also to ours. We met a lot of wonderful people and learned interesting things about them.

Pastors, church leaders, etc., some of you need to do a better job of modeling this and training your people to do it as well. And if you've experienced this same thing in a church, be willing to get out of your comfort zone so that no one else ever has to experience this again.