January and the new year are synonymous with new year’s resolutions. I’ve made quite a few for myself this year like go jogging once a week, learn French, read more this year, etc. And this month’s Psychologies magazine (I highly recommend it because it’s written by psychologists, not fashionistas pretending to be relationship experts..) was all about helping you to make your resolves last. But this all got me thinking what a new year’s resolution for our own church community.

New Year's Resolutions

These days it seems like the big movement trend is to “let go of resentments” “be happy” “do what you love”, etc etc. All these things seem geared toward the individual and I know that our community has taken the “serving others” ethos to heart in recent years, but what about our attitude toward others and (incorrect) concepts we hold towards them? I guess what really spurred this train of thought was a conversation with a friend recently.

She told me how her mother thinks that she’s not “in” the church simply because she hardly ever goes to church. I was a little taken aback. How could such an external thing be used as a measuring stick of someone else’s faith? I know for a fact that this friend has a lot of faith and is a deeply spiritual person, but just because people don’t see their face regularly, they’re labeled. Does that mean that people who go to chuch and simply pay lip-service are more faithful? I make it to a Sunday service once every 6 months, if that. Does that make me a less faithful member? Maybe she just hasn’t found her niche, the place where her faith and passion collide thereby creating her mission or way of serving her community.

I’m proposing that we as a community stop labeling others for 2009. How else are we going to create a warm and inviting community that welcomes all people? From my experience with witnessing, people don’t join (initially) because of the truth but because they feel welcomed and cared for. “Wow, someone actually cares about my spiritual life and wants me to be a better person…” Let’s get rid of these stupid terms “inside the church” and “outside the church”. Let’s look at a person as a person and see the faith that they have, not what they lack. I can ask someone to worship with me in the way that I like, but I can’t judge them for not adopting it as their own. Everyone has to develop their own relationship with God in their own way.

Besides, let’s all be honest with ourselves, I think that most people will agree with me in saying that most of the Sunday services are uninspiring. Let’s focus on building a service that inspires me to go out and be the best person that I can be, and to stop looking around the room to see who is there and who isn’t.

Let’s let go of labels.