Belonging before believing

A worship leader I know once told me that, in her teens, coping with the effects of a difficult childhood, she longed to be in a band. When a friend introduced her to a church band without a worship leader, she offered her singing voice immediately. As a result, for several years this Christian band had a non-Christian worship leader, until at last she heard the call of Jesus in her life. What drew her in was the fact that she felt she belonged in that worshipping community, and gradually she began to listen more and more closely to the message being preached, taught, sung and lived around her.

As the Bible says: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (Ephesians 2:19).

‘Pretending’ before belonging

We spent a long time settling our foster children into our family. One of them, who loved dressing-up games and playing ‘pretend’, slid over to me in the kitchen one day. He was wearing a Spider-Man outfit and had paper plates tied to his feet (no, me neither), and said: “Can we pretend you’re my mum?”

‘Pretend’ sounds so temporary, so much like play-acting. And yet those were the only terms on which he could cope with the idea of ‘another mum’.  

The same child once ran up to my dad, jumped onto his lap, and said: “Will you be my grandad for now?” That simple sentence carried so much weight. It told us how much he was craving belonging, but for a child who had already experienced too much change and insecurity, ‘for now’ was all he could contemplate.

It took far, far longer for our foster kids to learn that they were fully accepted into the family, and that they had found their forever home.

It’s often the same for us: perhaps we didn’t grow up in a believing family, or maybe we had faith as a child and grew away from it. When we feel estranged from God, outside the love of Jesus, it can take a long time for us to tentatively try out relying on that love. Being accepted into a church family can be the way back to God – provided no one is asking too much of us to begin with. Belonging is the soil in which faith grows.

Letting people in

Recently we had some bigger windows put into our church; now people passing by can see right into the church. I had hoped that people might be curious about what goes on: perhaps we’d get people inquiring about church and faith. No. What we did get was a gang of boys rapping on the windows.

They were quite a big group, all dressed in black, and their language was colourful to say the least. But I went out and chatted to them, and explained that the church was very quiet at that moment, because people were listening to a talk – but if they came back in five minutes, we’d be having drinks and biscuits and they’d be welcome to join us.

Belonging is the soil in which faith grows

Sure enough, after five minutes they were back, waiting on the other side of the road. I called them over, and explained that there were quite a lot of elderly people inside, so I’d be grateful if they didn’t rush about or knock into anyone. But there was squash, tea, coffee and biscuits (I turned a blind eye to the handful one of them stuffed in his pocket). They sat at a table, and a couple of our church members chatted to them. When I saw the boys were getting fidgety, I went over and said: “Lads, I need to get out a lot of tables and chairs for another group that’s meeting this afternoon. Any chance you could help me?”

They helped, very willingly, setting up tables and moving chairs as if they did it every week. When people started to leave, we thanked them for all their help, and waved them off with everyone else. They left – and then one of them turned back. He came up to me and whispered: “Thank you for letting us in, Miss.”

We don’t know if they’ll be back, but we’ll keep an eye out for them. They came and they stayed, and not just for what they could get. Sometimes that’s just the beginning. Sometimes we have to fling open the doors and windows, and say: “Yes, you can belong here,” long before people are ready to open their hearts to belief.

Believing they belong

It isn’t surprising that people who have been hurt and confused by life, or who have never properly heard the message of God’s love, find it hard to even approach belief. In our family we had to build trust among our foster children, go on showing them love, faithfulness and acceptance, until at last they believed they belonged with us, and that our home was their home, too. 

Let’s go on opening the doors to our churches to the ‘other’ people – the people who don’t look, talk or act like us. Let’s go on welcoming the outsiders in, offering them fellowship and belonging in the warm heart of God’s family.

“And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:6).